Introduction

St Chad’s College is committed to the identification and management of risks arising from the College’s activities and from external sources.

The Audit Committee will monitor and review College policy in this respect.

An Incident Management Team will be convened by the College Duty Officer to provide strategic co-ordination in response to a major incident.

This emergency plan outlines the arrangements for responding to a major incident in order to:

(i) minimise the risk of injury to personnel, buildings and core infrastructure and to restore operations to normal within the shortest possible time-scale.

(ii) establish and implement appropriate infrastructure and central mechanisms through which to manage an incident. This involves both physical structures and procedures.

Action in the Event of a Major Incident

A major incident is considered to be an incident that disrupts the College’s ability to conduct normal business and which cannot be resolved using the College’s own resources and/or those of the relevant manager. This will be determined by the Principal or the most senior officer available in the event.

Appendix 1 identifies an indicative range of trigger events that may require the formation of an Incident Management Team.

College procedures that deal with immediate generic incidents are listed below and should be brought to the attention of staff at regular intervals.

Management of a Major Incident.

The Principal or the Bursar (or the designated Acting Principal or Acting Bursar) shall assume the role of Controller of the Incident Management Team (IMT) in the event of a major incident affecting the College, with the following functions:

∙  Liaison with the University as Controller of the IMT,

∙  Co-ordination of appropriate College resources with the Bursar, Clerk of Works and Conference Manager (if needed)

∙  Identification of key staff with relevant competencies,

∙  Co-ordinating the provision of such assistance as is necessary to the emergency services,

∙  Arranging for the dissemination of appropriate information to members of the College.

∙  Ensuring that an appropriate contemporaneous record of the event, including actions taken and losses incurred is maintained.

The following series of events are likely to be required in the immediate and subsequent management of the incident.

Day 1:

∙  Initial reaction to incident, emergency plan initiated, including summoning of appropriate emergency services if relevant.

∙  Appropriate Emergency Services attend.

∙  IMT Controller informs Principal and Chair of Governors (if necessary), who will convene other College committees as needed.

∙  The Controller assesses the impact and, if deemed appropriate, will designate an Operations Centre on or off-site.

∙  Once an operations centre has been designated and announced, all first-aiders and staff not immediately involved in the incident should report to the Operations Centre once the emergency evacuation and preliminary status assessment has been carried out and it is deemed safe to do so.

Day 2 and beyond:

A daily meeting between appropriate College staff and central support staff will be scheduled. The Team will review progress, agree further actions and arrange for the dissemination of information to members of the College/Department.

A debriefing will be scheduled within 24 hours of declaration of “all clear” for everyone involved in disaster response.

Communication

Release of information to the press or media concerning activities should be made only with the approval of the Principal. University Public Relations staff should normally also be consulted.

Appendix 1

Emergency Scenarios that may require the formation of an Incident Management Team (IMT)

Trigger points for a major incident are to be determined by the senior officer on duty. The events that may necessitate the intervention of the IMT are the occurrence on site of:

Sudden death of a person or serious injury due to (Suicide, Murder, Fatal Accident, Taking of a hostage)

∙    Building incident Explosion

∙    Freak Weather Conditions

∙    Structural Failure

∙    Major Fire

∙    Breakdown in service

∙     Telephone

∙     Water

∙     Gas

∙     Electricity

∙     Heating

∙     Data Communications

∙    Significant interference of College data services/significant degradation of public web presence

∙    Major disturbance: Riot or Civil disturbance

∙    Terrorism including bomb threat or suspect packages.

∙    Aircrash

∙    Contagious disease: Outbreak or threat of an outbreak

∙    Traffic accident causing danger to College personnel and/or buildings

∙    Major release of a hazardous substance from a source on or off site – i.e. in a quantity sufficient to produce consequences beyond the immediate point of release.

∙    Serious incident off-campus involving College staff or students, for example minibus crash.

∙    Serious incidents involving persons who are carrying out duties under the authority of the College or duties which fall within the undertaking of the College.