Strategic

Strategic command is involved in making plans or strategies in the order to decide on the best way to achieve an organizations objective. For the public services this could be plans and strategies for thing such as war, combating terrorism, reducing crime or dealing with a major incident. In the public service strategic command usually involves several chiefs/commanders of different uniformed services as some plans can affect more than one service e.g. war in Iraq and Afghanistan as it war which involves all the armed services so the Navy, Army, and RAF. Strategic command is also known as Gold command this is normally based a very big distance from the incident e.g. for the armed services strategic/gold command would normally be located at Whitehall in London.

Tactical

Tactical command also known as silver command is involved in implementing the plan (putting plan into action), there may be several tactical/silver commanders when more than one service is involved, they are responsible for making sure that their service knows the strategy and how to put them into operation. Tactical/silver command is not hands on their involvement is more of coordinating role in a conflict situation it is important that they remain detached, they are normally located just a little bit away from the front line.

Operational

In a conflict situation this would be classed as the front line where operational/bronze command would deploy and control the resources of their respective services. Operational/bronze command does all the hands on stuff there are the people who do all the stuff so if a plan is made they are the people/troops that get moved around and carry the tasks out so that the incident can be solved in the best way possible.

When in command planning is essential explain the following mnemonic:

SMART

Specific

Objectives must be specific and clearly set out. Objectives that are unclear are hard to follow and could be ambiguous. For a bad example, have an area totally cordoned off.

A good example cordon off an area of about 400-500 meters around the crime scene.

Measurable

Objectives are to be measurable so that you can gauge the progress of your plan and see how far you have gone towards achieving your goal. It you cannot measure progress you can’t tell if you are still on the right track.

Achievable

Objectives must be achievable or there would be no point in setting them as goals. When something is achievable it means it is capable of being completed. This could motivate someone to work harder. If however it is impossible it could be bad for morale and motivation so people won’t even try to accomplish the task.

Realistic

Objectives must be realistic which means you must be reasonable about what you want to achieve. If you set your aim to high it might not be realistic. You and your team may feel like failures if you objective is out of reach.

Time-related

Objectives must be achievable over a certain period of time. Success can’t be measured if there is no time limit on your objective. Your time limit must be realistic though so it can be completed in the time you have set.

Briefing is essential when in command, Explain what a briefing is

A briefing is an instruction given for a task or operation, briefings in the uniformed public service is very important because a pilot on a bombing run needs precise grid reference so that he only hits the enemy positions and not men on the same side as him

Explain the following mnemonic:

SMEAC

Situation

Explain the problem/situation that has happened e.g. hostage situation who involved where, how etc.

Mission

What is going to happen to solve the situation, giving out roles and task for people to do.

Execution

How will the task be carried out time and a reminder of roles might be talked about so everyone knows what to do and if so how long they have to do it.

Any questions

In this stage it is where the service can ask questions so that they a clear view of what to do any anything they are not allowed to do so that they do the task well and while causing the least amount of trouble as possible, this helps the people in the service feel confident so that they have a clear understanding of the task and the roles that they must do.

Check understanding

This is where the person giving the mission briefing ask what people are doing so that he knows that they are sure on what to do this is a good way to check if people are certain on what they need to do to complete task asked of them.