In every department in France, as far as the fire service is concerned, 18 calls are initially handled by the alert processing centres – the CTAs –, before moving into the operational and management side of things at the departmental fire and rescue operations centres – the CODIS. Two names, but above all two different roles for these two centres, which are often housed in the same building.
Experience within the fire and rescue services shows that, whilst an excessively small operational unit does indeed allow for very precise categorisation of alerts, it also results in management costs that are far too high, explains the National Fire Service Federation (FNSPF). The departmental level, which is currently the level at which fire and rescue services are managed, appears to have reached its limits in this respect. The SDIS incur significant expenditure and are consequently inefficient. It therefore seems necessary to adopt a more comprehensive approach and, consequently, to rethink the management of emergency response at a higher level.
By zone, region or risk area
Conversely, if the chosen level of management is too broad, difficulties may arise in terms of adaptability, management – particularly of volunteer resources that are deeply rooted in their local area – and service quality; and it will be more difficult to achieve resilience. Three geographical areas appear relevant for addressing the challenges of operational pooling and the economic model. Thus, zones, regions or risk areas may all be suitable as the level at which resources are pooled. A necessary debate and dialogue will need to take place to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each level in order to determine which will best meet the needs and expectations of citizens.
A zonal pooling arrangement would have the clear advantage of enabling the zonal operational centres (COZs) to act as the back-office facilities for scaling up these shared platforms. This would, in particular, put an end to the COZs’ current short-sighted approach to the CTAs and would be in line with the Prime Minister’s interministerial directive on defence and national security planning of 11 June 2015, the reform of the SDACR’s operational doctrine and the COTTRIM17 project. The interministerial directive effectively reinforces the defence and security zone as the primary level for civil-military planning and instructs the prefect of the defence and security zone to ensure, in the event of a major crisis ‘within the territory of their zone, the allocation of resources mobilised from ministries, the armed forces, regional health agencies (ARS), local authorities and operators of vital importance’. These measures thus contribute to the standardisation of emergency policies and the coordination of specialised resources (such as helicopters…).
The FNSPF advocates the creation of incident response centres that are genuinely cross-departmental, inter-ministerial and dedicated to emergency response.
Three levels
- The first level would be a shared platform (at zonal, regional or risk-area level) for managing the reception and ‘filtering’ of calls (front office).
- The second level would also be physically located on the shared call-handling management platform. This back-office would bring together, within a single shared space, all the functions, areas of expertise and operational procedures of the police, the gendarmerie, the fire service and the SMUR. In this context, ‘call classification’ refers, on the one hand, to the determination of geographical coordinates and, on the other, to the nature of the situation and the operational resources initially required.
- Finally, the third level would involve the management of operational deployment at departmental level by the operational centres of the various services. Deployments would then be tailored to available resources, in line with a localised management and response approach. However, the management of day-to-day operations could be delegated to Level 2 by the departmental Level 18, in order to limit the presence of operators – particularly outside working hours – to a simple operational watch.
Significant savings
The flow of information processed at the third level back to levels 1 and 2 (COZ, if the zonal tier were adopted) and to the national level (Ministry of the Interior and the Government) would then take place smoothly and rapidly via the COGIC (Interministerial Crisis Management Operations Centre) – CIC (Interministerial Crisis Centre).
As regards the SDISs, this organisation would generate significant economies of scale, both during the development of alert management tools and by eliminating the need to activate the CTA and CODIS simultaneously – one to respond to the alert (CTA), and the other to monitor operations and report back information (CODIS). Furthermore, the costs of ongoing maintenance and corrective maintenance would be shared amongst the 98 SDISs according to an objective allocation formula (based on population or the number of calls received, for example).
How it works
Such platforms for processing alerts at local, regional or risk-area levels – which are inter-agency, inter-ministerial and dedicated to emergency response – will require centralised, inter-ministerial management, implemented in a decentralised manner across the regions.
The State must assert its role in this area and, furthermore, launch a national initiative through:
- the development of national software that can be adapted to regional specificities, ensuring genuine data interoperability and improved operational coordination in the event of a major incident;
- the decentralised deployment of these platforms at zonal, regional or risk-area level;
- the transfer of responsibility for their management to a member of the prefectural staff tasked with coordinating these tools across departments and ministries. The deputy prefects for defence and security zones, should this structure be adopted, would appear to be the natural holders of this authority.
Operational management would remain at departmental level
With a view to ensuring local relevance and adapting to the diversity of regions (in terms of needs, resources, etc.), the management of operational deployment would continue to be the responsibility of the departmental level: this would ensure continuity between day-to-day operations and the departmental prefect’s responsibility for crisis management at local level (coordination of the various state services – police, gendarmerie, SDIS, the Regional Health Agency (ARS), the departmental military delegate, local authorities and operators within the department). Furthermore, the fire service has dedicated expertise in receiving calls and handling alerts. As specialists in this field, these capabilities are intended to become cornerstones of the joint platforms.