Emergency search and rescue services

It’s not just the police, fire and rescue, and ambulance services who are called upon in an emergency. A wide range other land and maritime based emergency services provide vital support.

Responder categories:

Under the Civil Contingencies Act, local responders are divided into two categories, imposing a different set of duties on each.

Category 1 responders (‘core responders’) are those organisations at the centre of the response to most emergencies (i.e. emergency services, local authorities, NHS bodies).

If not already members, these organisations are all eligible to join either the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) covering England and Wales, or the One Scotland Mapping Agreement (OSMA).

Category 2 responders (‘co-operating bodies’) are less likely to be involved in the heart of planning work, but will be heavily involved in incidents that affect their sector so will need to co-operate and share information with Category 1 responders. Examples include transport and utility companies.

Most of these organisations are not eligible to join either of the public sector agreements (PSMA and OSMA), but their Ordnance Survey licence can allow them to share data with members of those agreements. For more information about the ‘infrastructure’ licence click here.

How are these organisations included in agreements?

The public sector agreements have allowed for limited flexibility with the eligibility criteria for membership where there is mutual agreement between Ordnance Survey and government. For organisations involved in emergency response, this is the case where we have agreed that the other contributing members of the UK Search and Rescue (UK SAR) can become members where they clearly require precise geographic data in order to locate people who are in difficulty.

Examples include:

Association of Lowland Search and Rescue (ALSAR)
British Cave Rescue Council
Maritime and Coastguard agency (MCA)
Mountain Rescue (for England and Wales and Scotland)
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI®)

UK SAR members update (Dec 2012)

Full details of all members were previously provided by the UK Sar site [http://www.dft.gov.uk/topics/uksar/] however this page has now been discontinued.

Please Note: Ordnance Survey is aware this page/link has been discontinued and we will provide replacement information as more information is available.

Other organisations:

We also know that there are many other organisations – often sustained through charitable funding – who are frequently asked to assist in these emergencies. Through detailed research and discussions it has been found that, albeit these other organisations do provide some support in emergency situations, the manner in which they are involved and managed varies. The scenarios can be categorised as being:

A ‘formal’ contractor relationship with a member of either the PSMA or OSMA - that may include other operational responsibilities
Being called in by a member of either the PSMA or OSMA as an additional 'immediate' emergency responder
Being called in later on to provide additional support to another responder

If you are one of these ‘other’ organisations, the likelihood is that you will not be eligible to join either of the public sector agreements.

However, a member of either the PSMA or OSMA can provide you with the required information, in the form that they want you to use, under the terms of their PSMA or OSMA licence. Note: This provision could be under either a ‘Contractor’ licence or an ‘End User’ licence.