This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.
Chief officers are required to mandate policies to ensure that procedures are in place to provide an effective response to both:
- an emergency
- business-as-usual demand
This should include providing for the following:
- The development, testing and regular review of major incident plans and contingency plans.
- The ability to promptly stand up a well-tested policing and multi-agency command structure 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- The identification of specialist operational resources from all those who are required to respond to such incidents.
- An on-duty and on-call commanders rota and means of communication. Where a major incident demands an uplift in capability, forces should ensure they have resilient and clearly defined arrangements for securing significant additional resources.
- Suitable resource and established channels to deliver an effective warning and informing function.
In line with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) national coordination framework, chief officers may be required to provide the following:
- Force executive oversight – supporting the force gold commander, or concurrent force golds, with any wider impacts on the force. This function does not direct the gold commander (who retains strategic command of the response). It oversees the wider consequences or contingencies for the operation (or operations) which may be having an impact on the force as a whole.
- Multi-force coordination – to coordinate a regional response or represent their force at a multi-force response group.
- National coordination – to represent their force or region at a national coordination group.
- NPCC coordination – to represent their national portfolio, force or region at an NPCC group, to consider the consequences and contingencies for the wider service.
If the potential scale, complexity or impact of an event or incident requires it, the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC) will establish a multi-force, national or NPCC coordination group. If necessary, a chief officer will be appointed as a national coordinator to enable an effective response.
Incident action cards
Chief officers should ensure that action cards are developed for major and/or critical incidents. These cards provide instructions for the initial stages of an emerging incident, acting as a memory aid and checklist.
Action cards should, where relevant, be role-specific. There should be an action card for all commander roles and for the roles likely to form part of an initial response, such as:
- control room personnel
- force incident managers (FIMs)
- first officer at the scene
- corporate communications
Action cards for standing up important infrastructure and resources should also be created. For example, this includes:
- accessing mutual aid
- mobilising public order trained officers
- strategic coordination protocols
- tactical coordination
- comms cells
- intelligence cells
- casualty bureau
- search teams.
Action cards should:
- be available immediately, both electronically and in hard copy
- be clear, concise and accessible
- be created in consultation with control room staff, FIMs, resilience units, emergency planning officers and partners – for example, Network Rail
- incorporate interoperability principles and be consistent with the instructions and terminology used by the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP)
- be consistent with the advice given in this APP
- be included in the force major incident plan and reviewed regularly in the same way
Chief officers are required to mandate policies to ensure that procedures are in place to monitor training compliance for all control room staff and commanders in the use of action cards for major incidents and emergencies. This should include provision for regular testing of their use through exercising.
Resourcing and training of personnel
Chief officers should ensure there is sufficient capacity and capability to respond to major incidents and events. This should include ensuring that appropriate processes are in place to:
- select, train, authorise and assess strategic (gold), tactical (silver) and operational (bronze) commanders
- ensure the availability of trained tactical advisers
- ensure that control rooms have a FIM on duty who is available to immediately respond to incidents at all times
- ensure that force control rooms and other appropriate officers or staff contact British Transport Police (BTP) control rooms when incidents involve railways (go to Network Rail – Safety and access for more information)
- ensure that suitable numbers of Airwave communications tactical advisers (CTAs) are available (on duty or on call) at all times
- ensure that those employing technology, such as body-worn video (BWV) and drones, are effectively trained and exercised in their use
Specific training requirements
Chief officers should make sure there are processes in place to ensure the following:
- All newly appointed FIMs have completed the College of Policing FIM course.
- Airwave CTAs have completed College of Policing Airwave CTA training for their role.
- There is joint training and exercising on effective radio communications between emergency responders, commanders and control rooms in advance of major incidents or events.
- Training or testing and exercising informs officers and staff of the specialist capabilities of every other partner agency. It is recommended that this is done jointly with these agencies.
It is recommended that strategic coordinating group (SCG) chairs complete the multi-agency gold incident command (MAGIC) course where possible.
Consider the use of immersive learning in training alongside other agencies. This can provide better replication of the pressures faced and the pace of decision making required.