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Civil Defence 2020


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Hi Folks,

there have many threads and post on here regarding the ups and downs of the UK's internal 'chaos'.

Shortages of PPE

Food parcels

Lockdown   etc etc etc.

A long while back the was the Civil Defence Organisation that helped to take control when things got tough.

Perhaps we need something akin to this now.    

Local areas ALL over the UK understanding and taking controls of what is needed and where

 

The Civil Defence was stood down because it was deemed as not required in out super duper media controlled world. Perhaps a return is needed.

What do you think.

 

Roger

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I worked for the Local Authority for about 20 years and understood they were part  of The Civil Defence/ had taken over that responsibility.

It came up once, I can’t remember what the emergency was though?

Preperation for Disaster in London after 9/11 in conjunction with NHS, Fire-brigade and Forces, that was it......!

Edited by SuzanneH
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I can also remember the local Civil Defence Group . They  were mostly volunteers who were well trained in the tasks they were expected to do.

They had a local base and store of equipment and were quickly deployed.

As Roger said perhaps we need something like that again. 

Brian

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Interesting question. And a long response from me... 

As the Cold War nuclear threat receded, a number of European countries maintained a civil defence/civil protection (there are some differences in mandate) organisations. In part that was because of ongoing natural disaster risks, particularly in Southern Europe, but also reflecting a desire to keep being able to 'offer' non-military alternatives for national service conscription.

I used to work in the disaster relief 'business' and so got to know a lot of CD/CP folks from European and other countries because they were often sent as part of national capacities to respond to major disasters around the world. Many although not all actually had fire and rescue service backgrounds. Their competences I would say varied quite a bit but for certain roles they were often very effective especially in the early stages of a response where operational 'push' and establishing and delivering on clear physical goals were most important.

Those same countries, indeed the majority of countries in Europe and the world, maintain some kind of national emergency management agency (FEMA in the USA is probably the most well known), and the civil defence/protection bodies are usually subordinate to that. The UK is very unusual in not having either, and that's probably because we are so un-prone to natural disasters. Instead, we have a small unit in the Cabinet Office called the Civil Contingencies Secretariat but it's really just a policy unit.

The UK model for emergency response has long been based on a command-and-control concept (Bronze, Silver, Gold levels) and very heavily devolved to local authority level. It kind of assumes that emergencies will be handled locally and escalated up as necessary. But I've always felt that has severe potential weaknesses in a major, national level event and the lack of a well resourced and emergency-savvy NDMA to staff a big disaster is an obvious weakness.

Also, the UK Government is in general a very centralised set of institutions, and the doctrine around emergency response tends to assume that central government will gather information, analyse it behind closed doors, and then allocate resources to its own entities to respond. That is a rather old fashioned model and tends to ignore non-government capacities such as charities/NGOs, businesses, and others who often end up being an important part of a major emergency response. The part of government that would understand that aspect, the Department for International Development (DFID) which is one of the world's most experienced and competent humanitarian funders, has no role in domestic emergencies. That's unlike many countries in which the NDMA and civil protection agencies  have both national and international mandates and hence transfer learning both ways.

I'm talking here mainly about physical emergencies rather than health crises, but many of the principles and issues still apply.

Nigel

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I have often thought that if this Country used its armed forces, Army, navy and air force, for civil defence purposes and the protection of our own national borders instead of trying to police the rest of the world, much like the Swiss do, then the nations coffers may be better off. For a start the amount of construction equipment, bulldozers, temporary bridges, pumps and various other earthmoving stuff, could be mobilised for flooding problems relatively easily and quickly. And why do the police,  who are always saying they do not have the resources, need to be involved with crowd control at certain sporting events. Obviously there needs to be some involvement as to the legal issues of law breaking but with modern technology ,CCTV and the like this could be easily overcome. We are already paying for a standing armed forces so why not use them more for the good of this country.

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“And why do the police,  who are always saying they do not have the resources, need to be involved with crowd control at certain sporting events. “

Because the Rugby/Football/Athletics/Grand Prix etc etc event enters into a contract and pays them, thereby underwriting the public policing budget so other Extinction Rebellion non paying demonstrations can go ahead.

Mick Richards

Edited by Motorsport Mickey
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2 hours ago, Cew said:

I have often thought that if this Country used its armed forces, Army, navy and air force, for civil defence purposes and the protection of our own national borders instead of trying to police the rest of the world, much like the Swiss do, then the nations coffers may be better off. For a start the amount of construction equipment, bulldozers, temporary bridges, pumps and various other earthmoving stuff, could be mobilised for flooding problems relatively easily and quickly. And why do the police,  who are always saying they do not have the resources, need to be involved with crowd control at certain sporting events. Obviously there needs to be some involvement as to the legal issues of law breaking but with modern technology ,CCTV and the like this could be easily overcome. We are already paying for a standing armed forces so why not use them more for the good of this country.

Another reason is that policing in mainland Britain is traditionally by "civilians in uniform" - we have never deemed it acceptable to have a paramilitary/gendarmerie type police force, unlike some other European countries. I realise you particularly mentioned sporting events etc, but I suspect many would see that as a slippery slope towards policing by the military.

Of course the military do not infrequently support the civil authorities, chiefly in logistics a capacity, eg the heavy lift helicopter work on the potential dam break last year, and of course the work on PPE distribution at the moment. The principle in such cases is always that the military effort is subordinate to the civil authorities.

Nigel

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Mick

A fair point but it doesn't stop the police authorities bleating that they are skint

Nigel

 The use of military equipment only seems to have occurred to the powers that be in response to fairly  recent events.

The European style policing does seem to work reasonably well, I spent 34 years driving the length and breadth of Europe on a weekly basis and didn't have any problems (other then the occasional driving transgression!) with gendarmerie, carabinieri or polizi so can only go by my own experiences of this type of policing. I wasn't inferring that armed to the teeth squaddies should be given a free rein only that ,in reply to Rogers post there is already a civil defence capability available should any politician be brave enough to implement it.

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9 hours ago, Cew said:

Mick

A fair point but it doesn't stop the police authorities bleating that they are skint

Nigel

 The use of military equipment only seems to have occurred to the powers that be in response to fairly  recent events.

The European style policing does seem to work reasonably well, I spent 34 years driving the length and breadth of Europe on a weekly basis and didn't have any problems (other then the occasional driving transgression!) with gendarmerie, carabinieri or polizi so can only go by my own experiences of this type of policing. I wasn't inferring that armed to the teeth squaddies should be given a free rein only that ,in reply to Rogers post there is already a civil defence capability available should any politician be brave enough to implement it.

Re the use of military equipment (and of course personnel) in support of civil emergencies, I agree it's not an everyday event but it certainly didn't start recently. Major examples include: the General Strike (1926), firefighter strikes (1979 and 2002), foot-and-mouth outbreaks (1967 and 2007), and the London Olympics (2012). And many more smaller deployments, particularly for flooding. And that's not including UK support for overseas emergencies: for example the UK military had large deployments for the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014, and for the response to hurricanes Irma and Maria in the Caribbean in 2017.

The trouble, in my opinion, for assuming the military will routinely provide civil services is that that then becomes a justification for maintaining a military of greater size than it needs to be for purely defence. And military kit and resources are typically very expensive. That was why the UK search and rescue capability was transferred to private contract in 2013, halving (the govt claimed) the previous costs.

Nigel

 

 

 

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