The National Safety Council of Thailand  NSCT

Role and Responsibility of NSCT

                The National Safety Council of Thailand (NSCT) was established in 1983 in order to help accomplished the national policy to reduce damages of live, property and environment. Anyhow a great numbers of accidents are still increased dramatically in Thailand which the fregency and severity of accident damage to national socio-economics situation drastically in every year.

                At present, the Bureau of the National Safety Council of  Thailand, Office of the Permanent Secretary, The Prime Minister’s Office which incharges of the policy and planning for accident prevention in accordance with Govemmental Policy and the National Socio-Economic Development Plan.

                NSCT have a committee called “National Safety Council” or NSC.

It consists of the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister designated by the prime Minister as chairman and also have committee members from several ministries concemed at the level of Permanent-Secretary to the ministries and have no more than 4 eminent persons appointed by the Cabinet.

NSC. Shall have functions and powers as follows;

                1) to propose the policy and major plan on National Safety for the Cabinet approval.

                2) to propose the guidelines for implementation and coordination of the approved policy and major plan by the Government agencies concerned.

                3) to submit recommendations and advice on the operation of the government agencies and any other problems related to National Safety to the Prime Minister or the Cabinet.

                4) to propose the opinion and remarks to the Prime Minister or the Cabinet on the requirement of new law or regulation or revision of the existing ones in relation to the National Safety.

                5) to coordinate and seek for assistant from aboard

                6) to support and promote public trainings, meetings or seminars on National Safety

                7) to make public relations on National Safety and other related matters.

                8) to follow-up and evaluate the implementation according to the policy and major plan

                9) to perform any other functions related to National Safety or public Safety as assigned by the Prime Minister or the Cabinet

                As regards the duty described in the first paragraph, NSC. My assign the office of NSC. To perform or act on its behalf.

                An office of the National Safety Council shall be set up within the office of the Permanent-Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office or in short “Office of NSC”, to act as  the NSC’s secretariat unit.

The Office of NSC. Shall have the following functions.

                1) to act as the central agency for the formation of policy and major plan on National Safety as well as the coordination, follow-up and evaluation of the practical results of the implementation by both public and private agency and report to the NSC.

                2) to support and promote the academic research, training and personnel development in relation to the National Safety

                3) to serve a center for information and statistics on National Safety.

                4) to coordinate or support the operation of other agencies concerning to or assigned to National Safety.

NSCT Policy

                National Safety Council of Thailand (NSCT) has policy on accident prevention devided into four kinds are traffic accident, occupational accident, accident in home and public place. We emphasized the importance of traffic accident and fires which has been set in the first order, by reason of such two kinds of accident frequently occurred more serious than other accidents. The statistics of road traffic accident in total country received from Information System Center, Planning and Budget Bureau, The Royal Thai Police Department in 1997 found that the occurrence of accidents are 82,336 cases, 13,836 people died, injured 48,761 persons and property loss 1,571,786,469 baths. From statistics of fire broke out totally of Police Fire Brigade, Metropolitan Police Bureau and Civil Defence Division, Department of Local Administration, Ministy of Interior in 1997 there are 2,698 cases occurred, 187 people died, injured 107 persons and property loss 1,473,663,790 baths. From such accident showed that two kinds of accident causing more severity both the loss of human life and property.

Result of NSCT implementation in the past.

                The National Safety Council of Thailand is established since 1983 and implemented its activity to campaign on accident prevention in various styes. During the first period, NSCT has campaigned to implant general people to have conciousness of safety by holding slogan “Safety First”. Later, we have distributed knowledges and understanding in accident prevention to the public classified in group of various professions including pupil, student, community leader and owner of the workplaces in forms of training course, seminar, exhibitions, making public relations by channel of mass communication in various branches. Moreover, NSCT has also encouraged other involved agencies both public and private sectors to implement their activities on safety promotion. Besides that, NSCT has compiled information and accident statistics including research study promotion with regard to accident prevention. In this connection, NSCT acted as a Secretarial Sub-Division has conducted the research study and collected statistics into analysis in order to search the fact and occurring problem situations. It shall be utilized in setting measures, proposal or policy submitted to NSC board and the Cabinet. Formerly, NSCT has taken part in encouraging the law enforcement and Cabinet resolution issued as followings :

                                - Law enforcement to driver and passenger on motorcycle to wear safety helmet

                                - Law enforcement to driver and passenger on vehicle to use safety belt

                                - Act of the Protection for Motor Vehicle Victims

                                - Act of safety measure in using footpath of pedestrians (12 April, 1983)

                                - Act of setting up symbol and signal for construction work, repairing road (28 February,1984)

                                - Act of Policy and Master Plan on National Emergency (3 May, 1998)

                                - Act of accident prevention measure at water way and sea (11 August, 1992)

                                - Act of fire prevention measure in dry weather period (11 January, 1994)

                                - Act of  fire prevention and extinguishing (25 February, 1997)

                                - Act of fire prevention guideline and relief in buildings (15 July, 1998)

Future Plan and Activities

                Since the occurrence of accidents the loss of people’s lives and properties or the environment have been increasing both in its severity and complexity, especially the damages from fires and traffic accidents. The Prime Minister and the Thai Government have realized on this important matters and decided to take a strong action to improve the national capacity in order to prevent, mitigate and respond to all kinds of accidents effectively. In accordance with this vision the Emergency Management Committee was recently established within the National Safety Council of Thailand. The Committee is chaired by Commander in Chief and consists of the representatives from all concerned agencies, both public and private as its members. The main missions are mobilizing the collaborated resources to deal with matters related to the accident prevention and relief operation. The Committee proposed an activity plan to be implemented both in short term and long term as follow:

                1. To set up the Information and Management Center at the Government House which will provide all data and information concerning the emergencies for the administrators and relevant bodies. All related data and information such as available personnel and equipment and expertise required in any emergency situation will be able to support the commander at all level in decision making process. In order to utilize the existing resources, the Committee proposed that the Disaster Control Center of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration should be developed and run as a pilot project during the Asian Games competition in December 1998

                2. The action plans of all bodies concerning emergency services are gathered and analyzed to avoid the repetitive works the concerned agencies.

                3. To activate the responsible authorities for emergency response and preparedness in Asian Games competition including the accidents and fire prevention, evacuation and mitigation.

                4. To coordinate and plan for the pilot project called “The Safety Road” which the program objective is to raise public awareness on road safety and traffic accident prevention and to strengthen the enforcement of traffic laws. The Highway Department is now planning for the targeted roads and the strategies for program implementation.

International Cooperation

                Since the emergency services can be managed successfully, it sometimes may requires to seek for external cooperation among the regional neighbored countries, for instance when the forest fire has occurred in the boarder areas and affected several countries Moreover, the technology transfer between countries or regions is also needed to shared one’s experiences with others.

                In 1997, National Safety Council of Thailand (NSCT) received the assistance from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency through the National Safety Development Program to provide the technical support. The program for such a development was to improve the emergency services in Thailand by focusing on the mobilization of all national resources, improvement of public awareness, coordination and utilizing the available resources and international expertise in the process.

                Moreover, the high-ranking officers of the concerned organizations including NSCT were invited for a study visit to Japan and learned how to deal with emergency services more efficiently. In addition, NSCT also encourages its personnel to attend an international training programs and seminars to become better competence in the field

                For the coming year, a project of Feasibility Study on Public Safety in Thailand by American Public Safety Associates (APSA) are proposing for funding support from US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).

                Regarding the regional cooperation, NSCT was regarded as one of the contact points for APEC emergency preparedness.