Auckland

Manukau City Council required an independent appraisal of the council's current civil defence and emergency management (CDEM) position in relation to systems, processes, structures and responsibilities. The purpose of the appraisal was to determine the capacity and capability of the organisation to be prepared for, respond to and recover from an event that would result in the activation of CDEM processes.

This project was commissioned by the Auckland Region CDEM Group to provide an assessment of its current emergency management capacity and capability (readiness and response). The assessment is derived from an independently developed rating methodology which examines the collective operational readiness of the CDEM Group partners (emergency services, local authorities and lifeline utilities) to prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters.

Kestrel are assisting the Auckland Region CDEM Group to develop a model of community resilience which can be used to tailor the CDEM Group's emergency management programmes. The model is also intended to be used as indicator to track changes in community resilience over time and hence help assess the effectiveness of the CDEM Group's programmes.

Kestrel Group has been working on the recovery arrangements for the Auckland region CDEM Group for just over three years. They include development and adoption of the Recovery Organisation, Roles and Functions Standard Operating Procedure, formalisation of recovery workgroups, which will spring into action after an emergency event, and organising the Auckland Recovery Managers Forum for professional development of, and networking for, the region’s Recovery Managers. Ongoing work will be based around firming-up the structure/process developed to date.

Kestrel Group was engaged to review the resources required by lifeline utilities for response and recovery, in order to determine critical resources and resource constraints. The project involved reviewing resource issues from Flooding events in 2004 and 2005, reviewing the legislative provisions relating to CDEM Groups and Lifeline Utilities in terms of directing resources, and surveying selected Auckland lifeline utilities to determine their needs and resource constraints.

Kestrel Group produced an exercise to test the National Gas Outage Contingency Plan (NGOCP). The complex exercise involved participating companies, organisations and Government agencies from Auckland, Taranaki and Wellington and took place in September 2003.

Kestrel contact for this project is Dave Brunsdon.