The Department for Transport’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is aiming to develop a new database for marine casualties.
It is aimed at replacing the functions for UK operators of the European Marine Casualty Information Platform (EMCIP), one of the databases to which the UK will lose access on leaving the EU. It will be needed for MAIB to fulfil its international legal obligations and maintain core operations in investigating marine accidents.
The organisation has begun a procurement for support in developing the platform, aiming to have it in place by March of next year.
It has received the support of the Government Digital Service in mapping the current service, identifying stakeholders and touchpoints, and wants to provide access to data currently held on the EMCIP database.
The users are expected to be inspectors, investigation support officers and analysts in MAIB.
EMCIP provides the means to store information related to marine casualties involving all types of ships and occupational accidents. It also enables the production of statistics and analysis of the technical, human, environmental and organisational factors involved in accidents at sea.
The development points to one area in which the Government plans to create a new digital system to meet requirements post-Brexit, as opposed to pitching to maintain access to EU databases. Its white paper on Brexit plans, published last month, highlighted several areas in which the UK is aiming to maintain data sharing with EU member states. In some cases it has proposed to keep up information access arrangements.
Image by Jevgenijs Slihto, CC BY 2.0 through flickr
