Homes have been flooded in the Auckland suburb of Epsom after floods that marked the anniversary of the Auckland disaster.
Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida

An Office of the Auditor General report has found that Auckland City Council is now better prepared to respond to another natural disaster compared to early 2023.

The report, tabled in Parliament on Thursday, outlines the council’s progress in improving its emergency preparedness following repeated reviews following the Auckland anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.

The report said the council had so far implemented 38 of the 51 recommendations.

“Our work has shown that Auckland City Council has made significant progress in addressing the recommendations and is better prepared than it was in early 2023 to respond to another major emergency,” said Deputy Auditor-General Andrew McConnell.

Read about some of the weather event analyses already being conducted in 2023:

What has been achieved: New guidelines, more training, new technology

Council now has a new set of emergency response standard operating procedures for the mayor, elected members, duty teams and the incident management team.

A full crisis management briefing will be part of the training packages for future mayors.

An emergency learning module has also been incorporated into council staff induction training.

Almost 400 council staff have completed basic crisis response training.

Seven new senior community advisors have been hired to work with local boards to prepare communities for natural disasters.

Auckland Emergency Management has conducted at least two major test exercises, including one in October 2023, based on a tsunami scenario, and another in March 2024, based on a simulated tornado scenario.

The report also highlighted that the council had purchased new technology, including specialist DH4 software for rapid information gathering and ArcGIS geographic information software for mapping crisis events as they unfolded.

In October, the council is expected to launch an online open database containing information and contact details for about 90 Civil Defence centres in Auckland.

Areas for improvement

The report also identified a number of areas the council needs to continue to work on, including making communities more resilient to natural disasters and considering how the city will fund its disaster resilience plan over the next five years.

“It is essential that Auckland Council prioritises work to understand the gaps in communities’ emergency preparedness and direct resources to communities that may need more support,” McConnell said.

The report identified that effective relationships with communities and stakeholders will be critical to the successful implementation of the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group Plan 2024–2029 (Group Plan).

The report noted that communities in south Auckland told the government inquiry into extreme weather events in early 2023 that they did not know what to do or where to seek help, and that local evacuation and information centres were not responding to their language, cultural or faith needs.

The report also highlighted that ensuring adequate resources continues to pose risks to achieving the city’s long-term crisis management goals.

The release said that while the council plans to use funding from the current long-term plan to deliver programmes under the Group Plan, there was insufficient information on whether all activities would be funded between 2024 and 2029.