Chris Tremain is no longer Minister of Internal Affairs and Local
Government, nor Associate Minister of Tourism. He will continue working as
a Member of Parliament until the September 2014 elections and can be
reached at the following address: [1][email address]

 

For a list of current Ministers please consult the Beehive website
[2]http://www.beehive.govt.nz/

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Thank you for contacting the office of Hon Nikki Kaye. The Minister
receives a high volume of correspondence and will respond to you as soon
as possible.

 

Thank you once again for your message,

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Office of Hon Nikki Kaye

T: 04 817 8227

[1][Minister of Civil Defence request email]

 

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Thank you for contacting the office of Hon Nikki Kaye. The Minister
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as possible.

 

Thank you once again for your message,

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Office of Hon Nikki Kaye

T: 04 817 8227

[1][Minister of Civil Defence request email]

 

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Thank you for contacting the office of Hon Nikki Kaye. The Minister
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as possible.

 

Thank you once again for your message,

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Office of Hon Nikki Kaye

T: 04 817 8227

[1][Minister of Civil Defence request email]

 

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T: 04 817 8227

[1][Minister of Civil Defence request email]

 

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Dear Alan

Thank you for your email and my apologies for not replying to you earlier, following our phone call.

As you are aware the general election takes place this coming Saturday and this has meant that unfortunately the Minister has just not had the opportunity to sign out your request.

Please be assured, however, while there has been a delay, you will certainly get a response to your OIA Request as quickly as possible.

Regards

Celia

Celia Horner | Senior Private Secretary
Hon Nikki Kaye | Minister for Food Safety | Minister of Civil Defence | Minister of Youth Affairs
Associate Minister of Education | Associate Minister of Immigration
Parliament Buildings, PO Box 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand
T: 04 817 8343 | F: 04 817 6537 | [mobile number].
E:[email address]
www.nikkikaye.co.nz | www.beehive.govt.nz

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Thompson [mailto:[OIA #1895 email]]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 September 2014 2:14 p.m.
To: N Kaye
Subject: RE: Official Information Act request - Status of the EMIS Project

Dear Minister,

I regret to advise that a response to my OIA was not received within the 20 working days requirement.

I did email your Office on the 10th of Sept to remind you that it was due by the next day. I made a phone call to your Office on the 12 of Sept to advise that a response was now overdue. Celia took my details and undertook to get back to me. Nothing further was heard.

In accordance with due process I have now put this matter into the hands of the Ombudsman in the form of an official complaint. I now trust that the Ombudsman will be able to exercise their influence to get a response to my OIA.

I regret that I had to follow this process and would have preferred that your Office (and your Officials) had met the requirements of the OI Act.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Thompson
Lower Hutt

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________________________________

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Dear Mr Thompson

On behalf of Hon Nikki Kaye, Minister of Civil Defence, attached please
find a response to your OIA request dated 14 August 2014.  Please do not
hesitate to contact me if you have any problems opening the attachment.

Sincerely

Marika Luiso

 

 

Marika Luiso | Private Secretary (Civil Defence)

Hon Nikki Kaye | Minister of Civil Defence

Parliament Buildings, PO Box 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

T: 04 817 9878 | M: 027 224 5211

E: [1][email address]

 

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Dear Mr Thompson

On behalf of Hon Nikki Kaye, Minister of Civil Defence, thank you for your email below. As the question you have raised requests the Ministry to provide an answer, MCDEM will be responding to you directly. If you wish to discuss this with MCDEM, you can contact David Coetzee, Manager Capability and Operations, at [email address].

Sincerely
Marika Luiso

Marika Luiso | Private Secretary (Civil Defence)
Hon Nikki Kaye | Minister of Civil Defence
Parliament Buildings, PO Box 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand
T: 04 817 9878 | M: 027 224 5211
E: [email address]

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Thompson [mailto:[OIA #1895 email]]
Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2014 9:55 a.m.
To: Marika Luiso
Subject: Re: Official Information Act response from Hon Nikki Kaye

The Hon Nikki Kaye
Minster of CD

Dear Ms Kaye,

Thank you for the belated response to my OIA re EMIS. I note that this was received well outside the "within 20 working days" requirement. As your office was not able to provide a reasonable reason for the delay this matter remains with the Office of the Ombudsman.

In question 1(b) I asked "how many of the 16 regions does the Ministry consider to be fully trained and competent in the use of EMIS.

Your (Officials) response was lengthy and it was interesting but did not answer my question. I would like to request that you provide me an answer to this specific question.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Thompson

-----Original Message-----

Dear Mr Thompson

On behalf of Hon Nikki Kaye, Minister of Civil Defence, attached please find a response to your OIA request dated 14 August 2014. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any problems opening the attachment.

Sincerely

Marika Luiso

Marika Luiso | Private Secretary (Civil Defence)

Hon Nikki Kaye | Minister of Civil Defence

Parliament Buildings, PO Box 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

T: 04 817 9878 | M: 027 224 5211

E: [1][email address]

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Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[OIA #1895 email]

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

If you find this service useful as an OIA officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA page.

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Dear Alan,

 

The Minister’s office referred your follow-up on the question “Of the
sixteen Civil Defence regions, how many does the Ministry consider to be
fully trained and competent in the use of EMIS in the event of a local,
regional or national CD emergency (ie, shared information, communications
and emergency management)” to MCDEM.

 

In addition to the answer provided by the Minister, the following:

 

MCDEM does not have any measure to assess when a CDEM Group is “fully
trained and competent” in the use of EMIS, nor does MCDEM have a statutory
requirement to conduct such assessments. As you probably know EMIS
consists of many components and the level of uptake of the range of
components differs among Groups. However we regard InfoPath forms,
Messaging & Tasking and the Welfare Registration & Inquiry components as
the core parts of the system. MCDEM understands many CDEM Groups have
undertaken training on these components. On that basis, we consider
thirteen of the sixteen CDEM Groups to be sufficiently competent to use
these components.

 

Regards,

 

 

David Coetzee | Manager, Capability & Operations

Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management | Te Râkau Whakamarumaru

Direct Dial: +64 4 817 8580 | Extn: 8580 | Mobile: +64 27 442 1236

Email: [1][email address]

Level 17, Bowen House, Parliament Buildings | PO Box 5010, Wellington
6145, New Zealand |

[2]www.civildefence.govt.nz

 

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management is a business unit of
the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

 

[3]http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/Fi...

 

 

 

 

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hide quoted sections

Alan,

 

Tane Woodley from MCDEM provided a brief answer to Nick on 3 October in
reply to his similar question sent to our web address. To expand on the
latter as well as the comments offered in your email, the following:

 

In CIMS 2^nd Edition resource management (including tracking) is assigned
to Logistics. Operations advise Logistics and the Controller on resource
needs/priorities and will obviously request resources in the planning and
execution of response tasks (via Logistics) - which is not dissimilar to
the role of Operations in relation to resources in CIMS 1^st Edition.

 

CIMS 1^st Edition provided for a Resources Unit under
Planning/Intelligence with the responsibility of maintaining records about
the location and deployment of resources.  However, under CIMS 1^st
Edition Logistics were still responsible for providing resources (one
assumes that would include tracking of those being procured or are
en-route). This meant that resource tracking/management was spread across
two functions and the question could rightfully be asked whether this
could be simplified, and whether tracking of deployed resources is best
placed with Planning, Intelligence (or ‘Planning/Intelligence’ when they
are combined), or with Logistics. This question was even more relevant
considering the need to lift the game on the Planning front in CIMS 2^nd
Edition (a recommendation of the Chch response review), whilst resource
tracking has little to do with the Planning discipline as such, and all
functions provide input to the Planning and Intelligence functions anyway
which covers off their interests in this regard.

 

Interpreting the views of the CIMS Steering Group, from these perspectives
it seemed more logical for all resource management (including tracking) to
sit with Logistics and the 2^nd Edition subsequently provides more clarity
and simplification in this regard. However we acknowledge we are still
lacking a proper reference document that describes the detail involved in
resource management (a weakness also pointed out by the Christchurch
response review). As CIMS is obviously not the place to go into that
detail, MCDEM is in the process of developing a Logistics Guideline for
CDEM that should serve useful for other agencies too.

 

In relation to some of your other remarks below, I’d like to offer the
following reply:

 

·         The description of ‘Resource Coordination’ in the Principle
statement should be read as that- a high level ‘principle’ rather than a
‘how to’. In practice that will indeed translate to the IMT (including
agencies) discussing sources as you suggest, with the lead agency
appointed Controller making decisions and monitoring resource information.

·         It seems you hold MCDEM accountable for the CIMS 2^nd Edition
while the document is actually owned by the CIMS Steering Committee,
consisting of 14 agencies. MCDEM was appointed to chair the Steering Group
by the 14 agencies collectively, and subsequently also provided the ‘pen’
for the revision (in agreement with the Steering Group). But the content
of the 2^nd Edition is the result of due consideration and debate by the
Steering Group who eventually reached an overwhelming majority consensus
on it.

 

The 2^nd Edition will be reviewed again in 5 years (4.5 years from where
we’re at now). We will then have another chance to look at any
improvements which will no doubt be identified over time. Meanwhile I hope
this helps in replying to your questions/comments. 

 

Regards

 

David Coetzee

Manager, Capability & Operations

MCDEM

 

From: Alan Thompson [mailto:[email address]]
Sent: Thursday, 9 October 2014 1:15 p.m.
To: David Coetzee [DPMC]
Subject: CIMS 2nd Edition

 

 

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: CIMS 2nd Edition
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:58:10 +1300
From: Alan Thompson [1]<[email address]>
To: Nick Coyne [2]<[email address]>
CC: David Hunt [3]<[email address]>,
[4][email address]

Nick,

I have been away in the back blocks of heartland Taranaki for a week,
thought that I would take another look at that CIMS matter you raised re
resource tracking.

The 2nd Edition continues to list "Resource Coordination" as one of its
founding principles.  The 1st Edition had a simple and understandable
description of RC, the 2nd Edition now offers a real mouthful:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|[5]cid:image001.png@01CFE3E3.0D81B780 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I suggest however that this explanation is actually quite incorrect with
respect to how Resource Coordination and the principles of incident
management. 

o Agencies do not "inform each other" of their available capabilities
and resources.  The concept is that the resources and capabilities of
each agency arriving at an incident and checking in are recorded by
the Incident Management Team (IMT).  This information is used in the
planning process to assign available resources to tasks, manage
resources, plan for Next Operational Periods, etc.  I find it
difficult to understand why the Min CD&EM would think that agencies
"advise each other" and what agencies would then do with this
information.  It is the IMT who need to know what they have at their
disposal (and/or what they then need to order in) in preparing their
plan for the Next Operating Period.  It is of little or no consequence
or need for individual agencies to know what resources another
participating agency has.  I suggest that it is also an almost
impossible task for every agency to keep all other agencies so
informed!
o There may well be a lot of resource that is checked in to an Incident
that is not the property of a participating agency.  Eg there may be
Helicopters, Generators, 4WDs, communications equipment or services,
etc that are hired or called up from local suppliers.  This all needs
to be recorded and tracked by the IMT.   Whilst the ordering and
supply has been part of Supply Unit (Logistics) the tracking has
previously been the role of P&I (in NZ CIMS, Australia's AIIMS and the
USA's NIMS/ICS).
o The Lead Agency does not "monitor resource information".  The Lead
Agency appoints the Incident Controller who leads the Incident
Management Team.  It is the IMT who are manage and coordinate
participating agencies and therefore who need to record, track, plan
and allocate incident resources. 
o I also note the use of the term "monitor" and suggest that this is
very unfortunate as it suggests that this is a casual and/or part time
role!

I have reviewed the CIMS 2nd Edition document and as best I can understand
this document:

o There is no longer a Planning/Intel Section in CIMS, this has been
replaced with two "Functions" -  Intelligence and Planning
o The "Functions" of Planning and Intel no longer have any Units (as in
the 1st Edition) but have something called "Sub Functions"
o The Sub Functions of Planning are Action Planning, Long Term Planning
and Contingency Planning.  This is philosophically different to 1st
Edition (and to international standards) where the Planning Intel
Section is solely dedicated to gathering information, analysing
information and supervising the preparation of the Incident Action
Plan (IAP) for the Next Operational Period (NOP).   I refer here to
the Incident Management Team (managing the incident) and not to the
function of Response Coordination where a remote management team is
providing support and oversight to multiple IMTs and do have a role in
the longer term and contingency planning. 
o It is unclear in the 2nd Edition as to where resources relating to a
particular incident are "coordinated" as per this founding CIMS
principle.  In the 1st Edition the Resource Unit of P&I maintained
records of all resources available to the Incident (ie Resource
Tracking).  This information feed into their IAP for the NOP and
orders were placed on Logistics for the additional resources
required.  Logistics job was to procure (ie Supply Unit).
o As far as I can tell from the 2nd Edition documentation, the  Function
or Sub Functions of "Planning" in the 2nd Edition have no role in
resource coordination as per the 1st Edition.  The only reference that
I can find is that Logistics are stated in the 2nd Edition to have the
responsibility of "tracking resource use".  I am a little unsure what
is meant by resource use.  Ie, the term "resources" is a lot more than
just what is being used.

As far as I can find, nowhere in the 2nd Edition is is set out who
records, tracks, coordinates and plans for resource availability.  It
seems that Planning no longer do it but it isn't exactly clear to me that
Logistics are now responsible for this role.  International best practice
in Australia and the USA (where they are vastly more experienced in the
management of large and/or multi-agency incidents) have resource
coordination with the Planning Section - as we did with CIMS 1st Edition.

I am aware that there are many questions arising around NZ about the 2nd
Edition.  I have copied this email to David Coetzee at the Min CD&EM, he
may be able to get one of his team to explain what has happened to the
very important function of "Resource Coordination" and the matter of a
system to track resources as per the SAR training module.

Hope this helps.

Alan Thompson

 

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