Draft Minutes of the DISACT Network Meeting

10:00am, Tuesday 22ndNovember at the NGA.

Attending: Willameena Gentle (APH); Roslyn Jehne (CFC); Christine Law and Victoria Ramshaw (NFSA); Mary Lou Ryan, Charis Tyrrel, Jael Muspratt, Cathy Collins, Stefanie Woodruff, Lisa Addison, Peter Siemzchula, John Santolin, Debbie Ward and Andrea Wise (NGA); Antoinette Buchanan (ACT Heritage Library); Elizabeth Estbergs (ACT Chief Minister’s Dept.); Jennifer Lloyd (NLA); Ellie McFadyen (NAA); Patrya Kay (NMA); Jo Palmer (Aust. Nat. Herbarium); Bernard Kertesz (AWM); Grant Watson (ACT Urban Services).

1. Apologies: Mary Paton (ANU Archives), Kim Morris (A&A Pty Ltd).

2. Minutes of the last meeting and business arising:

Action Item
2. Secretary to compile listing, by next meeting, of institutions’ emergency contact numbers. / ACTION: follow up with remaining MOU signatory organisations. Not yet done.
3. Secretary to approach network members in each institution for information on the status of implementation of MOU initiatives. / ACTION:follow up with remaining signatory organisations. Not yet done.
3.1 Preparation of a new MOU. / ACTION: Lisa Addison to follow up with Erica Persak progress of new draft of the MOU. Lisa and Deb to follow up.
4.1 NAA to sponsor the next workshop, tentatively scheduled for the end of October or early November. / Workshop carried out and succesful.
4.2 Secretary to co-ordinate volunteers with the organisation of seminars. / ACTION: Secretary to progress. Not yet done.
4.3 Website additions / ACTION: disaster recovery workshop page to be posted to website. Page complete but not yet posted.
ACTION: JL to progress the suppliers list. Still waiting on some lists.
ACTION:members site to be activated and resource list to be posted there. Ready to be activated.
6. Production of a video recording of a workshop scenario day. / ACTION: To be kept on the list for future action.

3. Implementation of MOU initiatives:

No reports.

4. Inter institutional co-operation and DISACT activities:

4.1Disaster Recovery Workshop: NAA sponsored workshop a success; NGA to be approached to sponsor the next workshop. NLA to be the fallback sponsor.

4.2The DISACT seminar: Requested that a seminar be organised around the theme of Business Continuity and that Les Whittet, Leader of the ACT BCI Forum, be approached to provide a presentation on the principles of BC. Such a seminar would help disaster planning practitioners place their concerns into the greater context.

4.3The DISACT website: JL suggested that the suppliers list should be broken into 2 categories, basic for the general resources that all would require and a specialist category for specific problem issues/materials.

5. The integration of Collection Disaster Plans into the Business Continuity planning process.(Jennifer Lloyd, NLA)

Jennifer has prepared a report for a Public Sector Management course on this subject. She investigated the operations of the NLA’s Emergency Planning Committee, the major forum for all risk management activities, and briefly compared it with operations in similar Commonwealth cultural collecting institutions. The NLA’s EPC consists of a cross section of senior management with 4 executives from the corporate management group and section heads from Buildings and Services, Preservation, Staffing, IT etc. The group meets bi-monthly for a tabling of current risk assessments and formulation of mitigation strategies. The group has a range of integrated plans although their goal is to ensure that their currency is improved. All business continuity management is under the control of the EPC. This level of integration is seen to be essential for coherency and effectiveness.

Jennifer briefly polled other organisations to see what their practices are; no other institution had a similar integrated approach operating at such a high level. The NGA came closest in their approach; they have set up a unit co-ordinating risk assessments and management. The other institutions polled had disjointed and disconnected approaches with no overarching structure.

After Jennifer’s overview of her report, a brisk discussion ensued; the issues raised included,

  • the importance of testing plans,
  • the importance of keeping next of kin details current and immediately available; personnel managers could include it on a password protected thumb drive along with other essential emergency documentation,
  • contact trees must be kept up-to-date and include ministerial and council level contacts,
  • contact tree numbers must be accessible; pointless, for example, to include mobile numbers for people who never answer their mobile,
  • essential to have a member of emergency response teams whose has the designated role of recorder,
  • the need for moderating risk levels on a risk register; the risk level often needs to be corrected to reflect the true business impact,
  • the availability of an Excel based risk identification tool from Dept. of Finance & Admin.
  • the Commonwealth Heads of Conservation forum has been considering the establishment of an overarching body to be called the National Preservation Council which would help minimise the duplication (policies and physical resources) inherent in organisations which are mostly in the same portfolio, DCITA.

6. Reports on activities by DISACT members and any incidents experienced:

[NOTE; institutional reports are mostly edited for confidentiality/security reasons.]

  1. Any other business: No other business.

Next meeting: 10:00am, 21st February, 2006 sponsored by the AWM. If the eastern building (currently under construction) is open then the meeting will include a tour; if not,the meeting will be held at the AWM’s Mitchell annex.