Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I welcome David Crabbe and Jackie Gregg. I apologise that we are running well behind schedule.

Mr David Crabbe (Department for Regional Development): I appreciate the reasons why; an important discussion had to take place.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): The Floor is yours. We have kept you late, but could you keep it reasonably brief?

Mr Crabbe: I appreciate that you are under time pressure.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): We are under time pressure because another Committee needs to come in here later.

Mr Crabbe: I am head of central management branch. I have been in that post only since December last year. My colleague, Jackie Gregg, is the emergency planning officer for the Department, and she has been in that role for about five years. I will quickly run through an outline of the emergency planning arrangements in the Department, with some specific references to the Northern Ireland Water situation, which is why we are here today.

Central management branch coordinates the emergency planning and contingency arrangements in the Department. There are two types of emergency plans: business continuity planning and a major emergency response plan. Business continuity planning is the internal process whereby we ensure that businesses are kept running no matter what happens to affect them. The major emergency response plan affects the general public and is external facing.

The major emergency response plan looks at things like preparedness, continuity, integration, communication and cooperations that are necessary. It is a framework rather than something that seeks to provide solutions to individual problems that may occur. Where there is an individual problem affecting an operational area, that area will have its own specific emergency response plans that will be activated as circumstances dictate.

In the case of the Northern Ireland Water industrial action, Northern Ireland Water emergency plans were invoked to deal with the situation. The role of the DRD in that instance, in support of Northern Ireland Water, was to ensure that appropriate action was being taken; ensure that there is communication and information flow amongst stakeholders, including the media; facilitate discussion and decision-making, brief the Minister, the Executive and this Committee; identify cross-cutting issues that might stray outside and involve other Departments and agencies, and provide a facility for organisations to make inquiries or report any unexpected developments or emerging issues. So, in essence, the role was to progress and manage the response with stakeholders, including through multi-agency meetings.

We have a number of governance procedures that feed into that. We have a network of emergency planning officers in the Department and our arm's-length bodies. We have an emergency management development programme that seeks to knit that together. That is a requirement of the Northern Ireland civil contingency framework, and it identifies priorities for action to ensure that the Department is adequately prepared to cope with emergency situations. We have an emergency planning steering group, which meets twice a year and brings the emergency planning officers together and looks at any issues that have arisen in the preceding period.

We keep senior management informed, and you will be aware that the Department has a corporate risk register that we feed into. We have a key risk register, which involves emergency planning, primarily looking at the winter period, because obviously our key plans revolve around roads and water.

We try to ensure that our plans are fit for purpose and are kept fit for purpose in two ways. One way is to put them on the internal audit cycle. Our last audit was in August 2013, and the audit opinion was "substantial", which means that there is a robust system of governance, risk management and control, which should ensure that objectives are fully achieved. We also test plans yearly, either through live situations that have been forced upon us or through constructed exercises that seek to test the plans. You have been given details of the incidents and plans that have taken place over the last five years, so I will not go into them.

The departmental emergency management group plays a central role in managing the Department's response to an emergency. It does not have a fixed membership. It will have a membership comprising the senior officials who have a locus on the emergency. It is normally chaired by the Department's permanent secretary or a nominated deputy on his behalf. It looks to manage the multi-agency response for local or level 1 emergencies. Those levels are laid out in the major emergency response plan. We held three meetings during the Northern Ireland Water industrial action and one immediately post the action. They took place on 19 December, 23 December, 9 January and 29 January.

Northern Ireland Water invoked its major incident plan on 22 December, and we invoked our emergency response plan on 23 December. You will be aware that the industrial action ran from 23 December to 21 January. Northern Ireland Water's actions included 37 major emergency group meetings of senior officers within NIW with other associated agencies. Those meetings were held to determine the impact on the public in general and vulnerable people, and to determine any other operational aspects that were required. They were also held to keep all stakeholders involved. A stakeholder engagement team was set up. We were part of that. There were 15 multi-agency coordination group calls. Those agencies included all of the blue light services: the Fire and Rescue Service, the Ambulance Service and the Police Service, as well as local councils and other associated services. A total of 87 stakeholder briefs were issued. Those were situation reports that were issued two or three times a day throughout the period of the industrial action. We got those daily. They went to all senior officials in the Department as well as other stakeholders. In addition, Northern Ireland Water managed to source additional staff to manage its customer call centre, deal with calls from the public and ensure that information was being put into the public domain in a timely manner.

Finally, I will cover the actions that the departmental emergency management group took during that time. We took those daily briefings, and they were looked at as they were received. They were reviewed, but not necessarily in the format of a formal meeting. Each one was reviewed, and there was always the potential to call a meeting if necessary. We also participated in multi-agency conference calls. Throughout that time, especially when we were not in office, the permanent secretary was certainly in daily contact with the chief executive and senior officials of Northern Ireland Water, keeping a finger on the pulse and a finger over the button, as it were, to see whether escalation was necessary to raise the profile of the incident.

I stress that, although there were only three formal meetings, a lot of activity was ongoing through the sponsor division, the water policy division, the shareholder unit, ourselves, the permanent secretary and, indeed, the Minister and others. We also kept in close touch with the civil contingency policy branch in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, which is responsible if a situation is escalated.

That was a very quick gallop, Chairman. I am sorry if it sounded rushed, but I am conscious of your time. I am very happy to field any questions that you have.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I appreciate that. That quick run through was very useful, David, because we are pushed for time. To be fair, I do not think that anything was left out of your presentation. I have a few questions, and then I will open it to the floor. The permanent secretary was here — I am not sure when that meeting was — but he indicated that the planning group met only two times. You or the Department seem to have come up with a third occasion.

Mr Crabbe: I am aware of that. Three is the correct number; we have a record of three meetings.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Will you go back and correct the permanent secretary?

Mr Crabbe: He may have misremembered one of the meetings.

Ms Jackie Gregg (Department for Regional Development): Part of that was maybe down to me, because I made a log of everything that happened, and I forgot to highlight one of the meetings, so he maybe just lifted the two that were highlighted.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): You can remind him then. That is only nitpicking, to be honest. These things can happen.

You talked about being in daily contact with the permanent secretary and his finger being on the button. Was he scared to push that button? We got to a stage where there were almost 10,000 properties without water. Did he have a problem that meant he could not push the button? Were you concerned that the next escalation was not going to improve the situation? I was an outsider; thankfully, my water kept flowing. I am sure that, if the public were listening to your presentation, they would hear that the permanent secretary had his figure on the button and had been in daily contact. However, nobody pushed the button to try to escalate this. Why was that, David?

Mr Crabbe: First, obviously, a single household losing a water supply is a serious situation, never mind hundreds or, indeed, thousands. There are thresholds built into the major emergency response plan that dictate when, normally, a situation is escalated to the next level and when the civil contingencies kick in. It is a balanced judgement to make, but there are consequences to making that decision because it will invoke other agencies and it will put people out there.

This was always an evolving situation, and it was a resolvable situation right up until 23 December, when the negotiations broke down and we were faced with the situation of a prolonged holiday period when there would not be cover. We were also conscious that, post that — when we returned from the five-day holiday period when there was no cover — we were dealing with a 64-hour period of no cover, and that, as you ate into that period, there would be the potential that, come 8.00 am on Monday morning, it would be resolved quickly. I am very conscious not to talk about resources, value for money, or anything like that, but to ramp up too quickly and put a large amount of resource on standby unnecessarily, and to have to do that week after week, would not necessarily have been the most appropriate action. It was being handled, just about, within those thresholds. It did come close, I have to say. There were discussions where we did come close to thinking about escalating.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): You talked about a threshold, and now you are talking about coming close to it. It would be beneficial for us, as elected Members, to know that number. Let us hope that we never see another emergency event, but this is Northern Ireland, so we likely will, given the adverse weather that we have had in the past, which is beyond the control of anyone. What is that number, David?

Mr Crabbe: From memory, it is 20,000 households being without water for 72 hours.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): So it is almost double where we were at?

Mr Crabbe: Yes, although there were times — the potential was always there for that, and that is why I said that the finger was hovering over the button.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I think, for us, it was about not knowing the situation that would push it to the next stage. It is difficult for us to communicate as well. Whilst on this occasion I was not affected, previously, my area was affected.

I know that you were choosing your words very carefully when you were talking about money. I will have to choose my words very carefully as well, without being offensive. Delicate negotiations were going on, but the core issue for me — if it had been my area — and certainly for other members here, was our constituents who were without service. Given that, when we get into these negotiations, they could go either way and so the number of properties that are affected could increase, I am concerned that we were being held to task by the unions to a degree, and that they were really calling the shots as to whether the Department was going to escalate the situation or not. I do not think that that is a good place to be.

Mr Crabbe: It is not for me to judge whom to bless or who is to blame, but I would not disagree with your statement.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): You maybe dug yourself a hole by saying that, of course, because it is a very bad position for you to be the head of the water policy unit — sorry, the accountant —

Mr Crabbe: You have just promoted me.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): That is maybe more for you, Barbara.

Ms Gregg: I am Jackie.

Mr Crabbe: Barbara is coming later.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Sorry, I am reading the wrong one. It is neither of you. Maybe we need to get Barbara in now. Should we keep this one for Barbara? I think that I will. I will let you off with that one. I will not say that you are only the accountant because, in DRD at the moment, accountants — Sorry, I am still getting these mixed up.

Mr Crabbe: You are giving me skills that I do not possess, Chairman. I am accountable but not an accountant.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Right. I think that we will keep that for Barbara. That will be an interesting one.

Mr Lynch: It began with a crisis in my area of Fermanagh and then seeped into Tyrone and further down. David, are there any lessons to be learned? Different emergencies throw up different ways of doing things if situations were to arise again. Are there any lessons and action points for similar situations?

Mr Crabbe: Absolutely. There are always lessons to be learned, and we are always on a continuous improvement path towards where we want to get to. There are lessons to be learned from this particular incident. It is not for me to get into the detail of the infrastructural issues of how the water system is set up. That has partly been covered by Sara Venning and others from Northern Ireland Water. Yes, we take on board lessons learned. Indeed, the meeting of the emergency management group that we held on 29 January was precisely to look at lessons learned and see how we need to plan accordingly. There will be changes on account of that. We are quite prepared to learn those lessons.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I made a comment about being held to ransom by unions. I should also have said that the people who work for NI Water deserve a fair wage for what they do. Whilst I am making a broad statement about how the unions got to that position, I do not take away from the fact that the employees deserve decent terms and conditions at work. But it concerns me that the unions sometimes seem to have more importance than the folks who deserve a good service. I want to put that on record. There is no need to comment on that, David.

Mr Dallat: At what stage do you think the situation became critical? Was it when we witnessed the scenes of that poor woman scraping the snow off the roof of the car to boil water, or was it the elderly farmer carrying two buckets of water across a yard to keep his animals alive?

Mr Crabbe: Each of those situations is critical for the individuals involved. It is highly regrettable; there is no doubt about that. The Department has to look at the strategic context. That is where our role lies. The individual operational plans for Northern Ireland Water will seek to mitigate those circumstances as far as possible. As Mr Lynch mentioned, there are lessons to be learned. We have always talked about vulnerable people. Indeed, vulnerable animals and livestock need to be taken into account. That is one of the lessons that have emerged from this. In those instances, it is critical for one household, but Northern Ireland Water's operational plans would swing into play. We are dealing with a strategic level and threshold, and that is when we would look at the criticality of elevating them.

Mr Dallat: That incident shocked a lot of people and brought home to us how vulnerable we are in terms of our dependence on public services such as water. It has certainly left a concern and a worry about how dependable our utilities are. What lessons have been learned and, more importantly, why is there no policy on training? It seems to me, from my limited knowledge of emergency planning in the past, that training is absolutely critical to ensure that people are on top of it when it happens.

Mr Crabbe: In the Department, we certainly facilitate training, and we arrange training for senior officials so that they are aware of their roles and responsibilities. There is training available for others. I know that, for example, Northern Ireland Water sends people on training. There is an emergency planning college that looks at the handling of emergency situations.

Mr Dallat: Where is that?

Mr Crabbe: I am not sure; it is based in England.

Mr Dallat: Is that the place in Easingwold in Yorkshire? Sure, that is just for a week out and some craic. I am talking about real training.

Mr Crabbe: There are other training arrangements that can be made. For example, there are firms that provide advice and things like that.

Mr Dallat: I can just picture the scene. You are sitting in some cosy place like The Elk outside Toome, and you are having your lunch supplied and all that. I mean real emergency planning.

Mr Crabbe: I think that those days are gone.

Mr Dallat: Are they? I mean real emergency planning where perhaps even elected representatives might become involved and be knowledgeable about what your services are and how they can have some input. It seems to me that, in this particular case, Sara Venning as the chief executive is the only one who is capable of answering, or who was prepared to answer, any questions at all. The board of directors were hiding under the table and could not be seen. There are a lot of things to talk about on the outcomes and how the public were demoralised by what happened.

Mr Crabbe: I appreciate that. Obviously, I cannot answer for the board of Northern Ireland Water.

Mr Dallat: You must have some observations on how it performed.

Mr Crabbe: Our focus is very much on looking at —

Mr Dallat: It is leadership in an emergency situation that I am thinking about. Where was it? It was nowhere to be seen.

Mr Crabbe: Our focus was very much on looking at whether the actions that needed to be taken by Northern Ireland Water were taken. Broadly speaking, we felt that they were. Our broader communication with the public, not in every circumstance but broadly, achieved the aim that it set out to do. There are always lessons to be learned, and we are happy to look at improvements as and when we can.

Mr Dallat: I will stop at that because I know that we are running out of time. We are happy to look at improvements with our own eyes. We have had one of the worst crises that I have lived through, and I would like to see a detailed report on it to show what lessons have been learned from it and what plans there are for the future to make sure that the people who are responsible for handling emergencies are skilled and have the commitment to handle them. I do not want to see any lady again in Draperstown or anywhere else scraping snow off the roof of a car to get water.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I take your point, John. I think that there is a fair degree of people being irresponsible in how they handled this. For me, the worst incident was the previous one in about 2011, when there was the freeze/thaw. They were very slow to react then, and the country was coming to a standstill. The same point that you are making is there, John. We do not seem to ever learn stuff from this. Whilst we cannot predict the weather, I think that it is about getting the response right. We even had a small incident in December, when I was inundated with calls. I rang the call centre about the road gritting, and they told me that they were getting lots of calls and complaints about the gritters not being out, but they said that the gritters were out. There are obviously things going on. People expect a good service and, sometimes, they do not see it. We need to learn lessons. The principal point that you are making is there, John. You and I may differ on the detail, but the fact is that lessons definitely need to be learned about how we react to whatever the situation may be.

Mr Crabbe: We accept that.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I think that that is fair.

Mr McNarry: I endorse the points that John raised about the lessons learned. David, are you in a position to provide a copy of the report on lessons learned that you referred to and which the officials sat down and worked out?

Mr Crabbe: We are certainly happy to do that. We are still working through some of them, to be fair, and we are liaising with Northern Ireland Water and others on it. We will be happy to provide the Committee with a report on lessons learned from the incident in due course.

Mr McNarry: Can you include in that the actions that you will take as a result of the lessons learned?

Mr Crabbe: Absolutely.

Mr McNarry: From our point of view, as a Committee and as representatives, our constituents are asking us all these questions, so that would be very useful.

This issue arose when the NI Water CEO was here: is bringing in outside key workers — Scotland was mentioned to the Committee — still an option?

Mr Crabbe: Yes. There is a protocol whereby aid can be obtained from water companies from other parts of the United Kingdom. However, as I understand it — I am not an expert in this particular area — there were a number of issues. One was the technical nature of the plants. Some of the water treatment plants are highly specialised, so it cannot be generalists coming in to run them. The other issue, as the Chairman alluded to, was that it was an unusual situation because it involved industrial action. There may have been a reluctance from other trade union members in other organisations to be seen to be not strike-breaking but helping out in a situation that was purely an industrial dispute.

Mr McNarry: There was talk at the time about maybe bringing in the army or some other similar forces. Would the option of bringing in key workers be preferential to deciding to bring in the army?

Mr Crabbe: It would depend on each situation. The likes of the army were involved in the multi-agency calls. In these instances, they would be able to provide only generalist, although still useful, help, such as drivers for lorries or bowsers to deliver water — that sort of thing. When we get down to the key core skills, as I understand it, some of the treatment plants are intricate chemical works, and it takes a high degree of skill and training before somebody can be sent in to operate them. To some extent, help can be accessed from elsewhere. One of the rationales for having the multi-agency calls is to see when, where and how they could help out but, very often, it is at a generalist level and lower-level skills — if you call driving large lorries a lower-level skill. It is that type of level rather than the intricate detail. That is where we were a little bit hamstrung in this instance, where those key skills were needed.

Mr McNarry: It may not be within your pay scale — you seem to be quite refreshing here in front of the Committee, considering what we went through earlier —

Mr Crabbe: That sounds like a dangerous statement. Maybe I have been too refreshing.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I think that you are safe enough.

Mr McNarry: Up to now, you seem to be. I think that you should know this. It might be wrong of me to ask, but I need to know from somebody: do you know when the pay settlement proposed by the company will be announced?

Mr Crabbe: I can answer that quite honestly: I do not know when it will be announced. It is not within my remit. These things have to be approved by the Department of Finance and Personnel and others. I do not know what stage that is at.

Mr McNarry: I accept that you do not know. The people who took the industrial action then deferred it in lieu of the pay settlement, which they have to put to their people. How long would they be expected to wait before there might be some more industrial action?

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): David, I know that you are pushing that one, but Sara Venning is coming next week, and that is the area that we will cover. It would be unfair —

Mr McNarry: He might have inside information.

Mr Crabbe: I assure you that I do not. I do not even have to refuse you that information; I do not have it.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Like David, I would like to get that information. We have arranged for Sara Venning to come, so it would be unfair to push on that particular issue. Are you finished, David?

Mr McNarry: David and I have reached an agreement. I am finished.

Mr McAleer: My question is on the multi-agency response that the Department has responsibility for. I was very much involved in the crisis in January — not necessarily the Christmas crisis — because it affected the local area where I live. Along with other volunteers, I assisted the Red Cross and others in delivering emergency water supplies, but there was a gap in that we had great difficulty in getting a list of vulnerable people from the health and social care trust through to the local area. We were sitting with the supplies and the four-by-fours all ready to go, but the list never came through. We had to rely on local knowledge. How do you interface with the trusts and the Health Department?

Mr Crabbe: My understanding is that there is a coordinated approach. Northern Ireland Water, for example, holds a list of vulnerable people in the respective areas and will ensure that they get water, even in advance. It was reported to us that that was the case in this instance. In other emergency planning scenarios, there are arrangements for vulnerable people to be identified. Those lists are held and shared on that basis when they are required operationally. I do not know how freely those lists could be made available; there could be issues with that. The respective agencies do, however, have lists of where vulnerable people are. Of course, there are different categories of vulnerable people, including individuals, homes and hospitals. They are identified; I know that. We are satisfied that they are identified.

Mr McAleer: That was the point I was trying to make. NI Water supplied the emergency water. The Red Cross was there, having been approved to take possession of, or get access to, those lists, but the list did not come through. That is the point I am trying to make. I felt that there was a disconnect.

Mr Crabbe: I will have to take that back, Chair. I am not aware of that situation. Certainly, we will take that back and look at it.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Could you report back to the Committee?

Mr Crabbe: I will report back to the Committee on what happened.

Mr McAleer: It is just something to take note of for the future.

Mr Crabbe: That is fair enough.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I appreciate the difficulty with allowing anyone else to use those lists. Obviously, there are issues of confidentiality and data protection. But if the Red Cross was cleared —

Mr McAleer: The Red Cross was approved.

Mr Crabbe: I do not know what happened in that instance, but we will find out.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): That is a good point, and was well made, Declan. I have just one more point; I had never heard it until David referred to it in his response today. You said that you were speaking to the military. Did I pick you up right?

Mr Crabbe: They were involved in the multi-agency conference calls. There is a network of emergency planning agencies. Obviously, the red light — sorry, I beg your pardon; the blue light services — some of them do have red lights.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): I do not know where you were.

Mr McAleer: A Freudian slip.

Mr Crabbe: The Ambulance service, the Fire and Rescue Service and the Police Service are involved, as are the military, because they have civil contingency plans, which they can bring into action. Some are more suitable than others.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): How strongly would you consider using them?

Mr Crabbe: It is always a consideration; it is there. Depending on the skills that are required, or the plant that is required, they can be called in. It is a case of who is best available to help and who can do it. It is decided on a situation-by-situation basis.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Thank you, David and Jackie. That was very short, but I think that we covered all the issues. You can see the difference when someone is honest and frank with the Committee. You get a much easier time, I think. Maybe you should tell some of your colleagues that: come and tell us the truth.

Mr Crabbe: Thank you very much, Chairman.

Mr McNarry: Bring it up when do you do the training that you were talking about.

Mr Crabbe: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr Clarke): Thanks again.