New structure enhances Rock’s response to security threats and emergencies

A new command and control structure has been put in place to enhance Gibraltar’s security and emergency response capabilities, in a development that also signals a maturing constitutional relationship between the British and Gibraltar governments.

The newly created Gibraltar Contingency Council combines the roles of the Gibraltar Security Council and the Civil Contingencies Committee under the joint chairmanship of the Governor, Lieutenant General Edward Davis, and Chief Minister Fabian Picardo.

The Governor had no role in the civil contingency committee prior to this. Conversely, the Gibraltar Government had no role in the context of a developing security situation.

The revised structure acknowledges that civil emergencies and security threats can easily overlap, requiring the Gibraltar Government and the Governor to be in a position to fulfil their respective constitutional roles swiftly and effectively.

“The reality is that we have to support each other and the constitutional roles are created to support each other, but the structures that existed were set up almost with their backs to each other,” Mr Picardo said, adding that this was something he had “wrestled with” since he was first elected.

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