Training for municipal preparedness officers begins

These officials in the municipalities will be responsible for civil safety and will oversee the development of shelters, the preparation and updating of emergency plans, and the education of the population about emergency preparedness.

As Minister of the Interior Agnė Bilotaitė said during the press conference, preparation for hybrid and military threats will be integrated in the training.

“In this geopolitical context, we are making every effort to ensure the safety of the population as efficiently as possible. Our civil protection specialists and preparedness officers will play a very important role”, said A. Bilotaitė.

According to the minister, a few decades ago there were about a thousand civil protection specialists in Lithuania, currently about a hundred officers oversee this area.

According to the data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 50 out of 60 municipalities have already completed the positions of officers responsible for civil safety, a total of 74 specialists have been trained in the country. According to A. Bilotaitė, depending on the size of the municipality, larger municipalities have several preparedness officers, smaller ones – one.

“It is very important that they are only responsible for civil safety. In the past, such specialists had other additional functions, our goal was to make this specialist responsible for civil safety, preparedness, the development of the shelter network, and the management of emergency crisis situations in the municipalities,” said the minister.

A. Bilotaitė added that the preparedness officers will also be responsible for preparing and updating emergency situations, evacuation plans, and educating the population.

Centralized training will take place at the Fire Rescue School. They will improve the competences of officers in the field of civil protection. The law on crisis management and civil protection stipulates that the content of training for preparation for military and hybrid threats must be integrated into civil protection training.