Coastguard Service

We published a critical report on the Government’s proposals to modernise the Coastguard Service in June 2011. Revised modernisation proposals were published in November 2011 and are now being implemented. In this report we review issues raised by implementation.

There is a surprising degree of consensus that the Coastguard Service has to be reformed, with fewer coordination centres and greater resilience and greater inter-operability.

However, we have a number of significant concerns about implementation of the current proposals:

• it is unclear what role the new national Maritime Operations Centre (MOC) will play in relation to the work currently undertaken by Maritime Response Coordination Centres (MRCCs)

• the vacancy rate in the Coastguard Service has doubled in two years • there have been mixed messages about the timing of station closures • there is a clear risk that local knowledge will be lost; the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s stance in respect of the local knowledge it expects coastguards to have is confusing and contradictory • issues remain with communication links, particularly in relation to Shetland MRCC.

Morale is low in the Coastguard Service and there is a risk that talent and expertise is being lost. We call on the Government to set out its strategy for retaining experienced coastguards, particularly in terms of recruitment to positions based at the MOC.

Our report also follows up scrutiny of the Government’s decisions not to renew the contract for emergency towing vessels (ETVs) and not to fund a nautical fire-fighting initiative, the Maritime Incident Response Group.