The Victorian Auditor General’s Office (VAGO) has just released its report Managing Emergency Services Volunteers, the result of an audit that set out to assess whether CFA and SES effectively and efficiently manage emergency services volunteers.
VFBV is examining the report in detail and is calling for volunteer feedback.
Click here for the Auditor General’s report.
Click here for VFBV’s media release
Our observations after an initial examination of the Auditor General’s findings are;
The report confirms volunteers are vital to Emergency Management in Victoria. It states that volunteers save Victoria in the order of $12.6 Billion per year, and we know CFA volunteers are worth in the order of $1 to $2 billion. CFA volunteers are a billion dollar resource.
The report recognises volunteers are unpaid professionals and provide essential services that could not be economically provided by a paid workforce.
There is a need to ensure there is excellent support, intelligence, and efforts and systems in place to encourage strengthen and maintain volunteer capability. This is not a small issue; volunteers are 97% of the CFA workforce and CFA protects 60% of suburban Melbourne and all of country Victoria - not to mention the power, water and communications systems that serve the entire state.
There are large parts of Victoria where CFA’s emergency response is volunteer run and managed, so it is critical that CFA and the Government understand what attracts and keeps volunteers and what they need in the way of training, equipment and support to do the job.
Investing in CFA’s support to volunteers is not a cost - it is a wise investment, and the report brings into question the wisdom of recent budget cuts to CFA.
The report recognises volunteers have the capacity, the expertise and the interest to do what needs to be done, but the management of, and support to get the very best from this huge and vital resource could be improved.
This isn’t a surprise to us, we want CFA and Government to invest in the best possible support to recruiting, training and equipping volunteers. And we want the volunteer capability to be utilised – put to work in the roles they train for – that’s the key to keeping them.
As demand grows in growing communities, we must grow the support to recruit, train and equip a volunteer capability. As community decline impacts on volunteer availability – we must find flexible solutions to ensure you get the best possible use of the volunteer capability that is there.
Investing in volunteer capability is the only viable option for the continued provision of many essential services. Contemplating that volunteers can be replaced by paid workforce is not economically viable.
VFBV encourages volunteers to read the Auditor General’s report and send comments, questions and suggestions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
