Gold Silver Bronze command structure

Gold	Strategic
Silver	Tactical
Bronze	Operational

A gold–silver–bronze command structure is used by emergency service

Emergency service

Emergency services are organizations which ensure public safety and health by addressing different emergencies. Some agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies whilst others deal with ad hoc emergencies as part of their normal responsibilities...

s of the United Kingdom to establish a hierarchical framework

Command hierarchy

A command hierarchy is a group of people committed to carrying out orders "from the top", that is, of authority. It is part of a power structure: usually seen as the most vulnerable and also the most powerful part of it.-Sociology:...

for the command and control of major incidents and disaster

Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...

s. The so-called "platinum control" is government level (COBR).

Some practitioners use the term strategic–tactical–operational command structure instead, but the different categories are equivalent.

Whilst this system does not explicitly signify hierarchy of rank

Police rank

- Australia :Generally, all police forces of Australia follow this rank structure with some individual state police forces have ranks differing slightly.Insignia of rank displayed on epaulette in italics and brackets...

, with the roles not being rank-specific, invariably the chain of command

Chain of Command

Chain of Command may refer to:* Chain of command, in a military context, the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed* "Chain of Command" , the fifth episode of the first season of Beast Wars...

will be the same as the order of rank. Whilst the gold–silver–bronze command structure was designed for emergencies, it has been successfully utilised for all manner of planned operations, such as football matches, or firearms operations, such as Operation Kratos

Operation Kratos

Operation Kratos referred to tactics developed by London's Metropolitan Police Service for dealing with suspected suicide bombers, most notably firing shots to the head without warning....

History

The structure was created by the UK Metropolitan Police Service

Metropolitan Police Service

The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

in 1985 directly after a serious riot in North London on the evening of 6 October where Police Constable Keith Blakelock was murdered.

Scotland Yard

Scotland Yard

Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...

soon realised that their usual rank-based command system was inappropriate for sudden events. For example, it was never clear who was actually in operational charge of the police that night. A small team a member of which was Inspector Peter Power

Peter Power (crisis management specialist)

Peter Power is a British crisis management specialist and has advised many organisations in his area of speciality.-Personal history:Peter Power was born in the UK in 1951. He served in the 10 Battalion Parachute Regiment Territorial Army 1969 - 1971 before joining the Metropolitan Police in 1971...

quickly decided that three essential roles were more important than numerous ranks in these situations and set about creating and promulgating a new structure that was soon rolled out across all UK Police Forces and became the ubiquitous command standard it is today.
Peter Power did not invent the Gold, Silver Bronze command structure but he was the member of a small team of specialists at Scotland Yard who detailed the system and taught it to the Metropolitan Police Service. The command structure was invented and developed by David Stevens, who was then a Chief Superintendent in the Public Order Branch at Scotland Yard.

Gold

The Gold Commander is in overall control of his or her organisation's resources at the incident. This person will not be on site, but at a distant control room, Gold Command, where he or she will formulate the strategy for dealing with the incident. If the Gold Commanders for various organisations at an incident are not collocated, they will be in constant touch with each other by videoconference

Videoconferencing

Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...

or telephone.

Silver

The Silver Commander is the tactical commander who manages the strategic direction from Gold and makes it into sets of actions that are completed by Bronze. They are not located at the scene normally, as they need to be able to take a step back and review all the different Bronze resourcing. They will work in closely with other agency Silver Commanders but may well be in command of their resources in order to achieve the Gold Strategy.

A Silver Commander can sometimes be in a purpose-built command vehicle at the Joint Emergency Services Control Centre (JESCC), but this is not common. He or she will not become directly involved in dealing with the incident itself. This role is often not strictly rank-related but does often fall to senior officers as opposed to constables or sergeants.

Bronze

A Bronze Commander directly controls the organisation's resources at the incident and will be found with his or her staff working at the scene. He or she will be under the main control of the police normally, unless it is a fire-and-rescue-led incident, irrespective of which organisation he or she works for. This is to ensure safety and efficiency of all involved as far as possible.
If an incident is widespread geographically, different Bronzes may assume responsibility for different locations. If the incident is of a complex nature, as is often the case, different Bronzes are given their own tasks or responsibilities at an incident, for example taking statements, cordon management, or survivor management.

Police primacy

In the United Kingdom the principle of police primacy means that the police will be the organisation in ultimate charge of the incident, over the other organisations that may attend. Limited exceptions to this occurs if the incident involves a fire or other dangerous hazard, in which case the fire service will have overall charge of the area inside the inner cordon

Cordon

A cordon is also a line of people, military posts, or ships surrounding an area to close or guard it.Cordon may also refer to:* Cordon and search, a military operation...

where firefighting or rescue is taking place, and railway accidents, where primacy (if there is no apparent evidence of serious criminality) will lie with the Rail Accident Investigation Branch

Rail Accident Investigation Branch

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch is a government agency that became operational on 17 October 2005. Its primary role is the investigation of rail accidents in the United Kingdom and the Channel Tunnel in order to find a cause, not to lay blame. The agency has operational centres in The...

.

This principle is in place because the structure was first created by the UK Metropolitan Police. Another reason for police primacy relates to communications and support infrastructure that are more abundant and widespread in the police than the other emergency services. However, since the basis of the simple system aims to put the most appropriate person in the right position at the right time, some incidents such as a serious fire could see a senior fire fighter adopt the role of Gold for as long as the main task remains extinguishing the fire, as opposed to investigation, etc.

Command structure in practice

The 2005 Buncefield fire

2005 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire

The Buncefield fire was a major conflagration caused by a series of explosions on 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, an oil storage facility located near the M1 motorway by Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England. The terminal was the fifth largest oil-products...

can be used as one of many examples to show how the command structure functions. After the explosions on Sunday, 11 December 2005, the strategic operation to bring the incident under control was located at Hertfordshire Constabulary

Hertfordshire Constabulary

Hertfordshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Hertfordshire in England. Its headquarters is situated in Welwyn Garden City...

's headquarters in Welwyn Garden City

Welwyn Garden City

-Economy:Ever since its inception as garden city, Welwyn Garden City has attracted a strong commercial base with several designated employment areas. Among the companies trading in the town are:*Air Link Systems*Baxter*British Lead Mills*Carl Zeiss...

, some distance from the incident. Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service's Chief Fire Officer

Chief Fire Officer

A Chief Fire Officer or CFO is the highest ranking Officer in the UK Fire & Rescue Service. There are currently 59 Chief Fire Officers serving in the United Kingdom in charge of County Fire Services....

Roy Wilsher was based at Gold Command "within one hour of the incident".

The location of Silver Command was initially located close to the incident, then moved to Watford

Watford

Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...

.

Bronze was situated on the fire ground and was a Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

fire service control unit. Each of the services had its own senior officers who assumed the roles of gold, silver, and bronze.

During the first three days of the fire, the gold command committee met at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.; each session was usually followed by a media briefing. The command meetings were attended by the commanders of the main emergency services, local authority, health and safety officials, and civilian press officers from the emergency services.

External links

Wiltshire Police: Major incident planning: Command structure
London Emergency Services Liaison Panel: LESLP
Suffolk County Council: Control of major accident hazards
Government Office for the South East: Preparing for Emergencies – Response
Government Office for the South East: Response: the National Picture
Emergency Management Portal: Online resources for UK emergency managers

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.