Foreign Office to keep tabs on independent travellers

Sunday, 24 Nov, 2005 0

The Foreign Office is setting up online registration for independent travellers as it looks to make improvements to its crisis management.

The move follows a report which highlighted several flaws in the FCO’s handling of the Boxing Day tsunami.

FCO officials said while package holidaymakers are easier to track down in the event of an overseas disaster, independent tourists are hard to locate.

Consular services director Paul Sizeland said a database of travellers would at least give foreign office staff a “starting point.”

“We will encourage travellers to log their route, passport details and next of kin so at least we have a starting point,” he told TravelMole. “It enable us to contact relatives and be pro-active. We hope to have it up and running next year.”

In the report, compiled by the National Audit Office, the FCO were criticised for its immediate handing of the tsunami crisis with emergency call workers overwhelmed and too few medical personnel on the ground.

Only 36 staff were deployed to handle emergency lines which received 11,000 calls per hour, or three per second, the report said.

Some operators also had “little or no training” and sometimes supplied incorrect information “There were inaccuracies in people’s names and addresses, understandable given the massive volumes, but it still caused difficulties,” the report stated. “Initial information….was insufficient for the Metropolitan Police Service to carry out a proper missing persons enquiry.”

An online database would go some way to improving this situation, Sizeland said.

The FCO were also criticised for its slow response in Thailand where the bulk of British tourists were stranded. A rapid deployment team was instead sent to Sri Lanka and for a week after the tsunami, only one nurse, one doctor and one retired counsellor were patrolling 200 miles of the Thailand coast.

Permanent Under Secretary Sir Michael Jay said he was “proud” the way the FCO handled the crisis but admitted lessons will be learned. The report, he said, was “accepted in full.”

“There were people who did not get the level of support and we have apologised to them for that,” he said. “We will learn lessons.”

Report by Steve Jones