Declaration forms to change

This from the Director of Civil Defence...

In January 2010, the Department of Internal Affairs completed a review of declarations of a state of emergency, and identified the need for a number of technical changes to the forms for declaring, extending, or terminating a state of emergency, as prescribed in the CDEM Regulations.

The amendments ensure that the prescribed forms are as “ready-to-use” as possible during a civil defence emergency, and help reduce the likelihood of errors and the risk of liability issues arising from the declaration process. In addition to providing separate forms for declaring a state of national and local emergency, the new forms:

· require a description of the emergency for which the declaration is being made;

· make clearer provision to state the time and date on which a declaration comes into force, is extended, or is terminated;

· provide an easy method for the person making the declaration to indicate that he or she is authorised to declare under the CDEM Act 2002; and

· include notes that explain how to calculate correctly the maximum duration of a state of emergency, and draw attention to certain requirements such as the need for a declaration to be publicly notified and published in the Gazette as soon as practicable.

An electronic copy of the new forms will be forwarded to your Group Emergency Management Officer. Please ensure that all of the existing forms within your Group and the local authority members are replaced with the new forms by 31 July 2010. I suggest you also check and replace the old forms that may be in the CDEM Group Plan or any individual territorial authority member’s civil defence plans, and held by CDEM officials and those authorised to declare. You might find it valuable to ensure that controllers and those authorised to declare are made aware of the changes in the form.

Section 73(2) of the CDEM Act provides that the validity of a declaration is not affected by the inclusion of any additional information not specified in the appropriate form prescribed in the regulations. Therefore the CDEM Group or the territorial authority members can include their logos or other relevant information in the new forms they use.