CONFIDENTIAL HOME OFFICE . House, Dean Ryle Street, LONDON S.W.I Telex: 24986 Telephone: 01-834 6655, ext. Our reference: -mL/65 410/2/8 Your reference 16 April 1973 Dear Sir I HOME OFFICE CIRCULAR no 69 /?l973 MUTUAL AID - on" On 26 Hay last year I sent you a Secret letter which described the arrangements, made in consultation with ACPO and the Commissioner of Police of the HetrOpolis, for the provision of mutual aid on a large scale in certain contingencies. Since then, there have been several instances when the arrangements have been invoked and have enabled potentially difficult situations to be dealt with successfully. In addition there have been further consultations in the light of experience and of the material in the replies to my letter. The purpose of this letter is to bring you up?to-date with the present arrangements. For ease of reference this letter cancels mine of 26 Hay last year; the points in that letter which are still relevant are in substance repeated below. General considerations 2. There are three types of contingency which might sensibly be kept in mind when we consider the need for some agreed machinery and procedures for mutual aid on a large seals; these are:? . SituatiOns which developed locally where a chief officer saw the need to call for additional manpower to maintain "law and order?. HHG might decide that certain objectives (eg the delivery of supplies to one or more power stations) had overriding priority because they needed to be secured in the national interestl In certain circumstances the task involVed might be foreseen and there would be time (albeit short) to pre-plan the operation, but probably under the most stringent conditions of security. The Operation could well affect a number of police areas. As in but when the requirement was to mount an Operation to meet a fast developing situation with little or no warning and certainly insufficient time to arrange careful pre?planning. 3. In these situations, whatever other arrangements are made, the direction and control of police operations would continue to be the responsibility of individual chief officers of police. Evidently, there will continue to be some purely local situations where a chief officer of police calls for mutual aid from his neiehbour. The ordinary arrangements for these situations are unaffected by this circular. Sometimes, however,the pressure on the chief officer who is directly responsible for operations will be so great that there will be a need for someone else to co-ordinnte requests for reinforcement. It has been agreed that this task would be undertaken,according to the seriousness of the situation, either by the Jiregional Police Commander (Designate) who would, be agreement with the chief officer concerned, assume the responsibility far co-or needed by any force in Scanned by CamScanner CONFIDENTIAL his (CD) region or by a national reporting centre. The fact that a Regional Police Commander(Desisnuto)needed to call on forces outside his own region for help would not necessarily lead to the activation of the centre, but in certain circumstances it might turn the scale. b. If it becomes necessary to activate the national reporting centre. either fully or for information purposes only (possibly as a preliminary to full activation)? the decision to do so will be taken by the home Office. in consultation with the President of ACID if time permits. Because of the Home Secretary's accountability on police matters and because of the possible need for advice from other government ??P?rtm0nts. this centre would have to be in London - New Scotland Yard in the obvious place. The Commissioner has agreed to provide accommodation, communicationn and staff and has made the necessary plans. There would be no question of the national reporting centre exercising any command over policv forces but there would be a need for one person to be "in charge? at the centre in order to appraise the chancing situation and make requests to chief constables when assistance was needed. It has been agreed that this would be the President of or his nominee. In addition an HMI would be present in the centre to represent and report to the Home Secretary. 5. The role of the Regional Police Commander (Designate).cncc the centre has been activated, cannot easily be forecast. 1n some circumstances it might be desirable that he should continue to conordinate matters within his region; while in others it may be better for the centre to deal direct with individual chief constables. It Will clearly be necessary for the officers at the centre. in consultation with the Regional Police Commander (Designate)yto decide on the appropriate arrangements and promulgate them. Codewords 6. Last year the codeword LUDDITE was taken into use in connexion with mutual aid operations on a large scale. In future the codeword DRAFPSHAN will be unei in connexion with mutual aid Operations which involve co-ordination either by a Regional Police Commander (Designate) or by the centre. The codeword SURPRISE will be uSed to announce the activation of the national reporting centre. Specimen messages are included in the Annex. . Planning 7. The ACPO Council has agreed two general principles as a basis for planning. First. when assistance is provided the host force should provide food and accommodation. Transport should be provided by the force supplying the assistance. And second. in an emergency it is possible to abandon, for the time being, much routine police 'patrolling, to extend the working day, and to employ special constables in areas and on duties from which regular police have been wholly or partly withdrawn. If this is done, substantial numbers of police can be made available for emergency duty and mutual aid. Regional Police Commanders (Designate) and the national centre hold information about the number of police support units which each force can provide for nmtual aid on the assumption that its own area is free of trouble. Logistic supnort from the Armed services 8. We have consulted the Ministry of Defence about the provision of logistic support by the arnmd forCcs, in particular with regard to accommodation, feeding and transport. The Ministry has advised that in any each instance it would be advisable for the police to apply in the first place to the local Army District Headquarters. Because there may be occasions when the provision of help would be politically sensitive. the Ministry has not been able to delegate to district headquarters authority to meet any requests that are receivedgbut they would expect that HOD authority would in the event be given with little delay. In the matter of both accommodation and transport it can be ssumcd that the services'would be prepared to offer the police as much assistance as it is in their power to give; and those forces which have not already done so might find it useful to keep a record of what facilities may be available in their area. But there CONFIDENTIAL scanned by CamScanner . CONFIDENTIAL very little spare transport capacity; and it would therefore be unwise to has on the assumption that service transport would be available. It will be necessary the MOD to recover the cost of any services provided to the police. Qperational intelligence and situation reports 9. As to reporting1 there are already arrangements under which forces report to One another operational intelligence e.g. about the movements or eXpected movements of demonstrators or pickets.? Once the reporting centre is activated whether fully-or for information only it is requested that forces should repeat information of this kind to the centre. In addition the centre will need to receive situation reports from the chief officer of police for any area in which Operations to deal with disturbances are taking place or are imminent. These reports should be made twice daily: at the end of the day (18.00 hours) and at noon. The chief purpose of the report enable the national reporting centre to assess the situation and consider what deployment is desirable for the following day. One reason for the noontide report is to enable the Minister concerned to give an up-to-date report to .Parliament. All such reports should be repeated to the Regional Police Commander (Designate) unless instructions to the contrary are given. Communications-- 10. The communications requirements have been found to consist,in the main, of the following:- - - A UHF scheme for the control of Operations at the incident. This should be on a frequency other than that used for the ordinary policing of the area; and it should not be assumed that the incident will be within the area covered by the static UHF scheme. Personal radios on the scale of one per inspector and sergeant in each PSU plus those for senior officers at the scene. A suitable mobile set is the W15U. One or more of these sets is held by practically every force in the Home Office scheme and there are some spares at regional windess depots. It is desirable that, from the time when come within 50 miles of the incident the force headquarters should be able to direct them by VHF. A suitable set for this purpose is the AF 101, a batterypoweredtransmitter/ receiver which can be set to operate in any frequency in the police mobile bands. This is a versatile equipment which can quickly be fitted to, for example, a police or hired coach. (0) when PSUs are travelling from a distance it will often be helpful to establish a rendezvous point where the PSUs can be met by_vehicles of the host force and - then escorted. This would be particularly useful if direct VHF communication was not possible and in circumstances where, by the time the PSU's arrived, their precise destination needed to be changed. Those forces which have not already made arrangements to meet the requirements described and are advised to consult the Area Senior Wireless Lngineer as soon as possible. He will also of course help whenever an immediate operational need arises. Security 11. Since my previous letter the security considerations have changed. It is common knowledge that the arrangements for mutual aid are under constant review. Details about any general or particularscheme should continue to be classified "Confidential"; material about some projected onerations (0.3. such as those referred to in paragraph 2(ii) or of this letter) will probably need a higher classification; but the broad aspects of the subject need no longer be classified. The two codewords DRAFTSHAN and COHPRISE are unclasified. They are defined in the annex to this letter; the definition of DRAFTSMAN is unclasified and that of COMPRISE is ?Restricted". consumer I . - Scanned by CamScanner comaoem?nm. Training 12. It is clearly desirable that members of should be trained and a nunber of forces have found it helpful to train the members of each PSU together' It 15 Usuelly best to do this discreetly on police property but it is not necessary t? be secretlve_.i about the fact thattraining in crowd control techniques is being undertaken. Summagx . 13. For ease of reference, the Annex contains a summary of some of the salient points in this letter. :7 -Yours faithfully 5% As er CONFIDENTIAL Scanned by CamScanner 5. V-r _-mm CONFIDENTIAL Annex MUTUAL AID Codewords DRAFTSHAN - Mutual aid operations between police forces in England and Wales (Codeword and meaning unclassified) COMPRISE - The national reporting centre at New Scotland Yard. used in connection with DRAFTSMAN, has been activated (Codeword unclassified; meanin "Restricted?). Specimen message: COHPRISE ACTIVATED FOR INFORMATION ONLY FROM (Date and time)? or DRAFTSMAN 00393153 FULLY FRCM (Date and time)" Reports Once the national reporting centre has been activated, whether fully or for information only, the following reports should be sent to it, preferably by Telex:- Qperational intelligence: renOrts of movements of demonstrators or pickets a. should be reported by originators to the centre. Chief constables' situation reports: situation reports and assessments of deveIOping situations should be sent twice daily, at 12.00 and 18.00 hours- to the centre. Telex and telephone numbers National reporting centre (1) Telex 919877 (11) Telephone ACPO representative and HMI 23o - 3925 General office 230 - 2106 to 2109 - Logistic support and administration Assistance from the armed Services. Requests for logistic support from any of the Armed Services should be made in the first instance to the appropriate Army District Headquarters. Mobile toilets. The Navy and the RAF have small quantities of Elsan closets, but do not hold large stocks. Mobile toilets can be hired commercially from Ltd: Essex Distributors (Colchester) Ltd: and Purle Haste Diaposal (London) Ltd; and doubtless from other suppliers. CONFIDENTIAL Scanned by CamScanner