Council welcomes recommendations following Cyclone Gabrielle response review

Published: 12 December 2023

Napier City Council is putting in place valuable business continuity and community resilience recommendations, following an independent review of the organisation’s response during Cyclone Gabrielle.

The review, undertaken by Resilient Organisation Ltd., covers Council’s internal response coordination, which includes crisis management and business continuity; and external response, which includes civil defence and emergency management.

Napier City Council Community Services Executive Director, Thunes Cloete, says he welcomes the report’s recommendations.

“The reviewers recognised the impact of future events may be different to the impacts from Cyclone Gabrielle. The recommendations will help us to improve our preparedness for a range of potential crisis situations,” Thunes says.

Reviewers looked at documents from the response and conducted interviews with 39 key staff who were involved in the response. The reviewers also held workshops with other relevant staff, external groups and elected members.

The key recommendations to improve the Council’s readiness for future emergency events include training for staff, greater resourcing, improving the resilience of the city’s infrastructure, and bringing the iwi liaison function into Council and improving its resourcing. The Council has recently employed an experienced Emergency Management Officer, who has started creating a work plan based on the recommendations.

After the review, Napier City Council commissioned Resilient Organisation Ltd. to develop a Business Continuity and Crisis Coordination Management Framework to ensure the organisation can operate with minimal impact on critical operations and key services. Council’s Executive Leadership Team and other managers provided input to the Framework.

The full Napier City Council Response to Cyclone Gabrielle Independent Review document is available to read here.

Back to News Archive