In October 1998 the author was tasked to review the St John Ambulance – Southern Region disaster plan. The ambulance service had developed its response plans in isolation to other response agencies until then. It was suggested that if a “Disaster Plan” was required it was time to explore alternative planning frameworks under a Comprehensive Emergency Management (CEM) planning framework. This would
involve other response agencies working with St John Ambulance to assist in the creation of a new “disaster plan”. Although organisationally St John wanted to update their disaster plan, under emergency management criteria the scope of the planning exercise was to look for an integrated planning model that would deal with “emergencies” under a Comprehensive Emergency Management framework in order to ensure the emergency services would have an integrated planning model that could escalate to a Civil Defence declaration if required.
An offer was made by the (then) Emergency Management and Civil Defence Section of the Ministry of Civil Defence to facilitate the first meeting on the 25th June 1999. To this end this author wrote to all the Civil Defence agencies in Otago and Southland, NZ Police, NZ Fire Service and the Health Funding Authority requesting their input to the first meeting held at Ambulance Headquarters in Dunedin.
The facilitator from the Ministry of Civil Defence spoke on the problem of coordination and issues associated with fragmentation and lack of understanding. There was no confidence that agencies could respond to a large-scale event e.g. a Kobe sized earthquake. From a New Zealand government perspective a more comprehensive view was required in which all stakeholders needed to configure their emergency management thinking to involve the use of risk management processes to develop “the resilient community” Comprehensive Emergency Management was the vehicle to achieve this and was seen to lead to community resilience and sustainability.
A key point from the first meeting was to ascertain the current status of planning in each of the agencies. It was apparent each of the response agencies was undertaking planning in isolation from other response agencies. In their own planning processes they had incorporated other response agencies in their response plans but not actually involved them in the planning process i.e. plans falsely represented actual response capability based on assumptions of other agencies’ capabilities and not on realities.
At the meeting each agency gave their position statement as to where they were placed as of June 1999. St John had a major incident plan that was generic for any form of emergency event but as an organisation its capability to respond to a disaster where there was widespread injury and social disruption was not clearly understood. Current funding models focused on transport services for routine emergencies and not on a contingent capability with resources available to respond to a large scale emergency. Some preliminary work by St John prior to 1999 had been based on a
Chapter 5 Discussion
Comprehensive Emergency framework and looked at risks as they pertained to the ambulance service, as well as hazard assessments and early involvement in lifeline studies. The Health Funding Authority identified the need to coordinate resources to effectively respond to an emergency. Resources would be stretched with a corresponding drop in the level of care.
The Fire Service had a legislative responsibility under the Fire Service Act 1975 and other acts under the direction of Civil Defence when a declaration is made. The Fire Service was governed by Standing Operational Procedures, had an emergency plan and additional local risk plans for various building and institutions. Their plans were well advanced but not necessarily in terms of the 4 R’s model (Comprehensive Emergency Management) at this point.
The Police had a national emergency plan based on their policing function as it is the responsibility of Civil Defence and the Police to maintain law and order following the declaration of a Civil Defence Emergency.
Dunedin Civil Defence advised that their communications centre was the back up to St John and had been involved in Lifeline work with St John. Invercargill Civil Defence spoke on their local plans that involved St John in dealing with climactic events and requests of assistance from other Emergency Services and community agencies.
The New Zealand Army representative indicated there were a limited number of regular force army personnel in Otago and Southland and the strength of the army lay with the Territorial Force. This meant during a widespread disaster their immediate response capability would be limited.
It was clear that the agencies were doing emergency planning predominately in isolation of one another. To enable integrated Emergency Management planning of the scope St John was considering something had to change.
The consensus of the 1999 meeting on what the participants wanted to achieve in the long term included the following
• An integrated multiagency Disaster Plan was required.
• A need for cooperation, understanding of each other’s roles and mutual aid assistance.
• A need to look at the principles of planning. • Sharing of knowledge and resources/plans.
• A means of being able to contribute and a vision of what the future indications would be
• Clarifying misconceptions.
• Developing an Emergency Management Group.
• Technology transfer in terms of getting ideas from this meeting to facilitate national system changes e.g. (Sharing radio/IT communications ideas with other agencies).
The meeting participants also wished to pursue a wider planning model rather than just a St John project. The key issue from the first meeting was the need to have confidence in each other and share ideas. A key word was cooperation – having everyone working together. National capability was based on the sum of local capability brought together. Each area would have plans but there had to be organisational continuity that would allow others to understand the plan and that the plan could be activated by others.
There was general agreement from the participants in the first meeting that the response agencies represented at St John Headquarters were prepared to work together. Three key issues were identified;
1. Integration of agency planning across Otago and Southland for Police, Fire and Ambulance.
2. The need to set up a working party to create Terms of References for the integrative planning exercise.
3. The need for agency integration with regional emergency management plans.
Areas identified from the first meeting requiring further analysis were;
• Translating hazards identified in plans into risks and their consequences. (There was a need to explore this issue and create a plan for the consequences of an emergency)
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• Provision of project objectives that would provide a template for what needed to be done (It provides an end result but the emergency response plan should detail process )
• The need for timely plan reviews
• Membership of the Advisory Group and responsibilities for the administration of an Emergency Management Operation. Funding issues were not clarified at this point.
A working party was proposed, along with some initial Terms of Reference that were to be expanded by a group to be set up within the following months. The suggested Terms of reference were;
• Understanding Hazardscape and consequences. • Identifying gaps in current knowledge.
• Developing Memoranda of Understanding with service providers. • Identifying agencies interdependencies.
• Coordinating reporting structures/timetables. • Coordination of CIMS training.
For Otago and Southland emergency service managers, there needed to be a global structure/process for dealing with major events to ensure response systems would work. The areas identified as needing to be addressed were;
1. Planning assistance for specific events.
2. The structure for escalating emergency response. 3. Reality testing of assumptions.
At the end of the first meeting in June 1999 the author was tasked with coordinating an ambulance working party to continue the development of an Emergency Management Plan and that other emergency services, local authorities and the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management would be invited to contribute. St John wanted an operational “disaster plan” for pre-declaration emergencies and to not set policy, recognising as an organisation the need to involve other agencies to achieve an objective with response systems that would work in an integrated manner with other agencies. The activity that became the focus of the Otago Southland Emergency
Planning Group and the subject of this thesis was to address the planning structures that lay between routine emergencies and CDEM declared emergencies.