What Makes a Good Response?

Abstract

What defines a successful response to an incident? Is it dependent upon satisfying potential critics; does it depend on money saved or received in compensation; is it defined by avoiding or mitigating pollution damage; or is it all of the above? Once an incident has occurred the success or otherwise of the response can be predicted based on relatively few key variables. In this paper. For example:Preparedness & Training – i.e. the extent to which a country is prepared for an incident and whether the roles and responsibilities of individuals expected to be involved in the response are clearly defined.Location of the incident – i.e. the country, the culture and reaction to the incident; whether it has occurred off-shore or near-shore etc.Port of Refuge – i.e. whether or not a clear process for dealing with a casualty is pre-established.Trust & Respect – i.e. the extent to which trust exists between the various parties involved in an incident and the level of knowledge and expertise needed to engender respect.Co-operation – i.e. the extent to which parties are willing to co-operate and work together; the degree of realism about what can be achieved, and the level of confidence exhibited by those with ultimate responsibility.Communication – i.e. the effectiveness of the command structure and the lines of communication between parties; willingness to communicate.Cost-control/accountability – i.e. attitude towards cost control and effective use of resources.Compensation – i.e. whether adequate systems are in place to compensate victims of oil pollution damage promptly and fairly; compensation versus punitive fines.3 Ps (Politicians, Press, Public) – i.e. the degree to which these are allowed to drive the response.Willingness to Learn – i.e. the extent to which past incidents are used to inform potential future incidents; realism during exercises and debriefs. This paper will draw upon incidents that ITOPF has attended in its 45 year history to identify patterns of behaviour and the degree to which these variables can influence the outcome of a response. Recognition of the relative importance of these variables ought to form the basis of learning in order to improve the chances of a positive outcome in future incidents.

The Use and Misuse of SCAT in Spill Response

“…Trust and communication have been identified as two components that are critical to an effective response (Purnell and Zhang, 2014). The lack of trust and effective communication has been a factor in all the spills used to compile this paper, and may have been a driver of many of the challenges encountered.…”

Limitations of the Swedish network coordination of oil spill preparedness

“…Specifically, unclear mandates and divisions of responsibilities have been suggested to be limiting factors. Authors argue that a clearly defined and established command and management structure will reduce confusion and misinformation during an oil spill response, thus saving time, effort and limiting negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts (Danielsson et al., ; Purnell & Zhang, ).…”