Relevance of legislation

As you can see from your lists, without legislation many of the organisations involved may have found themselves unable to carry out their roles and responsibilities to the fullest, which may have resulted in possible duplication of activities, inefficient, inappropriate or uncoordinated response and lack of direction/authority.

Did you come across any evidence of where the legislation etc. provided organisations with clear direction and enabled them to undertake their required duties effectively?

What I mean by evidence here is:

• Did the legislation require the statutory emergency services and/or local government to produce emergency management plans?
•  Were the plans developed using a consultative and cooperative approach to emergency management or were they written in isolation, thus possibly not having the total commitment of the other organisations involved?
•  Were the plans disseminated to all the organisations that were identified as having a role or function to perform during the pre-impact stage of the emergency/disaster? Was the community aware of such plans?
• Did the legislation identify and detail roles and responsibilities or accountability?
  
  

Activity 2.7   If you found any examples of the above, briefly outline what you found and save the information for future reference when compiling the legislation section of your report. If you are able to provide some evidence of contradictions, or lack of relevant legislation, you will need to ensure that this information is recorded also and included in your final report (Assignment 2). Save or print this activity

If you did not find any contradicting legislation, do not be concerned as either there may not have been any or it may become more apparent when you examine the impact phase of your event later within this subject. This is why one of the major considerations in selecting your event is to ensure that it does encompass the three phases of an emergency: pre-impact, impact and post impact phases. Hopefully you should find that you have accomplished a lot of your preliminary research for the future assignment(s) in the compilation of reference literature for this subject.

If you recall, Erik Auf der Heide's book, Disaster Response, Chapter 2 highlighted the problem that although emergency/disaster legislation may be in place it does not necessarily mean that it is acted upon. He went on to state that not only do governments sometimes have an apathetic attitude towards disaster/emergency preparedness but the general public also tends to have the same attitude.

He also states in his book that this can be attributed to lack of motivation. Motivation for disaster planning is one of the most difficult aspects of the disaster/emergency planning and preparedness process. So as you can see by this, although legislation/regulations may be in place it does not guarantee that things will be done. One of the best strategies to adopt, I believe, is to have sound public and agency/organisation education and training programs in place that will ensure that the objectives and needs of the emergency/disaster preparedness planning process are accomplished.

Activity 2.8   Reviewing the work and research that you have undertaken in the light of the readings, how do you think the organisations involved would have operated if relevant legislation were not in place? Jot down key points on a piece of paper. Save or print this activity

You have more than likely listed several issues that would need to be addressed. Some of these might be:

• the lack of legislation may have led to the potential for duplication of resources and effort;
• lack of authority/direction;
• lack of accountability;
• lack of appropriate resources (both human and material);
• inappropriate level of training and training programs in place.