Posted By Paul Leadbetter Kim On whose behalf would they be working as a volunteer; the City of London Corporation, yourselves, or...? Paul

Posted By steve e ashton Kim, It may cause some reluctance in potential volunteers if it appears they will not be covered by their employers' insurances (public liability / employers' liability, professional indemnity...) I suggest you query this with your insurers, and if they are agreaable, put a codicil into each volunteer's job description to the effect that they may occasionally undertake duties associated with their role as volunteers under the emergency plans in place. Make it clear to everyone that whilst they may be doing something not part of their routine duties, they are undertaking the 'volunteer work' in the course of their employment... Unless, of course, you plan to dock their wages whenever they are absent from work on emergency duty? Or insist they take annual leave to cover.... In which case you may find it even harder to get volunteers.... In a previous Local Authority, we required all volunteers to be covered by their employers' insurances and to be paid for the periods they spent in contingency training and in any actual incident. For managers, this generally meant allowing time off in lieu where appropriate, for manual workers, it included an element of paid overtime. Hope this helps Steve

Posted By Laurie Liam The key phrase in your response is "carrying out these duties competently". If a baker uses a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon we would end up perhaps with some salty scones. If a doctor uses milligrammes instead of microgrammes we would end up perhaps dead. Are either, neither or both carrying out their duties competently? It is this which keeps the lawyers in business. We are all human, but unfortunately these days a genuine simple mistake is seen as gross negligence for which somebody must pay. Laurie

Posted By Edward H For any matter relating to emergency planning / preparedness I would seriously recommend speaking with the information centre at the government Emergency Planning College at Easingwold, Yorks [www.epcollege.gov.uk ] They have a comprehensive library of guidance and papers and I am sure will have dealt with this type of concern before.