REC324-4315 |
36 - Volunteers
36 - Volunteers
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The Community First Responders Program: That, to better coordinate community efforts to save life and property during a disaster, Government create a ‘Community First Responders Program’, funding appropriate community equipment and training, particularly in high-risk catchments along the east coast of NSW. This training would be delivered by combat and/or other appropriate government agencies. This program could support and empower community led initiatives such as disaster response, evacuation centres and the provision of services such as psychological first aid.
To plan for volunteerism into the future, the State Emergency Management Committee (SEMC) commission a review of volunteerism in NSW, acknowledging it is essential to the state’s emergency response to protect life and property. This review needs to recommend a way forward for emergency volunteer agencies to respond to declining formal volunteerism and to make better use of Community First Responders.
Further, to ensure Indigenous communities are included in emergency planning and preparation, emergency management processes incorporate the needs of Indigenous communities including for evacuation procedures and centres by:
• developing an Indigenous first responders program working with Aboriginal communities in flood affected regions to understand what is needed, and resourcing this program appropriately, and
• ensuring Aboriginal Community Liaison Officers (ACLO) form part of the Local Emergency Management Committees and are present at evacuation centres during a disaster to better serve Indigenous communities.
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REC324-4316 |
12 - EM agency and authority
12 - EM agency and authority
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Resilience NSW and recovery: That, in order to enhance NSW disaster preparedness, response and recovery, and meet the needs of the people of NSW prior to, during and after a disaster, and provide clarity on agency roles and responsibilities, Resilience NSW be reshaped to ‘Recovery NSW’. The new agency will be more streamlined and agile to drive recovery in the first 100 days post disaster. To achieve this, Resilience NSW’s functions should be reallocated as follows:
• disaster preparedness and support, and disaster emergency management policy and service delivery to the newly created Deputy Commissioner of Police responsible for the SEOCON [Recovery NSW]
• community engagement and public education on disaster risk and preparations to DCS/NSWRA
• disaster recovery and renewal management and coordination to the newly created NSWRA
• evacuation centre management and coordination to the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), which includes support for self-styled community evacuation centres. Many of DCJ’s current functions deal with people in crisis, therefore the Inquiry finds it best placed to perform the role of evacuation centre lead. The Inquiry notes the importance of a police or security presence in evacuation centres, particularly in the early days of the establishment of the evacuation centres
• welfare services functional area (WELFAC) to the DCJ
• grants administration to the Department of Customer Service (DCS)/Service NSW for immediate relief and the NSWRA for longer term recovery and reconstruction. There should also be a renewed focus on agency, local and state government training.
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REC324-4318 |
12 - EM agency and authority
12 - EM agency and authority
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Permanent SEOCON: That, to improve NSW’s ability to prepare and respond to floods and other disasters, Government establish a new Deputy Commissioner of NSW Police Force to take on permanently the SEOCON role. This role, in addition to current SEOCON functions, would be responsible for:
• chairing the State Emergency Management Committee (SEMC)
• facilitating collaborative risk management and compliance activities working with local and regional emergency management committees, communities, local government, state government agencies, particularly the proposed NSWRA, and the Australian Government
• working with relevant state government agencies to improve their operational readiness and preparedness for emergencies including, but not limited to, training, education, and ensuring proactive understanding of the location and condition of assets available to the combat agency in the event of an emergency, rather than this information being sought during an emergency, with agencies being required to report on implementation and progress through the SEMC
• ownership of a state capability framework to ensure combat agencies can resource a catastrophic event (so, for example, that during a flood emergency SES deploys all available assets, not just assets owned by SES)
• leading training standards across combat agencies, local government, NGOs and essential service providers.
• establishing funded permanent emergency management police positions (at sergeant or senior sergeant level) focussed on local emergency management service delivery for the SEOCON across all 27 police districts in regional NSW, and the 3 police metropolitan regions in Sydney, with priority given to identified high risk-catchments
• supporting existing interstate connectivity
• State Emergency Recovery Controller (SERCON) responsibilities, which could be delegated to a recovery coordinator/s as deemed appropriate
• leading the proposed new agency, Recovery NSW.
That, to support the Deputy Police Commissioner, SEOCON, a full-time secretariat office led by a Deputy Secretary for Emergency Management be established within, though functionally separate from, NSW Police to drive policy development and implementation. This office should be well-trained to ensure the effective chairing of, and secretariat support for, the SEMC.
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REC324-4320 |
12 - EM agency and authority
12 - EM agency and authority
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Knowledge resources to support flood management: That, to provide more accurate and complete data for flood threat identification, warning and modelling systems, Government through the proposed new NSW Reconstruction Authority (NSWRA) work with the Australian Government to:
• improve the rain and river gauge network by:
— implementing the Bureau’s proposed New Policy Proposal for rain and river gauges in NSW
— working to transfer ownership and maintenance responsibility for as many of the river and rain gauges as possible in NSW to the Bureau of Meteorology
— upgrading and ensuring there is a maintenance program across NSW for those gauges that remain in state and local government ownership
• upgrade radar capability in NSW to ensure overlapping coverage and some redundancy, through upgrades to existing fixed radars, and investment in new fixed and mobile radars.
Also that the Government through the NSWRA:
• ensure that all relevant state entities and local councils implement the Bureau flash flooding guidelines for all watercourses for which they have flood warning responsibility, drawing on the state’s significant expertise in remote sensing to implement effective monitoring and warning systems that send warnings to all residents and businesses in affected areas
• make real-time flood warnings and information – both raw information from gauges and processed information from models – available publicly via a smartphone app (ideally part of a state disaster information app) that also allows citizens to provide information during a flood to help authorities and community. This information could include flood imagery and local knowledge observations in the lead into, during, and immediately after flood events.
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REC324-4295 |
11 - Evacuation and shelters
11 - Evacuation and shelters
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Roads: That, to improve the planning and protection of road infrastructure and to ensure communities, freight movers, combat agencies and emergency services have appropriate access and egress during and following a flood event, Government, through TfNSW and NSWRA and working with combat agencies and local and federal governments as needed, should:
• develop a state-wide road evacuation plan to establish a coordinated view of evacuation routes to ensure they are well-maintained and, particularly working with the Commonwealth Government, ensure that funding is coordinated and prioritised to target upgrades where it is most needed to increase flood resilience. This plan should be informed by catchment-wide flood risk modelling
• identify and prioritise communities at high risk of flooding where access and egress will be affected (for example rural communities connected by a single road affected by landslips) to coordinate logistics options to sustain communities isolated as a result of flooding.
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REC324-4309 |
12 - EM agency and authority
12 - EM agency and authority
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SES and RFS back-office merger: That, to help protect life and property across NSW in storm and flood events, and to improve resourcing and NSW State Emergency Service (SES) frontline capability, Government implement, before the next storm season, a merger of the SES and NSW Rural Fire Services (RFS) back-office and corporate service functions, while maintaining their separate legislative identity, brand, uniform and volunteer membership. This ‘joined-up’ RFS/SES corporate support structure would be under the command of the RFS given its corporate and operational maturity and would be responsible for:
• placing risk at the centre of all decision making and planning for catastrophic disasters
• establishing a dedicated intelligence unit that synthesises the wealth of intelligence available to inform critical decision making, particularly for flash flooding
• establishing a planning unit to help better prepare communities, NSW combat and other agencies, and local governments about upcoming flood and storm seasons
• establishing a fulltime SES position for each high-risk catchment to ensure flood identification, response assets and supporting infrastructure is serviced, operational and ready to deploy
• designing and implementing a workforce plan to identify any capacity and capability gaps in frontline emergency staff, now and into the future
• improving the hiring standards of frontline full-time staff in operational decision-making positions
• improving the support, training and retention of both frontline staff and volunteers
• improving media protocols and identifying a designated media spokesperson during a disaster.
The newly merged model should be reviewed in 12 months’ time by the SEMC.
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