Incident Management and Command Policy

Purpose. Establishes the incident management system used at every Guardian incident, the levels of incident, the roles that must be filled and the records that must be kept.

1.System

Every incident attended by Guardian must be managed under the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System. The first arriving officer is the incident controller until relieved by a more senior or more appropriate officer, and every change of control must be announced on the radio and recorded in the Incident and Dispatch Log. The principles of management by objectives, functional management, span of control and unity of command apply at every level.

2.Incident levels

A Level 1 incident is resolved by the initial response with a single incident controller. A Level 2 incident requires additional resources, sectorisation or functional roles such as planning, operations and logistics. A Level 3 incident is of a size, complexity or duration that requires a full incident management team and an incident control centre. The incident controller must declare the level and the communications centre must record it.

• Level 1: initial response, single controller
• Level 2: multiple crews, sectors or functional roles
• Level 3: full incident management team and control centre

3.Roles

The incident controller must appoint a safety officer at any incident involving breathing apparatus entry, hazardous materials, collapse risk, working at height or swiftwater, and must appoint sector commanders where span of control exceeds five. At Level 2 and above the incident controller must consider planning, operations, logistics and public information roles and must prepare an incident action plan using the Incident Action Plan Template.

4.Briefings and debriefings

Every crew must be briefed before committing to a task using the situation, mission, execution, administration, command and safety format. Every incident at Level 2 or above, and any incident with an injury, near miss or significant learning, must be debriefed within 72 hours and the outcomes recorded in the Incident and Dispatch Log.

5.Multi-agency incidents

Where police, ambulance, land managers or other agencies attend, the incident controller must establish a joint command point and liaison with each agency. Control of the incident rests with the agency designated by the state emergency management arrangements for that type of emergency and Guardian will command its own personnel within that structure.

6.Records

The Incident and Dispatch Log is the official record of every incident. Incident controllers must ensure that resources, sectors, key decisions, safety officer appointments, changes of control and the time of control and of stop are recorded. Records must be retained for the period required by the public records standard and made available for post incident analysis and coronial inquiry.