Page 880 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011

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(11) Not applicable.

ACT Policing—specialist response and security business unit
(Question No 1568)

Mr Rattenbury asked the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, upon notice, on 17 February 2011:

(1) How many of the staff employed in the Specialist Response and Security Business Unit of ACT Policing are currently operational members of the Specialist Response and Security Tactical Response (SRSTR) teams, that is, excluding traffic officers and administrative staff.

(2) How many SRSTR teams are in operation.

(3) To which categories of incident do the SRSTR teams provide a first response, that is, in what circumstances is a SRSTR team dispatched immediately as opposed to a general duty police team.

(4) In what situations are general duty police officers attending an incident required to call in assistance from a SRSTR team.

(5) Are the SRSTR teams on 24 hour call out readiness; if not, what times of the day are they able to respond to incidents.

(6) Do police teams responding to incidents, both SRSTR and general duty police, have defined time limits within which they are required to resolve the incident; if so, what are those time limits.

(7) In relation to the arrangements ACT Policing have with the Crisis Assessment and Treatment Teams (CATT) in ACT Health, (a) does ACT Policing request members of CATT to attend incidents instead of a police response; if so, what categories of incident are dealt with in this way, (b) does ACT Policing request members of CATT to attend incidents in partnership with a police response, for example, CATT and police attend at the same time; if so, what categories of incidents are dealt with in this way and (c) what guidelines or memorandums of understanding cover CATT involvement in instances covered by parts 7(a) and 7(b).

Mr Corbell: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:

(1) SRSTR currently has 36 operational members, one Tactician Sergeant, who is tactical response (TR) trained, and two vacant positions. This does not take into account members who are on the books who may be carrying an injury or illness and not operational at a particular time.

(2) SRSTR currently consists of four operational teams and one training team. All these officers are available for deployments.

(3) SRSTR do not generally have a first response obligation. In the event of a serious incident that involves firearms or other weapons or a life threatening incident, if an SRSTR team was on duty they would generally be notified and respond at the same time as the general duty (GD) patrol team. Due to the geography of Canberra, it is highly likely that the GDs patrol team would be the first to arrive at an incident.


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