RiskLogic Announces CIMS Training for New Zealand
On the 22nd of February 2011, more shook in New Zealand than just the floor beneath Cantaberians feet. A sudden realisation that we weren’t exempt from the power of mother nature had made the news many times over a few years with the events of Christchurch, Pike River and the Rena Disaster. The New Zealand Government enforced a push on the requirements and preparedness both residents and organisations of NZ had to become educated on.
Their focus was to ensure more procedure and knowledge to be spread throughout New Zealand in a controlled process. Prime Minister at the time, John Key focused his attention on training from the top down, ensuring influence on the smaller corners of the country.
When the February earthquake hit Christchurch, it sent a shock-realization of the under-staffed emergency departments and the lack of knowledge society held around these disasters. Although many people performed credibly and kept to what they were always taught back in school, there was a clear need for higher education across the board on NZ’s variety of events.
Although programs were already in place, it was noted that nearly 65% of all NZ organisations had never seen them, let alone implement them.
On March 31st, 2011, the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management (MCDEM) briefed the Government Administration Committee (Committee) during the Committee’s annual review of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
They reviewed the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) that addressed the 108 recommended corrective actions identified in the Review of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Response to the 22 February Christchurch Earthquake (the “Review Report”).
The main message and focus from the MCDEM, (which was agreed by Government) was to engage 70 agencies across the country in strengthening the message CAP enforced. They wanted to move to a higher level of response and awareness across all involved, whether that be emergency services or citizens.
In addition, several guidelines have been reviewed or developed, further increasing capability across the CDEM sector at all levels. This guidance is, in turn, driving capability development and providing a nationally consistent approach.
Fortunately, despite a new Government now being in power, the objectives and reasoning to maintain this level of enforcement have remained, if not increased.
The current NZ Prime Minister, Jacinta Arden has mentioned on numerous occasions that she would like to see more organisations adopt the knowledge base emergency services have during an event. Since mentioning this, insurance brokers have kept an eye on organisations who have adopted CIMS training and thus provide more relevant and fair insurance policies.
The Government is clear in its mission that if more of the countries organisations and citizens have a higher level of awareness, better outcomes will result from an event.
To help this mission, a few third-party agencies have become qualified via the NZQA to provide CIMS training.
RiskLogic will now join the certified agencies qualified to train CIMs for New Zealand organisations and being to provide another service to the country within the year.
What is CIMS?
Conceived in 1996, the CIMS program was the results of a large meeting between representatives from the New Zealand Police, New Zealand Fire Service, the National Rural Fire Authority, New Zealand Ambulance Board, Civil Defence, local government, New Zealand Defence Force, New Zealand Forest Owners Association and the Department of Conservation to enforce universal best practices during any event within New Zealand.
It was inspired by California’s Incident Command System (ICS) — developed in the 1970s — and on other countries’ adaptations of ICS, such as Australia’s Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS).
Training is now provided by a small number of public sector, commercial organisations, and NZQA private training establishments. CIMS 2 is widely available from several vendors while CIMS 4 can only be delivered as a multi-agency course
CIMS has been used by emergency services since the 90’s, as well as government agencies and management agencies, including those agencies involved in the 2012–2014 review:
Ambulance New Zealand (St John New Zealand; Wellington Free Ambulance)
Department of Conservation
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Maritime New Zealand
Ministry for Primary Industries
Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Social Development
New Zealand Customs Service
New Zealand Defence Force
Fire and Emergency New Zealand
New Zealand Police
In recent years, CIMS has also been recognised as best practice for implementing management structures for response and recovery. Many organisations outside those identified above are now adopting CIMS — including lifeline utilities, universities, and businesses, the key benefits are adopting a recognised standard and being able to interoperate with other agencies during response to complex events that involve more than one agency.
Source: https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Coordinated_Incident_Management_System
It also provides assurance to stakeholders and insurance brokers to maximize their preparedness across the board for emergencies.
What this means for your organisation
As described by the New Zealand Fire Service: CIMS will create a legacy of safer communities through a proved, reliable, user-friendly, effective and efficient up-to-date [incident management] system. The system will be fully-integrated and flexible and have the confidence of the public.
Many New Zealand organisations have a noticeable range of contacts and key stakeholders across many national and international locations. In many cases, it’s rare that all key parties are centrally located during an event. Having unified control not just internally as a business, but with partnering organisations or services, ensures a shared incident process can be implemented.
Through combined decision-making, the command appointments for each agency to establish an agreed concept of operations and a single Action Plan. This can work particularly well for organisations with supply chain responsibilities or scattered stakeholders.
In aviation, an organisation can have as many as a hundred contracting agencies or third parties involved in their operation who all need to be communicated and actioned during an event.
Unified Control would be applied when:
more than one agency has a mandate to manage an incident
it is unclear if any agency is the lead, or
the lead agency determines that a joint approach will be more effective in a positive outcome.
Agencies applying Unified Control establish a joint coordination centre (CC) or more commonly known as a Crisis Communication Centre, with key appointments filled by the most appropriate personnel from an agency. These are planned, trained and agreed during the CIMS implementation.
Why you should have CIMS training
Other than the noticeable credibility and eligibility to better insurance premiums, investments, and stakeholder confidence, the training encourages a wider knowledge base to you and your people.
Being able to enforce and practice the same techniques that the NZ emergency services have used for two decades will allow your business to not only survive, but thrive.
Despite having had a national fire service since 1976, and a national police force since the late 19th Century, there was no consistency in the management of the response to emergencies. Each agency had its own communication system, jargon, hierarchy, and attitude towards a particular type of emergency which only caused significant confusion when a large event occurred.
Development of CIMS was also indirectly influenced by a major review of New Zealand’s emergency services, which took place in the mid-1990s. This review recommended that agencies should look at working closer together, in order to provide a more integrated service to New Zealand communities.
In 2011, almost the exact same conversation was facilitated; this time around New Zealand organisations. It was found that if wider responsibility was spread, better process would be carried out and potentially more lives saved.
The course schedules
To ensure efficient and dedicated qualification and training for your organisation, RiskLogic has set aside a full program for a variety of organisations and situations. With easily adopted scheduling, locations and fully trained consultants, your organisation can have CIMS implemented companywide within a few months.
Register your interest now
Due to an already increasing demand on courses throughout New Zealand thanks to our new Government and changes to the insurance landscape in 2019, we cannot offer open dates for our audience to register just yet. This will change in the coming months, but for now, we are offering an opportunity to register your interest on the course and ensure you don’t miss out for 2018.
Via this link, you can register how many of your team members you would like on the course, your preferred location, and commencing week that works best for you.
Once this is reviewed by our facilitators, we will contact you to offer a date and location that works best for your requirements.
We’ve received enquiries all year and booked up many of our available dates. Unfortunately, only our qualified trainers can run these courses, meaning course dates are very limited compared to the demand.
To ensure training in 2018, register your interest now and gather your stakeholders buy-in early.
