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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average length of time is from joining for an employee to qualify as a (a) maritime operations commander, (b) maritime operations controller, (c) senior operations officer and (d) maritime operations officer.

Mr John Hayes

The length of time taken to train Coastguard Officers is entirely dependent on their level of experience and competence when they join Her Majesty’s Coastguard and the level of experience of competence they gain prior to any internal promotion. Therefore an average for these would be misleading.

On entry to HM Coastguard as a Maritime Operations Officer it will take between six and 12 months to become trained, depending on previous maritime experience and competence.

HM Coastguard do not recruit direct entry Senior Maritime Operations Officers, they are internally recruited from the cadre of fully trained Maritime Operations Officers who will then undertake a further six months of training for this post.

As roles that can be directly recruited from outside HM Coastguard the training for both Maritime Operations Controllers and Maritime Operations Commanders is entirely dependent on their prevailing maritime experience and is in effect bespoke for the individual concerned.

It should be noted that the roles senior watch manager, watch manager, watch officer and watch assistant no longer exist within HM Coastguard.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

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.

Mr 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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fully-qualified coastguard staff were on (a) daytime and (b) nighttime duty at Falmouth Coastguard operations centre on (a) 2 May and (b) 9 July 2015.

Mr John Hayes

The number of fully qualified Coastguard staff on duty at Falmouth, within Her Majesty’s Coastguard’s national network, was as follows:

(a) 2 May 2015

(a) Day Watch – 4 (Total staffing for the national network – 25)

(b) Night Watch – 2 (Total staffing for the national network – 19)

(b) 9 July 2015

(a) Day Watch – 2 (Total staffing for the national network – 37)

(b) Night Watch – 3 (Total staffing for the national network – 25)

The operational concepts and procedures that underpin HM 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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many vacant posts at each grade there are at Falmouth Coastguard operations centre.

Mr John Hayes

There are no vacancies at any grade at the Coastguard Operations Centre in Falmouth at present.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

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.

Mr 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

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times in the last two years Falmouth Coastguard Operations Centre has had staffing levels below what is considered safe.

Mr 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.

Due to this inherent flexibility Her Majesty’s Coastguard sets ‘Optimum Suggested’ staffing for the network as a whole rather than for each centre. Over the last two years since the national network became operational out of a total of 1,427 watches (both day and night) the network has been staffed below ‘Optimal Suggested’ levels on 137 watches.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average length of time is from joining for an employee to qualify as a (a) senior watch manager, (b) watch manager, (c) watch officer and (d) watch assistant.

Mr John Hayes

The length of time taken to train Coastguard Officers is entirely dependent on their level of experience and competence when they join Her Majesty’s Coastguard and the level of experience of competence they gain prior to any internal promotion. Therefore an average for these would be misleading.

On entry to HM Coastguard as a Maritime Operations Officer it will take between six and 12 months to become trained, depending on previous maritime experience and competence.

HM Coastguard do not recruit direct entry Senior Maritime Operations Officers, they are internally recruited from the cadre of fully trained Maritime Operations Officers who will then undertake a further six months of training for this post.

As roles that can be directly recruited from outside HM Coastguard the training for both Maritime Operations Controllers and Maritime Operations Commanders is entirely dependent on their prevailing maritime experience and is in effect bespoke for the individual concerned.

It should be noted that the roles senior watch manager, watch manager, watch officer and watch assistant no longer exist within HM Coastguard.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether staff at the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham are required to record a reason for not calling on a lifeboat or coastguard team or another resource.

Mr John Hayes

Her Majesty’s Coastguard staff at the National Maritime Operations Centre and Coastguard Operations Centres around the United Kingdom are encouraged to record the rationale for decisions taken for operational reasons during the coordination of maritime search and rescue incidents.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many unanswered telephone calls the National Maritime Operations Centre has each day.

Mr 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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

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.

Mr 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:

• 2 May 2015 – Total network staff 25 (national network in transition: Network Centres – NMOC, Falmouth, Holyhead, Milford Haven, Humber. Centres still to transition – Belfast, Stornoway, Shetland, Aberdeen, London and Dover)

• 9 July 2015 – Total network staff 37 (national network in transition: Network Centres – NMOC, Falmouth, Holyhead, Milford Haven, Humber. Centres still to transition – Belfast, Stornoway, Shetland, Aberdeen, London and Dover)

• 24 May 2016 – Total network staff 46 (Full national network)

• 29 May 2016 – Total network staff 41 (Full national network)

• 4 June 2016 – Total network staff 45 (Full national network)