Marine Operations Code for Ports: Bulletin No.32 (September 2001)

Bulletin No.32 - September 2001

Port Marine Safety Code

The Port Marine Safety Code was published on 13 March 2000 (ISBN: 1 85112 365 2) and is £10

Implementation

The Department will publish later a fuller account of responses to its most recent survey of all competent harbour authorities on expected progress by the end of the implementation period set by the Code at 31 December 2001.

Returns so far -

No. responding: 89

No. reporting completion: 6

No. reporting that they expect to implement on time: 82

The Department has so far identified only three small competent harbour authorities which have not made the required commitment to implement. There is a slightly larger number of authorities who are behind, either because they committed late for various reasons, or for reasons of force majeure (eg a serious accident to the harbour master). All but one of these is also small and all are committed to complete as soon as practicable. The Department has offered all as much support as possible.

This Bulletin is a first reminder to those who have yet to respond.

The Department asked implementing authorities about aspects of the way in which they had implemented; and about costs incurred: information on these items will be given when a fuller picture is available. In the meantime, advice is being given to individual authorities - and is available on request - on recurrent questions such as the nomination of a 'designated person'.

As already noted, the Department will not be prescribing a standard form for implementation reports, since the Code is sufficiently clear. The Department does not propose to prescribe the form in which authorities announce completion of implementation - the Code is sufficiently clear on what is required; but it is ready to offer advice if needed.

National Occupational Standards

Work has resumed on the development of assessment criteria for pilotage authorisation - with support from BPIT and Warsash Maritime Centre, including the identification of seafaring qualifications which may be taken to demonstrate particular competencies. It is still hoped to issue a draft for consultation by the end of October.

BPIT are actively engaged on the draft of national occupational standards for harbour masters. Work on VTS operators and PEC guidelines is pending.

Guide to Good Practice

The Department is consulting representative bodies on what is hoped to be the final version of the draft Guide to Good Practice and will review the outcome of this exercise with them at a meeting in October.

The latest version of the draft has been published on the Department's website (address as above). This is for information and to replace out-dated versions: general comment is not invited on this draft.

The Department would still like to include in the first edition a wide representative range of examples of points throughout the Guide and invites submission of these as soon as possible. Examples submitted so far are predominantly from a few authorities. More have come in but there is scope for many others. The aim of the Guide is to illustrate the diversity of the industry and the range of solution available for particular matters.

Representative bodies

A (half-day) meeting of representative bodies is to be convened on 19 October (date changed). It will be review progress across the Code project but be invited to concentrate on two items

• the outcome of the monitoring of harbour authorities at the 30th June 'waypoint'
• the final draft of the Guide to Good Practice, and in particular the sufficiency of examples.

Conferences

BPIT have arranged a conference Modern Ports - Modern Skills at IMarE in London on 12 September: details from eileen@bpit.co.uk (tel 01638 616161). There is a dinner the previous evening at which Gwyneth Dunwoody MP and Prof James McConville are expected to speak as guests. Speakers at the Conference represent the NTO National Council, DTLR, Inst of Logistics and Transport and IiP UK: it is a welcome opportunity to raise the profile of port skills and training issues.

The 10th UKHMA conference is at the same venue on 26 October: details from Victoria Collis (IMarE) (tel 020 7382 2655 - fax 020 7382 2667) - demand for previous events has been at capacity.

^{It will be noted that the Department's title, website and e-mail addresses have changed since the General Election. The names in e-mail addresses may also be separated now by a '.', although the former style ('_') is still accepted.}