Activity 5.3

Read Reading 18: Exercise ‘Nutcracker’. Reading 19: Exercise ‘Cloeth II’.

Introduction

The introduction should include information on the following:

• a general description of the type of exercise to be conducted;
• the location of the exercise (this may be in one building/room or at a number of sites depending on the type of exercise);
• the date/time of the exercise (these should not be detailed timings, rather they should identify the start and finish date/time of the exercise);
• the reason for conducting the exercise (think about the principle of ensuring a positive participant attitude that we covered in Topic 1);
• the authority for the exercise;
• participating organisations.

Exercise writing team composition

Whilst not essential to the Exercise General Instruction, a list of those on the writing team may well help develop exercise credibility with participants, especially if the team has been carefully selected on the basis of the factors we discussed during Section 1.

Aims and objectives

These will of course be those that you identified during the analysis activity.

Participating organizations

Here all you need to do is list the organisations that you decided during your policy meeting should be involved in the exercise.

Exercise format

The exercise format paragraph is not a detailed account of exercise events—this is covered later in the Event Schedule. Rather it is an amplification of the exercise type and explains such things as: the activation and possible location of EOC, the degree of deployment of resources, the degree to which external agencies are to be involved etc.

The format paragraph should also explain the exercise time, i.e. is the exercise to be conducted in real time or in a time compression mode?

Exercise appointments

In order to ensure that exercise control measures are effective and participant and organisational performance is monitored, there will be a need to appoint certain exercise control personnel, these should include:

Depending on the type and scale of the exercise, consideration should also be given to filling the following appointments:

• Damage Control Officers (for deployment/Operational Exercises (OPREX));
• Safety Officers (for deployment/OPREX);
• Scenario Coordinators (normally only appointed where the event schedule involves highly technical or complex control input).

Administration
and logistics

This paragraph should include reference to:

• Funding. Who is going to bear the cost of the exercise? Will each agency bear its own costs or will the agency running the exercise cover them?
• Dress. This will be most relevant where safety is an issue.
• Catering and accommodation. Who is arranging accommodation? Where is it? Where and when will meals be provided?
• Transport. If applicable, who is to provide transport, where will it be, when will it depart etc?

Co-ordination

The co-ordination paragraph should cover all relevant location and general timing details related to the exercise. It is not, however, an event schedule and does not cover exercise scenario timings. It should include the following information:

• Exercise duration. To include exercise start time, whether exercise will run continuously over its duration or whether there will be timed breaks in the exercise, i.e. an exercise that is planned to run over 48 hours in real time may be conducted during normal working hours only.

Location and timings of:

• Exercise control staff briefing. This is normally conducted about four days before the exercise starts and should be designed to provide all necessary information and answer any questions from the control staff in relation to their specific responsibilities.
• Exercise role players’ briefing. In some OPREX people will be required to play certain roles, i.e. injured or deceased at the scene of a major accident. These people will need to be thoroughly briefed regarding their reaction to participants’ actions and enquiries.
• Exercise participants’ briefing. In some complicated exercises it may be appropriate to conduct a participant briefing shortly before the exercise starts to ensure that all understand what is required.
• Exercise debrief. This should be conducted as soon as administratively possible after the end of the exercise. Further details about the way in which to conduct debriefs are contained later in this Section.
• Post exercise reports. If you see a need for participating organisations or specific umpires to produce written reports you should stipulate when you would like them completed.

Media

Depending on the nature of the exercise you may wish to involve the media either as observers to the exercise or through the issue of media releases to achieve some degree of public education and awareness. On the other hand, you may want to test the reaction of the media to information whilst not wanting them to actually broadcast it to the public. In this latter case, the media organisations should be included in your earlier identification of participating organisations. You should also cover these issues here.

Remember exercises that involve simulated accident scenes and the deployment of emergency services and other resources may cause unnecessary concern and alarm to the public if they are unaware of the event. Use of the media to publicise the exercise and thus hopefully mitigate the fears of the general public is a wis e move in these situations.

You will need to stipulate when media releases will be issued and who will authorise them, where media access to the exercise environment is allowed and reinforce the role of the Media Liaison Officer.

Safety

You will recall that when we considered the principles of exercise management in Section 1 we determined that the safety of the exercise would be enhanced by clear, concise and specific safety instructions.

Communication

This paragraph should cover the following information:

• what communication systems are to be used, i.e. radio, telephone, facsimile, etc;
• radio frequencies to be used and their allocation (if different from normal day to day frequencies);
• a list of telephone and other contact details for exercise control staff and ‘role players’;
• contact details of external agencies involved, i.e. the media.

Concluding paragraph

Finally, in your concluding paragraph to the Exercise General Instructions provide recipients with the contact details of the person they should approach if they have any questions. This would normally be the exercise coordinator.

Activity 5.4

Design - general instruction This activity will help you prepare for your assignment. You should keep a copy of all your answers in your learning portfolio, as they will form part of your assignment. Read Readings 18 and 19 Reading 14: Extracts from Australian emergency manual:Training management, Chapter 9, paras 9.25–9.28. Introduction Study the introductory paragraph in the two examples provided in Readings 18 and 19. Do you think that they provide sufficient information? If not, write down what information you believe is missing or could be enhanced. Consider your own exercise and see if you can draft an introduction to it, bearing in mind that you should be addressing the six aspects mentioned above. Once you have drafted this Introduction, save it for future reference and review. Exercise Format Study the exercise format paragraphs in the two examples provided in Readings 18 and 19. Whilst one is considerably longer and more detailed than the other, both amplify the introductory paragraph. In respect of your own exercise, develop an exercise format paragraph. Exercise Appointments Peruse the two documents, Exercise ‘Nutcracker’ and Exercise ‘Cloeth II’ in Readings 18 and 19 to see how many of the positions normally included in the exercise appointments have been specified. Comment on any ‘omissions’. Given the above roles and responsibilities, take a few moments to consider your own exercise and identify suitable people to fill the various appointments that your exercise will require. Administration and logistics Study the administration and logistics arrangements detailed in Readings 18 and 19 for the two example exercises. Once you have done this, think about your own exercise and draft sub paragraphs to cover any administrative or logistics matters you think are appropriate. Co-ordination Consider your own exercise and draft some coordination details based on the explanations above and the type of exercise that you will be conducting. Media Consider your exercise. Decide at what level you would like the media to be involved and draft an appropriate paragraph for the General Instruction. Safety List some safety matters that you might include for a deployment exercise/OPREX. What are some possible ways to improve the safety of the participants? Write down any safety directions that are applicable to your exercise. Communications Draft a Communications paragraph for your own exercise. Draft a Contact Details paragraph for your exercise coordinator. We have now completed our consideration of the main body of the Exercise General Instruction.

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Activity 5.5

Study the two example exercise instructions provided in Exercise ‘Nutcracker’ and Exercise ‘Cloeth II’ in Readings 18 and 19. Whilst they are obviously different to one another, there are certain types of information contained in both. Identify and list these. Consider your own exercise and draft a General Idea that provides a background for participants. Remember that not all participants may be familiar with the exercise environment. Study the Special Idea component of the two example exercises provided in Readings 18 and 19. Note that once again they are different in style and detail but that both contain some similar items of information. List these similarities. Draft a Special Idea for your own exercise and save it once you are satisfied with it.

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Activity 5.6

Read Reading 14: Extracts from Australian emergency manual:Training management, Chapter 9, paras 9.25-9.28. You will notice that the second paragraph briefly introduces the requirement for a Schedule of Events. The reading lists four questions that need to be answered in an Event Schedule. They are What is to happen? When is it to happen? Who is to make it happen? And how is it to happen? Study the example Exercise ‘Nutcracker’, Annex C, Sequence of events (including ‘Disease time-line’) in Reading 18. Identify whether the questions we listed above are covered in the annex. Was the information user friendly? If not how do you think the information could have been displayed better? Read Reading 20: Exercise ‘Watershed’ Reading 21: Exercise ‘Heavy landing’ Is the format of the information in these event schedules more or less user friendly than that of the Exercise ‘Nutcracker’? Do not worry about the abbreviations; merely consider whether the format is more user friendly. Why do you think that? Consider your own exercise and draft an Event Schedule for the first couple of events within your exercise. While there are a number of ways in which you can display the information, we recommend that you use the example contained in Exercise ‘Watershed’ as the basis for your assignment. The table below is based on that exercise. Let us look at the headings/questions we need to cover: Serial number. This is not essential but you may find it useful during an exercise to be able to refer back to a serial number in the control system. Time. This should be shown as a date/time. Event. This should not be too lengthy but should contain sufficient information for control staff to be able to understand the requirement. Who and how? It is possible to combine these two headings. For instance, it may be a specific role player (such as a media representative, requesting an on-air interview over the telephone). Equally it could be an exercise participant issuing a media release as a result of a previous event. Expected response. As previously stated this is especially useful when procedures are being tested. It is not mandatory but does provide a reference for controllers to identify when some expected response has not occurred. This might then lead to the provision of some prompt to the individual or organisation concerned to carry out that action so that the exercise may continue to flow. Event Schedule Exercise ____________ Serial Time Event Who? How? Expected Response

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