Usually it is the bureaucrat’s ultimate nightmare – breaking new ground with no safe precedents to rely upon, no manual, no best-practice guidelines and models to ensure all bums are covered, all decisions justifiable, all funds accounted for and all careers protected.
Whatever finger-pointing goes on about the lead-up to the fire, it appears that the recovery work and administration has been exemplary. Well this is Canberra, so we should do those things well. There has been hardly a peep of criticism about the running of the Bushfire Recovery Centre – a good test for smooth administration.
There was little warning.
The manager of the centre, Di Butcher, taken from the child protection service of the Department of Education Youth and Family Service, found the experience surreal.
Usually human services are always struggling in terms of both physical and financial resources. Each area of service delivery has its own procedures, means of reporting and ways of doing things.
“With the implementation of the Recovery Centre we were given the autonomy to just go ahead and do it,” she said. “We have people working here from almost every ACT government department. Housing, Child Protection, the Health Department, Education, Justice, Urban Services – a group of practitioners used to working in challenging areas, often under crisis conditions, but everyone had a different style of working and reporting. We had to co-ordinate the procedures and processes very quickly. “We found out from the people affected by the fires what they were going to need. Often we have had to change direction very quickly to meet the identified needs of particular groups or the current situation presenting on any given day. Unthought-of and unplanned issues just emerged from all sides. We had direct access to the Taskforce through the Secretariat and we managed these emerging issues and situations directly to them for further action and decision making. We were very clear about the role we were providing and what the nature of our work was. That was to support the community and assist them in the management of their own recovery.
“Often we would be in a situation that required us to just pick up the phone and outline what the needs were and ask for immediate resolution or assistance from both within and outside government. In most cases we achieved a quick turnaround and we were amazed at the willingness and spirit the community, business and government sectors. We have been afforded a huge level of trust. In those early days there was very little that we had time to put into writing and often we have been given verbal agreement and permission to undertake the necessary action.
At the outset the head of the Bushfire Recovery Taskforce, Sandy Hollway, said that it was better to get it 80 per cent right quickly than to have unnecessary delays and hold ups where there were issues relating to the comfort and needs of the community affected by the fires. He was adamant that we should not be the cause of further stress.
Perhaps it is a lesson for other administrators. The model we are working under was put together hastily but it was informed by a group of highly trained and experienced practitioners who all held positions of trust and responsibility within existing human services agencies. The result to date has been first rate and acknowledged by the McLeod inquiry which was otherwise critical of what happened before the fires. Other inquiries and a coroner’s inquest are under way.
But on the recovery side, the ACT Government appointed an ACT Bushfire Taskforce. The Recovery Centre works through it. A Community and Expert Reference Group were established headed by Elizabeth Whitelaw former head of the Canberra Business Council. The Group brought together community groups, fire-affected residents, business, unions and Commonwealth authorities. The Reference Group has been very effective in bringing emerging issues to the attention of the Taskforce, and getting things resolved quickly.
Among charities and community groups who are partners with government in the recovery effort are: Anglicare, Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul, Uniting Church, Chapman Residents Group, Phoenix, Communities@Work, Woden Community Service, Belconnen Community Service, Lifeline, Volunteering Australia, Relationships Australia, Apex, Lions and Rotary and many others.
Every ACT agency and department was brought to the task.
Despite the autonomy at the Recovery Centre, Di Butcher said there was a great deal of accountability on an individual level for people working at the Recovery Centre because everyone who came to work there had a very credible profile.
“If someone takes all the barriers away and gives you an allocation of money to do it, there is a huge level of vulnerability,” she said. “Not only do you want it to be a success for your career. It is deeper than that. As Canberra citizens we are out there saying, What can I do to contribute?
“There is that dual personality going all the time. Career and citizen. We are quite passionate about it and the work we do here, but we did not want the passion to interfere with the day to day work and accountability.
“I think that professionally we will never get this learning opportunity again. Then I ask myself should I be saying that when we are working through this dreadful tragedy that has affected so many Canberra people? But we all feel that it has been such a privilege to have been part of the recovery. And it will certainly be a challenge for us to go back to our ordinary work as this is one of those life changing experiences.”
The centre needed people with clinical operational skills – such as social workers, psychologists, welfare workers and human-services workers as well as administrators.
But, Di Butcher explained, they did not want to assume the role of ‘experts’. “Rather we have a low-key practical common sense approach. We got together a group of mature, skilled workers. We needed reasonably autonomous people with initiative and a high level of energy, people who could work without detailed instructions, but we did not want people who would go out there as mavericks and burn themselves out. As there was very little time to select them we had to think and move very quickly.
“We wanted the service to be the best it could possibly be. It was our opportunity to create a model that we think has never been used. . . .
“We had up to 20 services working from here in the first few weeks. As the needs diminished in one area and they left we would bring another service in. We have a case-management model and a community-development model. We merged them using an outreach approach. Yes it is a one-stop centre that we encourage people to come to, but those you miss you go out and find.”
Uniquely the centre has managed to blend Government, Community, charity and business functions.
“We invited Salvation Army, Anglicare, Woden Community Services and Communities @Work to be part of our team,” she said. “We had not done that before. NGOs and Government working together in one location. . . .
“The Recovery Centre has been an exceptional model that we own. There is a lot of interest in it – Australia and overseas. We have been asked to make presentations at several upcoming conferences. It is perhaps a best-practice model, where partnerships are the most important thing.