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Preparing disaster response
- Introduction
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
- Responses of the minister and state secretary
- Response of the IPO
- Response of the VNG
- Afterword by the Court of Audit
Introduction
The Court of Audit has investigated the efforts of the Minister and State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations in exercising their responsibility for the effectiveness of the Netherlands' disaster response services. This responsibility is set out in the Fire Services Act (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 1985 no. 87), the Disasters and Major Accidents Act (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 1985 no. 88), and the Medical Assistance (Disasters) Act (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 1991 no. 653).
Disaster response is a chain with five links; anticipation (anticipating risks), prevention (minimising the chance of disasters), preparation (taking stock of risks, analysing them, planning, training personnel, and holding practice drills), combat (combating the disaster itself), and aftercare. The Court's audit focused on the preparation link.
To gain an appreciation of the problems faced by the minister, the Court analysed his policy on disaster response. To gain an appreciation of the practicalities of disaster response and its supervision, the Court questioned a representative sample of persons involved in disaster response in 211 of the country's 537 municipalities, in 28 of its 37 fire service regions, and in all 12 of its provinces. The Court also carried out in-depth interviews.
The audit was announced in March 1999 in the Court of Audit's programme for 2000. The objective was to assess how effectively disaster response was organised in the Netherlands. The audit was not prompted by any of the recent disasters in the Netherlands, nor did it focus especially on any of them.
In 1975, the then government launched a plan to reorganise disaster response in order to deal more effectively with potential risks. The municipalities were to be primarily responsible for disaster response. Central government was to impose requirements on the organisation and services. Since 1975, the minister and state secretary have produced several policy documents and reports on how to improve disaster response. And in recent years, they have launched several plans to create a cohesive organisational structure for it. But the process is still not complete.
UpConclusions
The Court notes that the disaster response services (fire, police, and medical services) find it difficult to work together, although the minister has tried to help them do so. As long as the disaster response services fail to work together as a single cohesive organisation, the government will be unable to ensure optimum response to any future disasters or serious accidents.
The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations has failed to encourage or direct municipalities and regions to coordinate and plan the preparation link or to create an efficient organisation.
To be well prepared, the disaster response services need an exhaustive inventory of potential disasters and serious accidents in each municipality and region. They can then analyse the risks, decide on the level of preparation necessary, and draw up a disaster plan.
The Court concludes that the minister has achieved too little in trying to formulate a structural, systematic risk policy. It also concludes that planning has proceeded with difficulty. As a result, the municipalities, provinces, and central government all have too little appreciation of the risks. Not until 1996, eleven years after the (then) Disaster Response Act required them to do so, did all the municipalities have a disaster plan. Even then, only two-thirds of the plans were based on a risk inventory, and fewer than one-quarter were based on risk analysis.
Municipalities recognise the risks of disaster, but have drawn up disaster response plans for only a few potential disasters. Both disaster plans and disaster response plans are rarely up to date. Some municipalities admit that the municipal and regional disaster response services are not organised appropriately to deal with the actual risks. At the same time, 80% of the municipalities consider themselves capable of responding to disasters, with or without assistance from the regional fire service.
Those involved in disaster response services have not yet received enough training, mainly because they are not willing or not compelled to take part in the (revamped) training available.
In addition, there are too few practice drills - especially ones involving all the services. Hospitals usually fail to take part in practice drills for cost reasons. No one either assesses or records the quality of the practice drills. This has led to a lack of awareness of how effective the disaster response services really are. Initiatives launched by the minister to encourage practice drills have not yet had the desired effect.
The minister carries overall responsibility for organising disaster response and should therefore be aware of how effective it is. He has access to information from the provinces on the supervision of disaster response. He can use this information to evaluate his own policy and if necessary amend it, or he can refer to it when calling others to account.
The Court concludes that the minister has too little structured information and that he is too unfamiliar with the existing problems to amend policy in time and in the appropriate areas. As a result, he is unable to fully comply with his overall responsibility for the effectiveness of the organisational structure of disaster response.
The minister has not clearly identified the information he needs, who will provide it, and when. He has insufficient understanding of how well the provinces and municipalities are capable of preventing, preparing for, and actually combating disasters and serious accidents. In addition, he does not use the information he receives from provinces spontaneously to amend policy.
UpRecommendations
In the Court's opinion, a good government information system is indispensable to ascertaining the effectiveness of disaster response and to amending policy on it if necessary.
In his 1999 policy document on disaster response for 2000-2004, the minister said that he favoured giving government measures a statutory basis, thus making enforcement easier. But this policy document, like the government position paper drawn up after the official report on the Enschede firework disaster, fails to deal fully with some areas of concern. The minister must, for instance, impose clear requirements on disaster response capacity: on the availability, training level, and proficiency of personnel, as well as on the availability of financial and other resources. He must also propose specific steps for structurally improving cooperation between regions.
The Court advocates further implementing, streamlining, and enforcing existing legislation to ensure safety. Indispensable to this goal is a clear structure for information provision, to make it easier to supervise those responsible and hold them to account.
UpResponses of the minister and state secretary
Responses of the minister and state secretary, the Association of Provincial Authorities (IPO), and the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG)
The Minister and State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations responded jointly to the audit report on 28 May 2001. The IPO responded on 28 May 2001, and the VNG on 22 May 2001.
The minister and state secretary commented on the Court's description of how disaster response had come to be organised. They said that the Court had been right to proceed from what was known now in order to assess the current state of affairs and to make recommendations for the future. But they said that it was inappropriate to evaluate 25 years of policy by current yardsticks, since the current disaster response situation had applied for only eleven of those years.
Their response shows that they appreciate the systematic way in which the report sheds light on the problems of preparing to respond to disasters and serious accidents. They consider the report compatible with the government objective of energetically strengthening disaster response policy, as set out in the policy document on disaster response for 2000-2004 and the government position paper on the Enschede firework disaster.
They agree with the Court's conclusion that their policy objectives need working out in more detail. They say that this is being done in line with the recommendations of these two documents. They trust that the initiatives set out in the documents will help solve the problems identified by the Court of Audit. Following the government position paper on the fireworks disaster, it will increase the budget for strengthening disaster response by NLG 61 million to NLG 203 million in 2003.
The minister and state secretary stress that they bear overall responsibility for disaster response. Primary statutory responsibility for adequate preparation lies with the municipalities.
UpResponse of the IPO
The IPO endorses the Court's main conclusion, that the minister has achieved too little recently in trying to formulate a structural, systematic risk policy. The IPO agrees that planning at local level has been slow in coming. The provincial authorities are taking stock of risks and evaluating the situation, which has led to a joint assessment framework for disaster response plans.
UpResponse of the VNG
The VNG points out in its response that the statutory framework for the current organisational structure of disaster response dates only from 1992, when the Medical Assistance (Disasters) Act entered into force. The Civil Defence Act was repealed in 1985, and the new statutory framework was not ready until 1992. The VNG says that, for much of the period studied, the statutory framework was incomplete and the municipalities had to face a difficult situation economically, especially as to employment and government finances. In the VNG's opinion, preparing for disasters was neither a government nor a public priority.
The VNG says that the importance given to planning in the audit detracts from the efforts of the municipalities to improve disaster response.
UpAfterword by the Court of Audit
The Court of Audit's analysis, which begins with the government initiative of 1975, has not tried to evaluate the past 25 years by today's yardstick, but to accurately assess today's situation.
The Court of Audit expects that the specific measures launched and proposed by the minister will help create an effective organisation for disaster response, with everyone involved fully meeting their responsibilities. It looks forward to the initiatives being energetically implemented and expects fast visible results.
The Court of Audit is pleased to note that the IPO endorses its conclusions and that initiatives have now been launched.
The VNG rightly notes that planning, as part of the preparation link in disaster response, has an important place in the audit. The Court has not investigated the other links in the disaster response chain in which the municipalities play a vital part.
Finally, the Court of Audit notes that much will depend on the extent to which all those involved see a chance this time to make reality keep pace with policy objectives.
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