Operational Commander, Bronze Commander

The command structure at incidents has for a long while been designated by the terms Bronze, Silver and Gold.
These have been reviewed and renamed to better reflect the role each position plays in the overall management of an incident.

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These titles should begin to be used and become the norm. The new command guidance from NARU and information from JESIP  all use these these titles.

So what do they mean?
The Strategic commander is in overall control of the organisation's resources at the incident. This person will not be on site, but at a distant control room, or command suite where he or she will formulate the strategy for dealing with the incident. If the strategic commanders for various organisations at an incident are not co-located, they will be in constant touch with each other by video conference or telephone.

The Tactical Commander manages tactical implementation of the strategic direction given By the strategic commander and makes it into sets of actions that are completed by The  operational commander.Depending on the organisation, they may or may not be at scene: Fire tend to be, police tend not to be; however this is a dynamic decision. Other organisations make their own decisions although many are encouraged to attend or send a representative to the police-led multi-agency silver command as detailed in the CCA.

This could be located in a command vehicle at or near the scene or a remote building such as the police HQ. There is a common misconception that all blue light services share one big control room and emergency control centre. This is generally not the case.

A Operational commander directly controls an organisation's resources at the incident and will be found with their staff working at the scene. A commander or representative from each agency will be present and take direction from their organisation, with the overall effort aimed at working together, saving life and reducing harm.

If an incident is widespread geographically, different operational commanders may assume responsibility for different locations or different parts of the incident. They still remain under the control of the tactical commander.