People and Capabilities

Prior to the Canterbury earthquakes, EQC was a small organisation with 22 staff supported by a range of third-party providers.

EQC at that time had a Catastrophe Response Programme in place that outlined how the organisation would scale-up its claims management functions following a major natural disaster. The Programme included agreements with third-party providers which would be activated in the event of a catastrophe, to provide quick access to resources for claims processing and assessment of damage. However, the Programme did not have equivalent plans for scaling-up supporting functions such as human resources, information technology, information management, procurement privacy, security, policy, Ministerial services and legal support.

The Catastrophe Response Programme scale-up plans were put into action immediately after the September 2010 earthquake, and EQC expanded rapidly. By December 2010, it had become an organisation supporting over 1,000 staff, with the majority employed on a short-term or temporary basis. Staff numbers peaked in October 2011 at approximately 1,600.  However, as this briefing shows, EQC did not have the supporting resources, systems and processes in place to support this rapid expansion.

Over the following eight years, staff numbers rose and fell as EQC responded to events, and as it planned for the eventual wind-down of Canterbury claims. Staffing and capability also evolved in response to a range of reviews and reports into EQC. As a result of these EQC has had regular restructures of staff and teams across the organisation.

EQC has recently undertaken a further organisational change. This is based on the need for a standardised customer experience and claims management approach, ensuring clear roles and responsibilities, and minimal duplication across roles and teams. It also takes into account the fact that further change is likely to be implemented following the outcome of the Public Inquiry.

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