Emergency planning in Oxfordshire needs to be urgently improved following a catalogue of slow responses to crisis situations, it was claimed last night.

The stark warning came from John Kelly, who retired last year as Oxfordshire’s emergency planning officer after 14 years.

He said key agencies needed to work more effectively together to ensure a better response to emergencies.

Mr Kelly decided to speak out after reading claims it had taken too long to release details about a six-year-old Oxford girl who had contracted swine flu. He said the case was the latest in a series of disappointing emergency responses.

Mr Kelly said there had been a delayed response to the summer floods in 2007 which resulted from a “lack of senior management involvement”.

He was also critical of responses to emergencies resulting from heavy snowfall, preparation for May Morning celebrations and traffic chaos at last year’s Game Fair at Blenheim Palace, which crippled the county’s roads.

Mr Kelly blamed the problems on delays in bringing together senior figures from the police, emergency services, local councils and health service.

He said: “I fear that, as ever, practised plans are being ignored and the well-tried means of deconflicting different agencies’ responses are being ignored or delayed.

“I am afraid it was ever thus with a delay in setting up Gold Command during the 2007 flood to the detriment of a joint response.

“And with the failure to set up a Gold Command for the Game Fair last year.

“I am disappointed with the public information on the swine flu case.

“There was nothing to be gained from sitting on the information...I don’t understand why the public message did not go out immediately.”

Gold Command — made up of emergency services and councils — is called in at times of major emergencies, but Mr Kelly feared it has been too slow to react.

Oxfordshire’s chief fire officer John Parry hit back at his former colleague and said: “The response of all agencies towards the flooding in Oxfordshire has been praised nationally. Our officers across all services worked 24 hours a day during the flooding and afterwards to deal with the situation.

“All of the inter-agency reviews after the flooding acknowledged Gold Command ought to be have been called sooner (but) it had no impact on the emergency response. I am saddened to hear Mr Kelly, who was such an integral part of that response, is now seeking to denigrate his former colleagues.”

A joint statement from Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire County Council said the timing of the announcement about Oxfordshire’s first case of Swine Flu had been determined at national level.

On the flooding, Richard Thurston, chairman of Osney Island Residents’ Association, said: “I would like to think that before it happens again, those people who lived through it will have had a proper debriefing and share experiences so next time there is more detailed planning.”