CONFIDENTIAL
só
Chapter Three
arrangements at local level. These changes have important implications for the Department, in particular in the areas of Military Home Defence and nuclear, biological and chemical warning and reporting. Appropriate
adjustments to current defence provision are being examined. This will include a greater emphasis on an integrated emergency planning system for military aid to the civil authority in peace (see Military Tasks 1.4, 1.6,
1.7 and 1.8) and war, in parallel with similar changes being introduced by
the Home Office to provide a more cost-effective and responsive
framework.
Military Task 1.4: Provision of Military Aid to the Civil Power in the
United Kingdom and dependent territories
310. Military Aid to the Civil Power (MACP) is provided in the United Kingdom and dependent territories for the direct maintenance or
restoration of law and order in situations beyond the capacity of the civil
power to resolve in any other way. The military role is to respond to a
request for assistance, resolve the immediate problem and then return
control to the civil power. Any requests made are carefully considered to
ensure that the civil power cannot achieve their aim without military
assistance. MACP involves either specialist units - for example, bomb
disposal teams - with the necessary specialist support and lift, or forces
maintained for other tasks.
311. EOD teams provide MACP on a regular basis: during 1992, Service EOD teams were called to investigate 4,023 incidents outside Northern
Ireland (see paragraph [ ]), of which 2,951 involved conventional
munitions disposal, 80 were terrorist devices and 992 were false alarms or
hoaxes.
CONFIDENTIAL
4