Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many unanswered telephone calls the National Maritime Operations Centre has each day.
Answered by John Hayes
Her Majesty’s Coastguard does not record the number of unanswered routine telephone calls at the National Maritime Operations Centre or at any of the Coastguard Operations Centres within the national network.
It should be noted that there is a robust system, in line with the Public Emergency Call Service (PECS) Code of Practice, to ensure that ‘999’ calls to Centres within the network are answered. This is through a cascade system across the network and if necessary to other emergency services.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fully-trained coastguard staff working at the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham were on the daytime watch covering the south coast from Plymouth to Selsey Bill on (a) 2 May 2015, (b) 9 July 2015, (c) 24 May 2016, (d) 29 May 2016 and (e) 4 June 2016.
Answered by John Hayes
The operational concepts and procedures that underpin Her Majesty’s Coastguard’s national network mean that the Coastguard Centres within it no longer have fixed geographic boundaries. This enables Coastguards at either the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) or any of the 9 Coastguard Operations Centres (CGOC) to coordinate any incident anywhere around the UK coast irrespective of their location. As a result workload is now managed on a national basis rather than Centre by Centre as was previously the case. National capability and Coastguard staff from any Centre are now available to provide additional support to any individual Centre within the network when it is considered necessary by senior operational managers.
Therefore the national network had the following fully trained coastguard staff on daytime watch for the following dates:
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham turned down requests from other Category 1 Responders for assistance in the last two years; and for each such request (a) what type of request it was, (b) what reason was recorded for it being turned down and (c) which coastguard station turned it down.
Answered by John Hayes
Her Majesty’s Coastguard does not specifically record occurrences when other Category 1 Responders or any other service requests assistance. Information may be held within the text narrative of an incident record but this would require a check of tens of thousands of records over the last two to five years.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many callouts have been recorded for each coastguard rescue team along the south coast from Plymouth to Selsey Bill in each of the last five years.
Answered by John Hayes
The number of incidents recorded for each Coastguard Rescue Team along the south coast from Plymouth to Selsey Bill in each of the last five years is shown below:
| Bigbury | Bembridge | Beer | Berry Head | Dartmouth | Exmouth | Hope Cove | Kimmeridge |
2011 | 15 | 75 | 37 | 115 | 52 | 105 | 28 | 24 |
2012 | 25 | 67 | 38 | 95 | 32 | 93 | 36 | 21 |
2013 | 16 | 60 | 32 | 86 | 38 | 54 | 16 | 7 |
2014 | 29 | 71 | 31 | 93 | 55 | 63 | 36 | 15 |
2015 | 20 | 42 | 26 | 86 | 20 | 48 | 78 | 17 |
| Lymington | Lulworth | Lyme Regis | Newport IOW | Portland Bill | Plymouth | Poole | Prawle |
2011 | 88 | 40 | 46 |
| 67 | 73 | 138 | 23 |
2012 | 69 | 45 | 52 |
| 53 | 62 | 131 | 15 |
2013 | 47 | 42 | 33 |
| 58 | 50 | 95 | 24 |
2014 | 52 | 26 | 44 |
| 54 | 48 | 98 | 34 |
2015 | 48 | 31 | 43 | 22 | 40 | 87 | 71 | 8 |
| Selsey | Southampton | Swanage | Torbay | Teignmouth | Ventnor | West Bay | Wyke | Yealm |
2011 | 1 | 123 | 133 | 143 | 89 | 44 | 38 | 192 | 18 |
2012 |
| 84 | 145 | 137 | 64 | 26 | 43 | 152 | 14 |
2013 |
| 69 | 110 | 124 | 71 | 40 | 34 | 119 | 18 |
2014 |
| 121 | 108 | 122 | 74 | 41 | 30 | 83 | 26 |
2015 |
| 144 | 81 | 90 | 66 | 37 | 29 |
| 7 |
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many reports of tombstoning have been received and investigated by a coastguard team from Plymouth to Selsey Bill in each of the last five years.
Answered by John Hayes
Her Majesty’s Coastguard has responded to the following number of tombstoning incidents, in the area listed in the question, in each of the last five years:
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 |
4 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
HM Coastguard responsibilities end with its search and rescue response to each incident.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fully-trained staff are based at the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham.
Answered by John Hayes
Her Majesty’s Coastguard currently have a total of 58 staff who are qualified Coastguards at the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham. There are an additional 12 staff who are communication/systems trained, but awaiting to complete their final training and assessments, who are able to undertake watchkeeping tasks commensurate with their training.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether any requests from Falmouth Coastguard Operations Centre asking for assistance in running an incident have been turned down by (a) the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham and (b) any other station in the last two years.
Answered by John Hayes
Her Majesty’s Coastguard do not specifically record requests for assistance from the National Maritime Operations Centre or any Coastguard Operations Centre within its Incident Management System. Information may be held in the text narrative of an incident within this system but this would require a check of tens of thousands of records, diverting resources from critical parts of their budget and would be disproportionately costly to collate.
It should be noted that any decision to provide assistance to Coastguard Operations Centre will be on the basis of the professional judgement of a senior operational manager.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many callouts have been recorded for coastguard rescue teams in each of the last five years.
Answered by John Hayes
The number of incidents recorded for Coastguard Rescue Teams in each of the last five years is as follows:
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 |
22,962 | 21,068 | 20,123 | 19,592 | 17,006 |
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many coastguard rescue teams have been deployed to inland flooding incidents in the past two years; and how many times those teams were called out to such incidents in the past two years.
Answered by John Hayes
The capability to specifically record inland flood/civil contingencies flooding incidents has only been available in Her Majesty’s Coastguards Incident Management System since September 2014 as Coastguard Operations Centres transitioned incrementally into its national network. On the basis of the records available, at least 31 teams on 13 occasions have been deployed to inland flooding incidents in the past two years.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what maximum length of time is considered safe from when an emergency call is received in a coastguard control room to when the coastguard vehicle is ready to leave its station.
Answered by John Hayes
Each incident involving a Coastguard Rescue Team is different in its context given geography, terrain, weather conditions, prevailing traffic conditions and the availability of individual volunteer Coastguard Rescue Officers. For this reason the Maritime and Coastguard Agency does not collate or maintain data in the format you have requested either locally or nationally. However, it can provide specific response times for specific incidents.