By David Jenkins
Extreme weather and natural disasters are occurring more often as the world feels the impacts of climate change, and this has created challenges for disaster agencies, first responders, and local governments.
In Australia, which has experienced devastating bushfires and flooding in recent years, one of the responses from the Commonwealth has been to commission an Independent Review of Commonwealth Disaster Funding from Deloitte partner Andrew Colvin.
His report, released in late October, makes some very valid points about how disaster funding can be more targeted and, therefore, more effective.
The focus groups that contributed to the report’s compilation identified how local government is bearing the burden of frontline disaster management, a role that is not reflected in the funding.
As one focus group participant says, local government is a “key player and takes the lead across the spectrum of emergency management, although responsibility is built on the state level.”
“This puts a huge burden on local government for activities for which they are not well-resourced,” the participant said.
Another comment was about community expectations. Communities respond to disasters “through the local government,” despite consistent challenges with resourcing and financial liability.
They said councils are on the frontline and often expected to operate well outside their limited resources and remit.
As another participant put it, emergency response has always been an “add-on” to the perceived roles of many local organisations.
When disasters occur, they drop whatever they are doing to respond to the disaster because it is often a question of basic survival.
The report also identified a disconnect between the tiers of government and a need for coordination between them.
One focus group member from a Commonwealth Government agency admitted they had “no connection” with local councils, even though “we have heard” that councils wanted more coordination and contact.
These are damning comments but point the way towards a clear and positive response.
In the report, Colvin says that the Commonwealth is responsible for supporting the capability and capacity of the combined response and should ensure that local governments and communities have the capacity to respond.
“The ability to do this effectively has been impacted by the confusion of roles and a lack of current understanding of capabilities,” the report says.
One recommendation is for an enhanced national training and exercise regime to test the coordination between the tiers of government and the relevant agencies and identify capacity and capability gaps.
Better preparation requires regularly testing scenarios and response plans before events actually occur.
Beyond funding, a more effective response also requires better information sharing and the report identifies the importance of collecting, aggregating and accessing data.
This flows both ways. As another focus group participant from a Commonwealth agency put it, the Commonwealth often depends on information from the states that isn’t standardised and has been created solely for use at the state level.
Ultimately, the report’s key message is that the tiers of government can do a much better job coordinating their response and that those on the front line need the resources and information to be effective.
This message resonates in New Zealand, which has experienced natural disasters in recent years.
The Colvin report is not the first to make these points. In 2020, the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Recovery made several recommendations for improving the planning process, including more straightforward funding arrangements for local government.
Local government is always expected to do more in many areas, disaster management being one of them, yet they have only one lever to fund their services, and that is through rates.
If we are to be more effective in our response to disasters, we need to recognise the role of organisations on the frontline and ensure they have what they need to respond quickly, with adequate backup from larger and more centralised agencies.
“At present, disaster funding decisions are mostly reactive and are not understood in terms of consistency, certainty, nor transparency,” the report says.
“The Review heard from many stakeholders about how difficult it was to understand how decisions were made or how to approach making a funding application.
“Equally, without a clear basis on which to prioritise decisions, the Commonwealth is unable to effectively weigh efforts to reduce risk and build resilience, nor hold other actors across the disaster management system to account.”
These are clear words that will resonate with many people and organisations as they prepare for future natural disasters, which are almost inevitable.
Our opportunity to prepare for a better response starts now.
