By IRNA
London : Plans to set up a US-style national security council have been drawn up for Britain as part of a new approach to dealing with future threats and emergencies, it was reported Monday.
The proposal, drafted by the government’s Cabinet Office, would involve a group of veteran specialists, including retired defence and intelligence chiefs, advising Prime Minister Gordon Brown on all aspects of national security, according to the Times newspaper.
Brown was also urged in the proposal, expected to be published this week, to form a new management structure within the Cabinet Office which would be solely responsible for implementing the country’s response to a national emergency.
At present, there is said to be concern that there are too many senior civil servants and committees focusing on all the potential threats facing this country and British interests abroad, but that no individual at official level with an overall responsibility.
The advisory group, which could use expertise in the House of Lords, where there are currently five ex-chiefs of defence staff, would mirror the National Security Council in the US, where there is often a conflict with the Defence Department.
But according to the Times, government sources said there was no need to set up a national security council within government because the Prime Minister had already formed a new Cabinet committee that embraced all the relevant areas of ministerial responsibility.
The existing Ministerial Committee on National Security, International Relations and Development (NSID) is chaired by Gordon Brown and includes the Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Justice Secretary and Defence Secretary among others.
The daily said it would not also undermine or replace the existing Cobra system, the ad hoc emergency committee, that meets whenever there is a national crisis, be it a terrorist attack, flooding, foot-and-mouth outbreak or climate change.