A piece in the Guardian has highlighted the fact that 56 people have been incorrectly prosecuted for offences under the emergency regulations and that a further 44 charges (that is ALL of them) under the Coronavirus Act 2020 were wrongly brought. The article concludes that the errors were a result of the rushed nature of the legislation. Rushed and ill considered legislation rarely works as anybody who has ever tried to use the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 will know. How can legislation and the regulations that sit under it be drafted, enacted and enforced within a few days without there being any errors? The introduction of new legislation takes time. Police officers and prosecutors need training and briefing. Procedures and bureaucracy needs to be developed (everything from policy to counting codes). But of course this was an emergency – things had to move quickly. This is true, but isn’t this what contingency planning is for...
This isn’t an article, it isn’t really a blog (although I will post it as such elsewhere). It is really a comment on a recent helpful post on Linkedin by Rob Davis on the subject of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP). Alas my comment is too long winded for the normal format. Before saying anything else I would mention that some posters have suggested that Mr Davis has pre-empted his own research findings. This doesn’t worry me – some things are obvious even early on in research and any final conclusions that the author reaches will be subject to the rigours of the academic system that surrounds such high awards. The fact that JESIP doesn’t always work is a well documented fact. JESIP is a simple, indeed a worthy, statement of good intent. The principles are, in one sense, not capable of being doubted. Perhaps this is the reason that criticism is sometimes treated as heresy. As a member of the publi...
As anybody who reads my blogs knows, I think that that anniversaries are important. One piece of feedback I received was to stop ‘banging on about them’. I value feedback but I reject this suggestion because I have seen that recognising anniversaries can be a strong force for good. This is true emotionally, but also practically. They serve as landmarks in the temporal landscape. They are an aide memoire of the lessons from major events and a benchmark to mark our progress or decline. They also allow us to respectfully reflect on lives lost and loss endured. Of course for those with personal connections with disasters anniversaries have a deeper and rawer significance. From a professional point of view we do well to remember the contributions of our forebears. Their efforts are no less important than our own. Today my appointments took me through Moorgate station in the City of London and as always my thoughts turned to the horrors o...
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