Organising for Effective Incident Management Final Report

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BushfireTopic: 
Community Safety
Human Resources
Risk Management
TitleOrganising for Effective Incident Management Final Report
Publication TypeReport
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsOwen, C, Bhandari, R, Bearman, C, Abbasi, A, Brooks, B
Date Published17/04/2014
ISBN Number978-0-9875218-7-3
AbstractThis project aimed to better understand how multi-agency emergency management coordination at regional and state levels could be improved in order to reduce the consequences to communities of an emergency event. Failure in emergency incident management coordination in major events has long been recognised in both the national and the international literature. In large events, breakdowns of information flow and coordination are both common and always problematic. The findings from the 2009–2010 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, for example, indicate a need to look beyond creating new standard operating procedures or adding to existing role responsibilities. They indicate that, despite the good work that has occurred in the past to build a robust inter-service incident management system, in overwhelming events the first point of breakdown is typically in communication and coordination between organisational layers involved in emergency management arrangements.