Mr. Brian Spain:

I would like to comment on that issue, following which I will ask the director general to do so. Generally speaking, civil defence is organised in each county. While as the Civil Defence Board we are responsible for civil defence at a national level, civil defence at a local level rests with the local county manager or city manager, as the case may be. There is a Civil Defence officer in each county, who is an official of the local authority rather than of the board, with responsibility for civil defence in their particular county. The local Civil Defence officer has various different methods of recruiting volunteers, some of which would be traditional and others of which would be dependent on the particular county in which he or she lives. In general, membership of the Civil Defence force is increasing, with a waiting list in many counties of people wishing to join. People either get involved in Civil Defence through family tradition, word of mouth or campaigns organised by a local Civil Defence officer. For example, I recently spoke to a local Civil Defence officer at a competition who had organised a campaign over a number of weekends in various shopping centres in the area through which he met people and encouraged them to get involved. That is one way in which people are recruited into Civil Defence. I will hand over now to Mr. Smith, who may wish to comment further on this issue.