Liaison Officer V. Agency Liaison

[Chris Jacobs]

Ok today i stumbled upon these two different qualifications.  I know what the general idea of the Liason Officer is but there appears to be major differences between these two qualifications.   An Agency Liaison is nearly an IC, and must be a Operations section chief.  While a Liaison Officer just has to be an 18 year old with GES, and then pass ICS 200.  So my question is what is the difference between the two, and what do the two do?  I am having a hard time finding the answer.

[arajca]

Agency Liason is a critter unique to CAP. It was developed because someone realized that on incident can only have ONE IC, and on multi-jurisdiction incidents, CAP isn't it. Basically, the AL is the person who interfaces with the LO and has the authority to commit or withdraw CAP resources. They are not in the chain of command for the incident. The rest of the ES world calls this person the Agency Representative.

Liasion Officer is an ICS/NIMS position. All agencies contributing forces to the incident appoint an Agency Representative. The AR's talk to the LO go get information, offer advice, information on agency capabilities, voice concerns, etc. The LO has the enviable job of keeping all these Type A personalities out of the IC's hair while keeping them happy.

[lordmonar]

Agency Liaison is a critter unique to CAP. It was developed because someone realized that on incident can only have ONE IC, and on multi-jurisdiction incidents, CAP isn't it. Basically, the AL is the person who interfaces with the LO and has the authority to commit or withdraw CAP resources. They are not in the chain of command for the incident. The rest of the ES world calls this person the Agency Representative.

Liaison Officer is an ICS/NIMS position. All agencies contributing forces to the incident appoint an Agency Representative. The AR's talk to the LO go get information, offer advice, information on agency capabilities, voice concerns, etc. The LO has the enviable job of keeping all these Type A personalities out of the IC's hair while keeping them happy.

The LO is the Point of Contact for request coming into the CAP mission base from outside agencies.  So the Fire Departments want's a fly over of the accident site...they call the CAP LO who coordinates the request up the proper channels.

The Agency Liaison Officer is CAP's Representative at someone else's command post.  Such as a unified command.  The ALO would sit on the states DR command post.  When the unified command IC want's to task CAP assets he tells the CAP ALO who then calls the mission base IC (who at this time would have a different title) to arrange it.

So basically LO coordinate incoming taskings from outside agencies...and an ALO is our Representative to other agencies or commands.

[DNall]

Did that make sense to everyone? The LO works in the CAP mission base dealing with outsiders coming in & liaising with them to coordinate their requests to CAP - ie babysitter. The Agency Liaison is sent out by CAP to the REAL mission base with the REAL IC, and coordinates over there to get CAP tasked with missions we're good at.

[flyguy06]

Did that make sense to everyone? The LO works in the CAP mission base dealing with outsiders coming in & liaising with them to coordinate their requests to CAP - ie babysitter. The Agency Liaison is sent out by CAP to the REAL mission base with the REAL IC, and coordinates over there to get CAP tasked with missions we're good at.

Your explaination made more sense to me

[ctrossen]

Did that make sense to everyone? The LO works in the CAP mission base dealing with outsiders coming in & liaising with them to coordinate their requests to CAP - ie babysitter. The Agency Liaison is sent out by CAP to the REAL mission base with the REAL IC, and coordinates over there to get CAP tasked with missions we're good at.

Not quite.

The Liaison Officer and the Agency Liaison work together. But to really see how it all fits together, you need to stop trying to put it all into CAP terms.


Imagine a medium-scale disaster - several tornados lay waste to a large community. This is a disaster where probably dozens of different agencies will be involved: local EMS (from several communities, thanks to mutual aid), police, public works, emergency management, electric & power company, Red Cross, CAP, etc.

Incident Command rests with, say, the Fire Chief. You've got to figure out how much damage has been done, fix that damage, treat the wounded, and house and feed those left homeless (not in that order, but those are your priorities).

You've got some agencies, police and fire primarily, that due to mutual aid agreements will work for each other and have clearly defined missions and capabilities. These are groups that can get "plugged in" to the ICS structure (primarily in the Operations Section). But then you start adding in "outside" agencies, with a wide range of abilities and resources, but with certain limits. Red Cross could be one. CAP is another.

Agencies like that will have one person - the Agency Liaison - whose job it is to ensure that the IC knows their capabilities and limitations. The Incident Command System recognizes this, which is why the position of Liaison Officer exists (and why the Liaison Officer sits on the Command Staff). The LO is not a CAP (or CAP-USAF) LO. This person is responsible for wrangling all of these Agency Liaisons and for being the sole point of contact between them and the IC.

The Agency Liaison has responsibility over all of their agency's resources, but unless they also serve in a different ICS posision, they do not task their resources with actual assignments; or, put another way, the AL retains OPCON and ADCON (if appropriate), but TACON is given to the ICS structure.

So in this situation, you'd probably have Agency Liaisons from Red Cross, CAP, the Power Company, Public Works, Highway Dept, and a few others. CAP is tasked with providing aerial damage assessment and ground damage assessment. As the only agency with aerial assets, CAP is tasked with organizing and running the Air Operations Branch under the Operations Section Chief. Numerous other agencies are providing ground assets, but CAP is the only organization working ground damage assessment. A Ground Damage Assessment Branch is likewise stood up, with CAP running and operating it.

Now, Major John Brown is the designated CAP AL. He could also take responsibility for being the Air Ops branch director (or Ground Damage Assessment branch director), or he could choose to remain solely AL and letting other CAP officers serve in those positions. Either way, he's responsible for all CAP personnel, vehicles and other assets assigned to the incident (and also responsible for up-channeling daily reports and the like). If an assignment is going to break our rules, he needs to bring that to the attention of the IC, via the Liaison Officer, and if necessary withdraw support.


I could keep going, but that should hopefully lay the groundwork - and explain the differences.

[DNall]

No I get what you're saying, but you're talking about the "customer" agency's liaison officer who is fielding our AL & everyone else's AR, then giving the executive summary to the IC staff so they aren't bogged down with the crowded lobby but can still make use of all the resources. On the other hand, the CAP liaison officer would be doing the same thing at a CAP mission base keeping family, media, customer ARs, etc off our internal IC staff. It's just a big & small version of the same thing.

I fully agree with you though that we need to get out of our CAP-centric thinking & convert to doing it the NIMS/correct way. Personally I don't know why we're running ICS for internal missions & using all teh terms incorrectly. It just confuses people & makes them think they are qualified for things they really aren't - which in turn leads to frustration/lack of understanding for not getting called to missions, & CAP delaying real compliance w/ NIMS.

[ctrossen]

\On the other hand, the CAP liaison officer would be doing the same thing at a CAP mission base keeping family, media, customer ARs, etc off our internal IC staff. It's just a big & small version of the same thing. 

Not if he's doing his job correctly. A Liaison Officer is a Liaison Officer. They all (*SHOULD*) do the same things. The Information Officer is the one that should be taking care of the media, and if there are family about, the IC should designate a Family Liaison (or give that task to someone like a Chaplain).

I fully agree with you though that we need to get out of our CAP-centric thinking & convert to doing it the NIMS/correct way. Personally I don't know why we're running ICS for internal missions & using all teh terms incorrectly. It just confuses people & makes them think they are qualified for things they really aren't - which in turn leads to frustration/lack of understanding for not getting called to missions, & CAP delaying real compliance w/ NIMS.

I don't know that we are necessarily "using the terms incorrectly." Though that depends entirely on your wing. Here in Wisconsin, we're doing okay - not great, but okay. We've got some people who "get it", some who don't (and probably never will, either because they aren't wired that way or because they refuse to make the mental change), and a whole lot of people in the middle. Then again, considering CAP as a whole is a good decade behind the rest of the ES "world" in ICS implementation, that's to be expected.

[lordmonar]

The LO is the guy who handles taskings from outside agencies.  I.e.  The fire department needs a fly over...he talks to the LO who help cooridiante it.

The ALO is an expert on CAP operations who advises another agency on our capabilities and current ops.   The ALO sits at another agency's command.

In CAP terms....you would never have a CAP ALO at your mission base, he would be at someone else's mission base.  You may have several ALO's at your a CAP mission base...but they would be from different agecies.

Just to keep everyone straight.

The MSA's are the gate keepers.  They are the ones who intercept 'volunteers', "family members" the press and other annoinces and shuffle them off to the right people.

The MSA's should be the firt person anyone walking in to a mission base sees.  If they are CAP, they get sent to sign in.  If they are family members they get sent to the chaplains, if they are other ES personnel they get sent to the LO's, if they are the press they get sent to the PAO (or IO as the position is listed).

We often give MSA's a bad name as a do nothing job...but in fact they are very important.  They are the gate keepers, they are the tour guides, the junior IO's, message runners, receptionists  and coffee getters.

All to allow the planners, directors and IC some breathing room to get the misison done.

[DNall]

I fully agree with you though that we need to get out of our CAP-centric thinking & convert to doing it the NIMS/correct way. Personally I don't know why we're running ICS for internal missions & using all teh terms incorrectly. It just confuses people & makes them think they are qualified for things they really aren't - which in turn leads to frustration/lack of understanding for not getting called to missions, & CAP delaying real compliance w/ NIMS.

I don't know that we are necessarily "using the terms incorrectly." Though that depends entirely on your wing. Here in Wisconsin, we're doing okay - not great, but okay. We've got some people who "get it", some who don't (and probably never will, either because they aren't wired that way or because they refuse to make the mental change), and a whole lot of people in the middle. Then again, considering CAP as a whole is a good decade behind the rest of the ES "world" in ICS implementation, that's to be expected.

I'm thinking more along the lines of CAP running a fully stand alone op w/ a stand alone IC staff on a single tasking from the "real" IC staff, when in fact our resources should be branched under the real mission. We can even keep them together as combined operating teams, but this doing our own thing deal gets dumb fast & keeps us out of the real game.