Data

Scope of Influence
Regional
Ongoing
No
Time Limited or Repeated?
A single, defined period of time
Purpose/Goal
Make, influence, or challenge decisions of government and public bodies
Make, influence, or challenge decisions of private organizations
Deliver goods & services
Approach
Consultation
Co-governance
Co-production in form of partnership and/or contract with government and/or public bodies
Spectrum of Public Participation
Consult
Total Number of Participants
400
Open to All or Limited to Some?
Open to All
Legality
Yes
Facilitators
Yes
Facilitator Training
Professional Facilitators
Face-to-Face, Online, or Both
Face-to-Face
Types of Interaction Among Participants
Discussion, Dialogue, or Deliberation
Decision Methods
Idea Generation
General Agreement/Consensus
Communication of Insights & Outcomes
Public Report
Type of Organizer/Manager
Government-Owned Corporation
Funder
Emergency Management Victoria
Type of Funder
Government-Owned Corporation
Staff
Yes
Evidence of Impact
Yes
Types of Change
Changes in civic capacities
Changes in how institutions operate
Changes in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior
Implementers of Change
Stakeholder Organizations
Formal Evaluation
No

CASE

Emergency Management Victoria's Resilient Recovery Strategy Co-Design Process

January 31, 2023 friedel.marquardt
Scope of Influence
Regional
Ongoing
No
Time Limited or Repeated?
A single, defined period of time
Purpose/Goal
Make, influence, or challenge decisions of government and public bodies
Make, influence, or challenge decisions of private organizations
Deliver goods & services
Approach
Consultation
Co-governance
Co-production in form of partnership and/or contract with government and/or public bodies
Spectrum of Public Participation
Consult
Total Number of Participants
400
Open to All or Limited to Some?
Open to All
Legality
Yes
Facilitators
Yes
Facilitator Training
Professional Facilitators
Face-to-Face, Online, or Both
Face-to-Face
Types of Interaction Among Participants
Discussion, Dialogue, or Deliberation
Decision Methods
Idea Generation
General Agreement/Consensus
Communication of Insights & Outcomes
Public Report
Type of Organizer/Manager
Government-Owned Corporation
Funder
Emergency Management Victoria
Type of Funder
Government-Owned Corporation
Staff
Yes
Evidence of Impact
Yes
Types of Change
Changes in civic capacities
Changes in how institutions operate
Changes in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior
Implementers of Change
Stakeholder Organizations
Formal Evaluation
No

To make emergency response efforts more proactive and responsive to community needs, Emergency Management Victoria engaged in a range of consultative measures to hear from key organizations, stakeholders and the community to create the Resilient Recovery Strategy. [1]

Problems and Purpose

With more frequent emergency events, the increased cost of responding, and far-reaching impacts, there was a need to reevaluate the state of Victoria's emergency response system. Along with many reports and inquiries into Victoria’s emergency response after major disaster events in 2009-2011, the Victorian state government sought to improve the current system to better respond to the changing and increasing needs that arise from modern and future emergency events. [2] & [3] 

This led to the pursuit of a more proactive and future-focused emergency response strategy. The approach involved seeking input from all stakeholders to create a recovery system that would respond to the needs of the community and agencies, reduce duplication of services, better coordinate responses, inform the community of what is available to them in emergency events, and have an appropriate and flexible funding model. [4] The resulting Resilient Recovery Strategy has four key areas of focus to address this [5]:  

  • Deliver a people and community-centred recovery approach 
  • Strengthen recovery through better emergency management planning 
  • Streamlined and flexible recovery system, and  
  • Support the recovery workforce 


Background History and Context

Bushfire, heatwave and flood emergency events of 2009, 2010 and 2011 called for the need to review Victoria’s then-current emergency response system. This was the first review into the system in nearly 30 years. [6] Proceeding documents and inquiries further highlighted the need to review the system as it was falling short in many ways and needed to be much more responsive to current and future emergency needs. Some of these reviews and inquiry papers include the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, the Victorian Floods Review, the Green Paper: Towards a More Disaster Resilient and Safer Victoria, and the White Paper: Victorian Emergency Management Reform. [7] 

The previous emergency response approach was ill-fitting in many ways to modern emergency events and had been reliant on the “goodwill and collaboration of many partners.” [8] It was also noted that there was inadequate preparedness for emergency events, causing delayed responses that do not always meet the needs of the community. [9] 


Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) was the main driver of this initiative. EMV is a government body that helps support Victoria’s emergency response efforts and ensure the systems in place for it are “sustainable, effective and community-focused.” [10] 

Nous Group assisted EMV in reevaluating and strengthening systems to form the Resilient Recovery Strategy. This included organising and running consultations with experts, co-design workshops with key stakeholders from the community and organizations, and pitching the strategy to government officials through workshops. The strategy was endorsed by the State Crisis and Resilience Council. [11] 


Participant Recruitment and Selection

There were over 400 participants in the consultation workshops from a range of state and local government and non-government organizations, emergency services, academia and the community and other groups. [12] With the help of the Department of Health and Human Services, this culminated in eight workshops in regional areas. [13] 

It is unclear how these participants were selected. 


Methods and Tools Used

Various steps were taken to create the Resilient Recovery Strategy. These included a range of consultation approaches and workshops, including co-design workshops, to hear from government actors and the community about what is needed from them and available for the strategy. [14] It was important to consult with the community to better understand and appropriately respond to their contexts and needs so as to ensure they feel supported. [15] & [16] 


What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

There was great emphasis on engaging with the community for the strategy. This was largely due to the notion that well done “community-centred models” result in more appropriate, resilient and sustainable initiatives and further enhance collaboration between government and citizens. [17] 

Nous Group outlined the approaches they took to inform the Resilient Recovery Strategy in the following order [18]: 

  • Identified gaps in previous and current relief and recovery efforts 
  • Consulted with government actors to better understand where current relief efforts are falling short, what the government will do, and ideal outcomes for a strategy 
  • Utilized co-design workshops in regional areas with members from the community, government and non-government organizations to test and enhance ideas, as well as create greater buy-in for the strategy 
  • Developed a narrative for the strategy and implementation plans based on the ideas that arose in the workshops 
  • Pitched the strategy to senior government officials through workshops to gain support and finalize the strategy  


Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

The Resilient Recovery Strategy has influenced the development further recovery frameworks that are more targeted to specific emergency events, such as the Recovery Framework for bushfires.  


Analysis and Lessons Learned

It is difficult to determine the deliberative extent of the community co-design workshops due to there not being much detailed information available about how the workshops were run. However, based on MosaicLab’s “A Short Guide to Deliberative Engagement for Victorian Councils” and the emphasis placed on community engagement in the documents referenced in this entry, it can be argued that the consultation and co-design workshops were a medium scale short form deliberation. [19] This suggests that while some core deliberative elements were incorporated and adhered to, participant involvement was largely in response to and contained within the framework and proposed strategy outlined by the organizing entities. 


See Also

References

[1] Emergency Management Victoria (2019) Resilient Recovery Strategy. Available at: https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/how-we-help/resilient-recovery-strategy   

[2] Emergency Management Victoria (2019) Resilient Recovery Strategy. Available at: https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/how-we-help/resilient-recovery-strategy  

[3] Ibid.  

[4] Ibid.  

[5] Ibid.  

[6] Emergency Management Victoria (2017) Resilient Recovery: Discussion Paper. Available at: https://files-em.em.vic.gov.au/public/EMV-web/Resilient-Recovery-Discussion-Paper.pdf   

[7] Ibid.  

[8] Ibid., p. 5  

[9] Ibid.  

[10] Nous Group (n.d.) Putting the community at the heart of Victoria’s recovery from emergencies. Available at: https://nousgroup.com/case-studies/resilient-recovery-strategy/    

[11] Ibid.  

[12] Emergency Management Victoria (2019) Resilient Recovery Strategy. Available at: https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/how-we-help/resilient-recovery-strategy  

[13] Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (2019) Resilience recovery strategy targets consequences of emergencies. Available at: https://www.ipwea.org/blogs/intouch/2019/12/11/resilience-recovery-strategy-targets-consequences   

[14] Nous Group (n.d.) Putting the community at the heart of Victoria’s recovery from emergencies. Available at: https://nousgroup.com/case-studies/resilient-recovery-strategy/   

[15] Emergency Management Victoria (2017) Resilient Recovery: Discussion Paper. Available at: https://files-em.em.vic.gov.au/public/EMV-web/Resilient-Recovery-Discussion-Paper.pdf  

[16] Emergency Management Victoria (2019) Resilient Recovery Strategy. Available at: https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/how-we-help/resilient-recovery-strategy  

[17] Emergency Management Victoria (2019) Resilient Recovery Strategy. Available at: https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/how-we-help/resilient-recovery-strategy  

[18] Nous Group (n.d.) Putting the community at the heart of Victoria’s recovery from emergencies. Available at: https://nousgroup.com/case-studies/resilient-recovery-strategy/  

[19] MosaicLab (n.d.) A Short Guide to Deliberative Engagement for Victorian Councils. Available at: https://www.mosaiclab.com.au/publications   


External Links

Notes