![](https://emergencyservicestimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ESS-Button-resized.png")
National NILO coordinator Patrick Goulbourne opens up about the world of the National Inter-agency Liaison Officers and shares why someone would want to go through the tough recruitment process to put themselves at the front of major incident response. He says they require swift decision making skills but need improved secure mobile communications technology to be what he calls, ‘the selfless part’ of the emergency services
NILOs exist in all emergency services, they are vetted security cleared responders who deliver a multi-agency, intelligence-led response to high threat, counter terrorism, national security and major incidents.
As well as being the National NILO coordinator, Pat is an Assistant Commissioner with London Fire Brigade. He responded to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and has extensive experience in incident command and that makes him perfect for this important national role.
He explains how a NILO operates. He says that for any high threat incident the NILO should automatically get a call from the control room. Their job is not only to ensure their own agency responds, but establish who is the right person with the right intelligence to liaise with among other partner organisations.
“We treat the NILO like the selfless part of the emergency services.”
NILOs from across the country met at The Emergency Services Show to talk about the key issues they face. Pat says it is important for them to meet like this, face to face and share learning and expertise. He says it is vital that all NILOs know who their opposite number is in the partner agencies in their area. “Make your friends before you need them,” he advises. He’s also the deputy chair of the London Resilience Forum, so he’s practising what he preaches in his day job too.
“The changing risk picture keeps us up at night. We have a job to keep up with the pace of that change.”
Like many of the emergency services, NILOs face the challenge of keeping pace with new technology and Pat talks about the need to know what’s available and to have access to funding to make that investment when budgets are under stress.
“I feel that for the operating environment we have, the quicker we can improve our mobile secure communications the better. NILOs need to be able to speak to each other securely. It’s a real challenge: we need secure comms where we are confident that the information is protected.”
Pat talks about a recent investment in technology to assist with another need: immediate alerting. “We’ve teamed up with Blackberry and we are using their AtHoc product. We can alert NILOs immediately to any incident around the country; it can override silent settings on their phones and when we need such a fast response, this is invaluable to alert to any high threat incident.” He says that the Blackberry product provides a level of assurance and certification for the protection that NILOs need to carry out their work. “It’s working really well for us,” he adds.
He offers an example to demonstrate how this works in practice. He talks about the riots that spread across the UK during the summer.
“Within three minutes of alerting all of the NILOs, we had an immediate response from the whole of the UK and within five minutes we had put them on to an urgent briefing by me, including every region and devolved administration, about the latest picture of civil disorder nationwide.”
We expand on this example to talk about the murder of three young girls in Southport that preceded the riots and my recent interview with Chief Fire Officer Phil Garrigan who said the response to that tragic event showed that learning from earlier incidents had worked.
Pat responds, “We have to be learning organisations but take that learning and turn it into action and change our procedures. What you saw at Southport and other incidents this year had NILOs responding very quickly; control rooms informing the NILOs and a multi-agency NILO conversation taking place quickly to ensure the right response.”
Helping that joined response to work is the regional structure in place across the country with NILO leads from all agencies. Pat says that the country is split up into 12 regions, with NILO boundaries replicating counter terrorism boundaries so there is synergy between agencies.
Interface between NILOs and control rooms
Most NILOs have tried and tested methods of communicating with their own control rooms but Pat says they are now delivering what he calls ‘ground breaking’ training for National Control Liaison Officers. This in direct response to a recommendation from Sir John Saunders inquiry report into the Manchester Arena bombing.
With 25 NILOs from all agencies going through the training course in Northamptonshire while Pat talks to me at The Emergency Services Show, he says that next door to them, there are 15 control room officers training too. They are liaising and training together.
He says the training is new and he would like it to be adopted across the UK. “It is our desire that someone with that level of training is in every control room. It makes our working so much more efficient as a result.”
JESIP principles
There are just over 1000 NILOs UK-wide. Pat says that attrition is low because it’s such an interesting role. “It’s pretty full-on getting a NILO qualification,” Pat shares as he explains how someone from the emergency services can become a NILO. There is a person specification and applicants need to be an experienced commander already before they can be considered for the gruelling assessment process. “There is no other capability that puts commanders, tactical advisers together in an intensive two week course where they can learn from each other.”
“What we’re finding is that modern commanders and tactical advisers really enjoy multi-agency working, delivering the JESIP principles and they want to work with their partners. Ultimately when the public face the most critical threats, that’s where they want to be.”
He expands on the point about JESIP in the light of the new national leadership under David Boyle who also spoke to me at the show. “It’s an exciting time and as the national coordinator for NILO, I really accept and support what JESIP is delivering. While NILOs do something slightly different in terms of the complex environments they operate in, the JESIP principles are a theme that run NILO work and are an element of the CPD that they must maintain.”
Martyn’s Law
We conclude our conversation by talking about Martyn’s Law, which the new Labour government has now introduced into Parliament to start its legislative journey onto the statute books.
“Figen Murray is an amazing friend. Every NILO course has a video of Figen talking about Martyn; it’s important to remember why they do this role. No one expresses that better than she does.”
He admires her tireless campaigning to change the way that security in venues operates and says this will result in a step change in how the private sector interacts with the public sector and the emergency services. “When any serious or major incident happens, how venues have set themselves up will then impact on how well we respond in the initial phases. I truly believe her work will save lives.”
To read similar articles, check out our Frontline channel.
