The UK Need for Strategic MultiAgency Emergency Management Training

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The UK Need for Strategic Multi-Agency Emergency
Management Training

• Mr Trevor Jackson QinetiQ (UK)
• Miss Corinne Jeffery QinetiQ (UK)
• Michael Charlton-Weedy CEO Emergency Planning
  College

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Introduction

• This presentation is based on research conducted
  to support the procurement of a strategic,
  multi-agency collective training capability for
  the Joint and Battlefield Trainers, Simulations
  Synthetic Environments (JBTSE) Integrated Project
  Team (IPT) of the Defence Procurement Agency
  (DPA) and the Emergency Planning College (EPC)
  Easingwold of the United Kingdom (UK)

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Training context

• General context
• The profile and importance of UK resilience has
  never been higher
• Fuel crisis and severe flooding events of 2000
• Terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the
  Madrid bombings
• Terrorist attacks of 7th and 21st of July 2005 in
  London
• Re-evaluation of the UKs level of resilience
  highlighted the need for collective training1
• 2003/04 Regional Capability Mapping Exercise led
  by ODPM confirmed the need for strategic
  multi-agency training
• 2006 UK National Capabilities Survey was launched

1 Collective training involves 2 or more teams,
where each team fulfils different roles,
training to interoperate in an environment
defined by a common set of collective training
objectives
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Training context

• Development and maintenance of UK resilience to
  emergencies and disasters is essential if UK
  responders1 are to be able to operate effectively
  and respond to meet the challenges of the future
  strategic Integrated Emergency Management (IEM)
  environment

1 Category one and two responders as defined by
the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 and
inclusive of Military and Voluntary organisations.
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Training context

• Project Gold Standard will provide a critical
  element of UK resilience, namely an environment
  in which strategic emergency management staff can
  be trained and exercised regularly in the
  processes and application of command, control and
  co-ordination that are critical to successful
  management and resolution of any emergency

1 The term Project Gold Standard was derived by
the EPC and relates to the 3 UK levels of
emergency management, these being Gold Silver and
Bronze. The term Gold refers to the strategic
level of command. 2 The Scoping Study was
contracted through the Joint Battlefield
Trainers, Simulations and Synthetic Environments
Integrated Project Team of the Defence
Procurement Agency.
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Current collective training capability

• The majority of individual agencies do train for
  the strategic management of emergencies. There
  is, however, a significant gap between individual
  and collective training in the continuum of the
  UKs resilience training. There are potentially
  up to 150 Gold level multi-agency command teams
  in the UK that could be required to manage
  emergencies, but they undergo limited collective
  training and there are no facilities designed or
  provided for the purpose
• At present, there is a lack of a national
  framework for collective training and
  competencies associated with multi-agency
  strategic emergency management. Subsequently,
  this leaves doctrine open to interpretation
  within agencies and regions and has lead to what
  has been described by the practitioners as an
  ad-hoc approach

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Current collective training capability

• Key to collective training is the development of
  effective personal relationships and the building
  of trust. Individuals that have to work together
  under the extreme pressures of an incident
  therefore should train together
• The mission of the EPC is to deliver the doctrine
  and training to support UK resilience. To that
  end the College will train some 7,000 individuals
  this year, and support a range of training events
  and exercises nation-wide

It is important to differentiate here between
'collective' training of teams and individual
training. The latter is an important pre-cursor
to collective training but not a substitute.
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General context
Legislation and doctrine
Plan validation
Multi-agency
Underpinning future training
Emergencies and disasters are multi-agency by
definition
Cost effective means of enhancing live exercises
by validating the plan prior to live exercise
Gold Standard Capability
Collective understanding
Collective understanding
Scope of training audience is large and diverse
Need for delivery of coherent capability across
training audience
Range of operation types and levels that training
must support
Training processes (e.g. golf bag
approach) progression of training
Full range of scenarios
Training audience
Accredited training
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Training context

• Legislation and doctrine
• The Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 key
  objectives
• Create a modern framework for co-ordinating
  contingency planning and response at the local
  level, codifying and building on existing
  arrangements
• Enhance co-operation and understanding in support
  of a regional level capability
• Modernise the legislation under which the
  Government can respond to extreme emergency
  situations to turn it into a usable tool fit for
  the twenty-first century
• A particular set of risks is excluded from
  consideration under the CCA
• Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH)
  Regulations 1999
• Pipelines Safety Regulations 1996
• Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public
  Information) Regulations 2001 (REPPIR)

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Training context

• Multi-agency
• Civil contingency incidents are multi-agency by
  definition, as there is no single agency within
  the United Kingdom that has all the skills and
  resources which may be needed
• Consequently, a combined and co-ordinated
  response, uniting the expertise and resources of
  all agencies involved, is required
• An agencys area of responsibility has a direct
  relationship on other agencies, as illustrated
  by
• The Police generally co-ordinate all activities
  of those responding to an incident
• Mass decontamination by Fire Service on behalf of
  Ambulance Service
• The Coroners office liaises with Local
  Authorities to establish temporary mortuaries

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Training context

• Training audience
• The training audience for Gold Standard is
  extensive and diverse
• It consists of senior personnel from a range of
  emergency services, government departments,
  industrial, commercial and voluntary
  organisations as well as having a number of
  defined operating levels
• Local
• Regional
• National
• In addition, it needs to be noted that there is a
  training audience outside the scope of the
  Category 1 and 2 responders defined by the CCA
  these organisations being the voluntary and
  military

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Training context

• Police Service (currently 43 Forces)
• Fire Service (currently 58 Brigades)
• There are presently 28 strategic health
  authorities in the National Health Service
• Maritime and Coastguard Agency has 19 districts
• Central Government has about 8 departments that
  may realistically be required to act as LGD
• There are some 150 Local Authorities with
  Category 1 responder liabilities
• Local Authorities total 338
• District Council 238
• County Council 34
• Unitary Council 47
• Metropolitan Council 36
• London Borough 33
• Industrial and Commercial Organisations
• Harbour Authorities 132
• Military
• HM Coroner
• Environment Agency
• Voluntary Organisations

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Training context

• Accredited training
• With the introduction of the CCA, Government
  Ministers have the power to monitor the
  performance of civil protection duties
• Subsequently, organisations are moving towards
  and requiring accreditation and assessment of
  performance
• On 24 June 2005, the EPC and Leeds University
  Business School announced a partnership that will
  directly contribute to improving the nations
  resilience to emergencies and disasters through
  the delivery of high quality training and
  education

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Training context

• Full range of scenarios
• Given the changing environment created by new
  legislation, increased media interest and current
  threats, potential users have highlighted the
  need for training to be relevant and realistic
• This need adds weight to the need for training
  that covers the breadth of relevant scenarios,
  tailored for individual regions and authorities,
  based on their own risk assessments and responses
• Any or all of these scenarios could arise in
  isolation, sequentially, consequentially or
  simultaneously
• e.g. road accident leading to fire, explosion and
  release of toxic chemicals
• Caused by nature, accident, technical failure or
  malice

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Training context

• Plan validation
• Due to the complex nature of emergencies and
  disasters, an effective plan is essential for a
  co-ordinated and integrated response
• Often the only opportunity to validate such a
  plan is during a live exercise which the main
  purposes is
• Validation of a plan or plans
• Training - To develop staff competencies and give
  them practice in carrying out their roles in the
  plan
• Testing - To test well-established procedures1
• A cost effective means of reducing any conflict
  in objectives prior to execution will maximise
  the use of multi-agency exercises. An enhanced
  ability to validate such plans prior to
  undertaking any form of live exercise or event
  could provide a cost effective way of ensuring
  the validity and robustness of the plan

1 Most exercises will have some elements of all
three
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Training context

• Coherent approach
• A coherent approach to planning, training and
  exercising is needed as it has a direct effect
  upon the level of capability and resilience
• For agencies to work effectively together, there
  is a need for co-ordination of planning, training
  and exercising for an effective combined response
  to any type of emergency
• Agencies involved in emergency management need to
  develop a common understanding of
• Doctrine
• Terminology
• Responsibilities
• Capabilities
• Limitations
• Procedures

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Resilience cycle
National
Regional
Local
Risk assessment
Planning
Plan evaluation
Information exchange and influence between levels

Gold Standard Capability
Collective training
Live exercise
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Constraints

• Specific constraints
• Availability, in the region of
• support to standard exercises of up to 96 hours
  (4 days) duration
• long exercises of up to 336 hours duration (14
  days)
• minimum of 48 hours (2 days) between major
  training exercises
• It is, however, foreseen that the most common
  exercise duration for local responders will be
  one day
• Manpower - support training with minimal numbers
  of support staff in order to permit training to
  be conducted in a cost-effective manner and
  reduce the burden on the organisations being
  trained

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Constraints

• Specific constraints
• System upgrades - It must be possible to upgrade
  the system without unduly affecting planned
  training schedules
• e.g. avoidance of long periods of site closure
  while systems are modified
• Support / durability
• Provision of all training facilities necessary
  for the training of operators, maintenance and
  support personnel
• Provision of all storage facilities necessary for
  the operation and support of Gold Standard
• Modification against future developments - The
  capability shall be able to be effectively
  modified in order to reflect developments in
  legislation, doctrine, Standard Operating
  Procedures (SOPs) and equipment

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Constraints

• General constraints
• Safety
• Legal
• UK guidance and regulations -Gold Standard must
  conform to the relevant existing (and planned) UK
  Directives and Guidance, including
• The Lead Government Department and its role
  Guidance and Best Practice Civil Contingencies
  Secretariat Cabinet Office, March 2004
• Emergency Preparedness, Guidance on Part 1 of the
  Civil Contingencies Act 2004, its associated
  Regulations and non-statutory arrangements
• Emergency Response and Recovery, non-statutory
  guidance supporting the CCA

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Training equipment concept

• Assumptions
• The technical concept outlined in this section is
  based on a number of assumptions
• A flexible solution is required based on a
  composable approach of training tools
• Manpower overheads associated with the provision
  of training are to be kept to a minimum
• The architecture of the training capability will
  be based around Commercial off the Shelf
  Technologies (COTS)
• Categories of user
• Users fall into three categories
• End user uses the capability. The EPC client
  base (emergency management practitioners)
• Owner procures the capability (EPC)
• Training staff responsible for the delivery of
  training (may not be operators)

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Training cycle
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Training equipment concept

• Features of the technical concept
• Implementation should have the following
  features
• Flexibility will be required due to the diversity
  of the training audience, tasks, skills and
  scenarios that are likely to be trained. This
  will mean that a set of training tools will be
  required that can be quickly and efficiently
  composed to deliver the required training
• Deployable in order to provide training to all
  agencies and at minimum resource cost, which may
  include providing training at the customers
  location through reach back to a central facility
• Distributable as the training audience will not
  always be co-located.
• Scalable and adaptable to accommodate differing
  sizes of training audience and different size,
  depth and breadth of scenarios to cover the full
  spectrum of tasks and objectives that are
  required to be trained

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Training equipment concept - Functions
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Conclusion

• Coherent approach - A coherent approach to
  planning, training and exercising is needed as it
  has a direct effect upon the level of capability
  and resilience
• Common understanding - There is a need to develop
  a common understanding of doctrine, terminology,
  responsibilities, capabilities, limitations and
  procedures. As it underpins the effective overall
  policy development and decision-making, including
  that associated with training
• The training audience - The training audience is
  both extensive and diverse. It ranges from the
  emergency services and government departments to
  industrial, commercial and voluntary
  organisations. Subsequently the training
  capability will need to be deployed, fixed and
  distributed in order to meet the requirements of
  the audience

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Conclusion

• Emergency management plan testing - The CCA
  legislation places agencies under a duty to plan
  for the response and prevention of emergencies.
  The result of this will be an increase in the
  need for training and testing of emergency
  management plans
• Performance measurement, assessment and reporting
  - There is a need for a coherent assessment
  regime to support the validation of resilience
  levels and as a basis for meeting legal
  obligations
• Frequency of training - The research has
  identified that the majority of training is
  conducted on an annual basis. There are some 639
  agencies, not including an unidentified number of
  voluntary, Industrial and Commercial agencies and
  HM Coroners that make up the training audience.
  The audience consists of senior personnel from a
  wide range of agencies involved in emergency
  management
• All these factors emphasise the need for better
  and more efficient strategic, multi-agency
  emergency management training. Hence the
  requirement for a Gold Standard capability.

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Recommendations

• A Gold Standard capability is not just about
  technology standards for any simulation system
  e.g. terrain
• It requires standardisation in wider context
• Doctrine
• Terminology
• Scenarios
• Training and performance measurement
• International and multi-national training

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The UK Need for Strategic Multi-Agency Emergency
Management Training

• Questions ?

e-mail tjackson_at_QinetiQ.com