News 
Issue 12: April 2015
A quick snapshot of the priority issues and actions worked through at the most recent Joint Committee meeting between CFA and VFBV.
SERVICE DELIVERY STRATEGY 2015 - 2020
The Committee received an update on the progress of consultation of the CFA Service Delivery Strategy being conducted by CFA’s Fire & Emergency Management directorate.
The Service Delivery Strategy will drive CFA efforts to make changes to support local people to solve local problems, and its intent is to focus on public safety at CFA’s core. The strategy is a clear mandate for every member of CFA to take a role in service delivery, whether through the delivery of services directly to the community, or the provision of support services to frontline members.
The Service Delivery Strategy identifies four strategic objectives. These are explained as comprising the major focus areas to lead the change required to build an agile, service focussed organisation, and are; Empowering & sustaining the frontline | Transforming service delivery to meet local needs | Working with communities | Strengthening relationships through collaboration.
Members are encouraged to engage in the consultation sessions occurring throughout the State, and/or speak with your OO or OM on how you can be involved. A copy of the Draft Strategy is available from the CFA website, Brigades Online.
OBSERVATION SHARING CENTRE
Have you observed any problems, shortfalls or successes that you would like to share? Do you have a lesson to share, so others can learn? Your lesson could be a success, a way of doing things in a more efficient or safer way, a close call... anything others could learn from.
Members are reminded that there is an online sharing tool designed to capture member feedback. It is designed so members do not have to wait for an official or formal debrief process in order to capture or submit observations about things that worked well or didn’t work well at an incident, deployment, or campaign fire.
Members are strongly encouraged to use this tool to raise issues experienced with deployments or strike team duties. You can access it from Brigades Online by searching for “Observation sharing centre”.
VOLUNTEER ACCESS TO IMT TRAINING COURSES
The Committee continues to advocate on the need for CFA to better support and encourage volunteer access to IMT training courses. A report to the Committee indicates that throughout 2014 there were 92 IMT course/activities, of which 32 were formal IMT training courses. Over that same period, the report shows only 81 volunteers completed and graduated from one of the 13 Incident Management Common Training Packages. The Committee has requested the reporting of IMT training to be a standing item, and has requested renewed effort to help identify greater and more reasonable opportunities for volunteers to access this training.
ROLE OF GROUP UPDATE
The Committee was disappointed to learn that CFA was not intending to distribute the printed copies of last year’s Role of Group handbook that was produced and developed from the Role of Group Review. The Committee was advised that whilst the books had been printed and were ready for distribution, that CFA no longer supports aspects of the document. The Role of Group Working Party has requested an urgent meeting with the Chief Officer to understand what has changed, the reasons behind those changes and why it is no longer supported.
