Minutes of HB Civil Defence Emergency Management Group

1. Welcome/Apologies/Notices

A quorum was not established and therefore the meeting lapsed at 1.30pm.

The Chair reminded members that the quorum is all five members of the Joint Committee, and that if a member is unable to attend they need to delegate to their ‘deputy’ to attend on their behalf.

Despite the meeting not being legally constituted, the Chair requested that the Committee receive briefings on the agenda items – recorded following.

Action Items from Previous HB CDEM Group Joint Committee Meetings

· Lifelines Action plan is being developed and will be reported to the next Joint Committee meeting

· Work programme for earthquake prone buildings will be organised by Ian Macdonald with each council individually including in terms of risk reduction and a snapshot of current state will be reported to the next Joint Committee meeting

Group Plan Review

Ian Macdonald provided an update of the work already undertaken with discussions highlighting:

· Group Plan due for renewal as originally approved in June 2014

· Current strategic approach is viewed as still being fit for purpose and is not creating any implementation issues

· 2019 review commenced with commissioning of HB CDEM Group Risk Profile Review and HB CDEM Group Capability Assessment Report which form the foundation of the review

· Gap analysis will be carried out once risk analysis and capability assessments have been completed

· The detailed work program will be reported to the next Joint Committee meeting

· Number of key areas to be examined include Group Structure, changes to the Act, changes to strengthen recovery positions, changes to response framework and roles of councils and partners in a response, changes in the Risk Profile and long term reduction provisions.

· Some external influences/constraints to completing the review include Emergency Management System Reform Programme, Review of the National Plan and Coordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) Review.

· CDEM Coordinating Executive Group has endorsed the approach outlined

· tangata whenua involvement includes Community resilience planning, three tangata whenua actively involved and advise on kaupapa Māori, papakainga inclusion in the Resilience Plans process and focus on work to determine “how best” to incorporate Māori perspectives within the CDEM world

· CDEM provides input to HPUDS through Liquefaction maps and advocating for consideration to be given to the Risk Reduction framework

· Work is being undertaken on updating the Regional Policy Statement to incorporate the natural hazards elements of the Resource Management Act

· suggested that the Committee brainstorms strengths and weaknesses of the Group and what the new Plan will look like at the August meeting, after the gap analysis has been done

· Group Structure and funding to include Governance responsibilities and delegations including financial statements and performance objectives for both regional and local councils

Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Centres Concept

Discussions on the Civil Defence Centre (CDC) project traversed:

· No Group strategy or formal plan for use of CDCs

· Best practice is that people either shelter in place or evacuate to friends and family if they can

· Potential political risks as one of the outcomes is to remove all signage from buildings and location of CDCs from websites

· Many pre-identified facilities located in evacuation/hazard zones which can be confusing and put lives at risk and important that communities are educated adequately about this project

· Further work required to plan for mass evacuations and large scale facilities to provide basic health care

· Communities are effectively managing their own community led responses – and may establish their own community led centre which CDEM can support if needed

· The final strategy and plan will be presented to the Coordinating Executive Group.

· current recommendation is to “retire” Civil Defence Management and replace with Emergency Management – changing the “brand”

Group Work Programme Progress Update

Group Work Programme discussions traversed:

· areas of focus and risks identified include rebuilding of the Hastings Emergency Management Centre, Civil Defence Centres, Community Resilience and Education, Hazard Research (Landslides).

· Group budget at end of 2018 underspent across all projects due to staff vacancies not being filled immediately as well as budget sequencing.

· 2018-19 quarterly expenditure and budget update will be provided to the August JC meeting

· Resourcing for community resilience projects is tight

· processes to follow to keep public safe around the coastal areas of Hawke’s Bay following the Cape Kidnappers landslides and references made in the Group Plan specifically around Readiness and how Emergency Management deals with Tourists

· Mass Public Alerting system work stream includes several interrelated projects including regional warning systems, mass public alerting systems (e.g. sirens), incident management team activation

Volunteer Management Plan

The item highlights:

· Volunteer Strategy has been adopted by the Coordinating Executive Group and 5-year implementation plan summarises “how” the strategy will be achieved

· Potential for some expenditure to be directed to implementation of the Volunteer Technical Advisory Group (VTAG) across Hawke’s Bay volunteer groups to increase efficiency and capability of an integrated volunteer response

· The Plan allows for the volunteer base to be developed in an effective and targeted way and have a collaborative approach with CDEM partners and NGOs

· Recruiting volunteers will be achieved using several avenues

· Essential that volunteers are retained to make best of the investment in equipment, training, experience and personal development opportunities

· VTAG has been established with several organisations and agencies who use volunteers for Emergency Management

10.

Risk Reduction

Current situation and exploration of strategies and options addressing long term risk reduction and the impacts of natural hazards for Hawke’s Bay discusions traversed:

· Long term hazard risk reduction strategies and plans need to be developed

· There is an increased knowledge and more robust information on hazards and impacts

· Sustainable long term (over a period of 100 years) decisions on land use and development help reduce the risks associated with natural hazards

· Risk profile is changing – economic and social impacts increasing

· Council and agency approaches should not conflict with Central Government Policy

· A more cooperative and coordinated approach suggested – similar to Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy 2120

· Possibly start with a Regional Policy Statement change to provide some tools underpinned by a risk based approach to determine what is acceptable and what not

· Potentially looking at one document or combined plan for all TAs and Agencies.

· Next step is initial discussions with CEs, TAs and Agencies.

11.

Group Manager’s General Update

Ian Macdonald’s update covered:

· CDEM Duty Managers Management system, mobile emergency alerts test feedback

· resilience fund application outcomes

· Regional Group exercise in October 2019

· reporting to Councils on Group activities and distribution of Joint Committee Minutes

12.

MCDEM update

Andrew Hickey provided a brief overview of national level MCDEM work covering:

· Focus on implementing Emergency Management System Reform which will possibly result in changes to the Civil Defence Management Act

· Budget announcement 30 May will provide some direction from the Ministry

· National Disaster Resilience Strategy approved by Cabinet on 9 April

NZ fly in teams

· NZ fly-in Teams (a team of up to 10 people) have been renamed to Emergency Management Assistance Teams or NZ-EMAT, first round of appointments have been made and initial training will commence soon.

Revision of CIMS

· A revision of the Coordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) will be signed of by government shortly.

Controller and Recovery Managers Development Programme

· A draft programme outline for the new Controller and Recovery Managers Development Programme has been developed, consisting of an on-line component and two face-to-face Tiers. Tier 1 focus is on common capability for response and recovery management and Tier 2 focus is on response and recovery leadership capability.

Training and induction of elected members post elections will be discussed at the next Joint Committee meeting.

Closure:

There being no further business the Chair declared the meeting closed on Monday, 27 May 2019 at 3.27pm.

Signed as a true and correct record.

DATE: ................................................ CHAIRMAN: ...............................................