Tactics, command, leadership

matter or in certain types of matters, can for various reasons
want to commission someone else, a so­called delegate, to
make certain decisions. A smoothly functioning organisa-
tion requires that decision­making rights not be concentra-
ted to a single central entity or a single person. By distributing
decision­making rights to the person or persons who have the
best opportunity to survey the consequences of a decision, one
gains a more effective organisation, and quicker and simpler
decision channels. The central entity can focus on general and
principle issues, while issues that are often recurring, of a rou-
tine character, or that require some form of surveyability or
knowledge of details, are decided upon at a lower level. Issues
of a more general nature can concern, for example, decisions on
the degree of preparedness in a municipality or how resources
will be moved or distributed depending on, among other things,
the risk profile in the municipality, for example, when several
operations are underway at the same time and one simultaneo-
usly wants to maintain a certain preparedness so as to deal with
any other alarms that are received. Also included here is making
assessments so that the needs of assistance that arise during emer-
gency response operations are satisfied. Decisions that more con-
cern individual response operations or even limited portions of a
response operation can, for example, concern which task or tasks
will be prioritised by a full suit firefighting team, such as sealing
leakage or cleaning up released chemicals.
A fundamental rule is that the individual or entity that sur-
renders decision­making rights cannot divest itself of responsi-
bility. That which is delegated is only the authority to make
decisions in certain matters. The responsibility for these de-
cisions always remains with the entity that decided on the de-
legation. In conjunction with work at an incident site, this
can entail, for example, that the person delegating a decision­
making right must ensure that the person receiving this
delegated decision­making right has the competence and the
equipment required for the task at hand. The delegation would
otherwise be rather pointless. A reflection in this context is that
some form of resource is needed for a municipal structure for pro-
viding rescue services to be able to resolve the problems it is con-
fronted with. It is thus not enough to be responsible or to make
decisions in certain matters; one must also actually resolve the
problem at hand, i.e. the emergency, by conducting certain types