HC Deb 29 November 1999 vol 340 cc38-40W
Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions on what date the Maritime and Coastguard Agency achieved its Charter Mark. [99612]

Mr. Hill

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has not applied for a Charter Mark yet, in view of the changes the agency has undergone since its formation. The MCA is committed to a high level of customer service and has 15 Service Standards which cover the business activities of the whole agency.

Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions on how many occasions in the last 12 months the automatic data retrieval system has failed to function at(a) Oban, (b) Shetland and (c) Pentland Coastguard stations. [99615]

Mr. Hill

The Action Data System (ADAS) has failed twice in the last 12 months at these stations—once at Pentland and once at Oban. At Oban the failure was caused by an engineer shutting off the power, followed by a temporary failure of the auxiliary electricity supply. On both occasions, the system was restarted within an hour.

Other minor problems have been experienced which have affected printers or individual terminals, but none of these has resulted in a failure of the whole system.

Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will instigate an inquiry into charges of bullying and intimidation of coastguard officers by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency Management. [99613]

Mr. Hill

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has a well established grievance procedure for handling complaints from its staff. Both cases of bullying and intimidation reported under the procedure during 1999 have been investigated using this procedure which has been agreed with Trade Unions.

Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what experiments have been carried out to establish the response times necessary to respond physically to emergency calls at present covered by Oban Coastguard. [99617]

Mr. Hill

No experiments have been carried out to establish Coastguard response times as these are covered by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) Service Standards. The target response time for a Coastguard presence at the reported scene of an incident in the area covered by the Oban Coastguard District is 30 minutes. This is a national target response time which is reported to the MCA Headquarters monthly, and reviewed locally by Coastguard management, through regular operational readiness inspections. The expectation is that this target will be met 95 per cent. of the time, since some remote locations can cause teams to take up to an hour to arrive.

Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if the digital computer system for the new Maritime and Coastguard Agency communications system is operational. [99614]

Mr. Hill

The Action Data System, as modified for compliance for the year 2000 (ADAS 2000), is used to record data about incidents dealt with by HMCG. This system was operational at all Coastguard Stations by September 1999. The new Integrated Coastguard Communication System (ICCS) will replace the existing equipment which is nearing the end of its life. Operational roll out will start in May 2000, and finish three years later.