Think Tank - New ideas for the 21st Century - Your call up the civil action squad (The Sunday Times)

Charlie Edwards writing for the times suggests it is time for a civil protection volunteer force (CVPF). I have to say the name is quite important and the acronym even more so, I may have to think of something more suitable by the end of the article.

Not a month goes by where there is not an emergency in the UK. In almost every case emergencies threaten to overwhelm local and national resources, whether it be the emergency services or local councils. Most emergencies are dealt with by bringing in all available staff and working long hours. In the worst case with a prolonged disaster or emergency operation this would not work. Most organisation can only deal with an incident over the short term until national or more resources can be brought in. Alternatively due to the stretched resources emergency services sometimes only deal with life threatening emergencies.

According to Charlie this is why politicians from across the political spectrum are calling for a new civil protection force. A network or organisation of volunteers that are prepared for the threats and risks to the population.

I think Charlie has hit the nail right on the head. I work for a government organisation, part of which deals with emergency situations such as the snowstorms in Jan / Feb. I work in HR, while the snow storms were raging and one part of the organisation was struggling to cope with the unfolding crisis I was just struggling to get to work and all I did when I got there was to do the same as I ever do. In fact if there was an even worse crisis, as far as I know there is no official plan to redeploy me to the operational side of the organisation. There is a staff helpline to call in case of emergency but I have no idea what I might be told apart from to report to my nearest local office where I would, I guess, be given a job to do but as I am untrained in any useful task how much use would I actually be?

So my first point is that any public sector organisation which has any kind of an involvement in an emergency situation should have plans to redeploy all their staff to where the operational demand is greatest. In a sense all staff should have a secondary post which they would deploy to in a given emergency. Admittedly you might have a different post for each type of emergency but when the call goes out either in advance or as it happens, on national tv and radio you would know exactly what you would have to do and where to report to. Even if this was done on a voluntary basis it would double the capacity of these organisations to deal with incidents.

What Charlie suggests could double the capacity again with the a team of volunteers specifically trained to deal with emergency situations. The real fourth emergency service. I have been thinking about this and in a sense it is a civilian army. You might have the following platoons or units.

Command and Control: High level command and control officers to direct the volunteer response and liaise with other agencies.

General grunts: Units of extra people who would be an extra pair of hands, they could help out with anything.

Engineering corp: Builders, plumbers, electricians and anyone with any building or labouring experience.

Medical corp: all of the usual doctors, nurses, first aiders etc.

IT corp: Special IT units to repair IT infrastructure

Transportation corp: A vast fleet of lorries and drivers that could be co-opted in an emergency. Also cars, boats, helicopters and planes.

All of the corps could be trained to a basic level such as first aid and basic disaster management perhaps with specific courses for each type of incident. The Command and control and team leaders would receive specialist training courses to prepare them for emergency management. In terms of training compare the corps with the TA, every member would given up say 15 days a year to complete training.

The role of the corps would be simple, protect life and limb, support the emergency services and restore critical infrastructure and supply lines quickly. Some of this would include supervising other volunteer organisations with the command and control units representing and co-coordinating all volunteer help. On this, having just one contact for all volunteer help will make it easier for the emergency services and easier to co-ordinate a volunteer response to incidents.

This would strengthen our response to any incident and increase the safety and security of our communities. Ultimately it would save lives and perhaps make us appreciate the emergency services for the hard jobs they do and perhaps even help us to take responsibility for our own actions in an emergency so that the emergency services can deal with those really in need.

And finally, all we need to do is come up with a name and an acronym, how about the Civil response Emergency Volunteers (CREV). OK may need to work on that one some more.

One last thing, count me in, I will be happy to be part of the command and control unit to help supervise the deployment of CREV in an emergency.