Departmental Duty Officers (Hansard, 14 June 2004)

§ Mr. Raynsford

The Duty Officer is responsible for taking official and emergency calls out of hours and taking appropriate action as necessary. This involves either contacting nominated on-call officers from appropriate divisions/sections within the Department for Transport (DfT)/the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), and/or taking prescribed action as issued by divisions/sections.

The criteria used to decide which incidents the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister duty officers are notified of by fire and rescue services are set out in 'Dear Chief Officer Letter 3/2004' from Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services to all Chief Fire Officers in England and Wales dated 29 March 2004. The following extract from that letter sets out the criteria.

A. A fire involving: A.1 a fatality (including fire service personnel);

B. A fire or incident which has a significant impact on the general public, including one which:

B.1 attracts significant public or media interest;
B.2 involves major disruption to public transport or utilities;
B.3 involves explosives, or where an explosion causes significant structural damage;
B.4 involves sources of ionising radiation or other substances which pose significant personal hazards;
B.5 causes serious contamination or significant environmental impact, including incidents where mass decontamination procedures are initiated; or
B.6 involves widespread public evacuation (e.g. whole street or area), or large scale evacuation from a venue to which the public resort in large numbers (e.g. a place of sport or entertainment, shopping complex, etc.) or from care premises (e.g. a hospital, nursing home, etc.).

C. A fire in which abnormally fast or extensive spread of flame, smoke or heat was caused or assisted by:

C.1 the structure of the building (including linings, voids, or other constructional features); or
C.2 the systems or plant installed within the building.

D. A fire in any building where the active and/or passive fire safety arrangements (e.g. means of escape, fire suppression or detection, fire resisting construction, etc.) either:

D.1 did not fulfil their designed function, resulting in people having to be rescued; or
D.2 only just fulfilled their designed function, resulting in a significant 'near miss'; or
D.3 fulfilled their designed function with notable success.

E. A fire or incident which presents significant operational difficulties, including those:

E.1 where persons are trapped as a result of building collapse;
E.2 involving the use of 10 or more jets or large quantities of specialised extinguishing media;
E.3 associated with significant civil disturbance and/or attacks on firefighters;
E.4 posing a significantly abnormal 61 to fire-fighter safety;
E.5 involving significantly difficult access;
E.6 where a deficiency in water supplies is both serious and unexpected;
E.7 involving serious problems with operational equipment including significant loss of, damage to, or lack of such equipment or resources;
E.8 where locally determined standards of fire cover are not met because of factors such as other operational incidents, adverse weather or difficult road traffic conditions, resulting in a significant effect on the development of the fire.

Any notifications received are forwarded from the ODPM Duty Officer to an on-call Inspector from HM Fire Service Inspectorate (HMFSI). The information supplied will be used by HMFSI to identify and monitor trends and provide advice to fire and rescue services. The information will particularly be used to support community fire safety initiatives and to inform the development of risk assessment. It may also be used to provide briefing for Ministers and senior officials, and in the preparation of reports.