For the first time I'm aware of, and that goes back as far as 1967, "Victorians have an opportunity to shape the future of fire management in Victoria by providing feedback to the Victorian Fire Management Strategy Discussion Paper.
"Released this week the paper aims to explore new and innovative ways to prevent fires in Victoria and reduce impacts on the community when fires occur.
"Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley said sector and community feedback was the first step in developing a holistic new strategy, which would include all aspects of fire."
The discussion paper can be reached by clicking on the label Plate 1 immediately below the photograph.
In the posting heading I've referred to the needs of the customer.
Who is the customer?
The Macquarie Dictionary Fifth Edition defines a customer as "someone who purchases goods from another; a buyer; a patron".
All Victorians are customers, indeed owners of the fire services through the fire service levy and other taxes we pay to establish and maintain these services: MFB, CFA and DELWP Forest Fire Management Victoria.
Who is a stakeholder?
Whilst there are many stakeholders: "someone who has a pecuniary interest in an enterprise, having contributed funds to it; someone who is affected by, is concerned with, etc., with an issue or enterprise", the customers must be considered the prime or paramount stakeholders and while the advice or recommendations of the lesser stakeholders should be considered, their sometimes self-serving needs or wants should never override the best interests of the owners of the fire services.
I imagine that most who read this posting will be aware to some extent of the Victorian government's push to rearrange our fire and emergency services and the supporting nonsense that's been promoted by various parties who should know better, and here I include the Emergency Management Commissioner and CFA Chief Officer.
The rationale or lack of it.
Apparently the so-called "modernising" of Victoria's fire services and I'll come back to this later, is founded on an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) that affects CFA paid personnel that the CFA Board refused to accept in its entirety. Having failed here, the government decided that it would split the CFA to in effect separate solely volunteer brigades from integrated brigades having a paid firefighter component.
And, it has not stopped there. CFA has released emergency response data that does not give any information on periods of a day involved. Unfortunately, this information is being cherry-picked by certain lesser stakeholders supporting the assertion that selected volunteer brigades don't meet the required response time, seemingly to frighten the communities they serve.
Don't be mislead, there will be integrated brigades out there capable of meeting the response times at night and weekends that don't require 24/7 paid firefighters. CFA management should be identifying on an individual brigade basis where volunteers can meet the response times and rather than having paid firefighters sleeping in fire stations reallocate some to stations that need "daytime staffing", hence avoiding an increase in costs.
Concerning costs, The Australian recently published information on rising public sector employment costs provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
With the emphasis on emergency response, which currently seems to be the main argument about meeting the needs of the customer, the following are recent examples of the weakness or failure of strategies to protect life and property protection due to all the "eggs being in one basket":
In drawing attention to the above that I consider failures due to the loss of life involved, enormous loss of property and cost of recovery in all its forms, I'm certainly not being critical of firefighters involved, many of whom will have placed themselves in dangerous situations and deserve our thanks. The failure is at the executive management and political level in shirking vital prevention and preparedness measures to reduce the reliance on firefighter intervention.
Prevention
How do we avoid or reduce the impact of situations such as the above examples? Clearly by increasing the effort in the areas of prevention and community preparedness — and Lancefield is a prime example of an unprepared community with houses vulnerable to ember attack. And prevention must include better building construction regulation and emergency management planning for buildings, including emergency management wardens to organise the orderly evacuation of occupants.
This prevention and preparedness must extend into the family home to reduce reliance on emergency response — the fire brigade may be delayed for one reason or another or not even arrive. Smoke alarms in the family home are intended to alert the occupants so that they can safely leave the building.
There is more a fire service can be doing to protect life and property than just building up its response capability; that’s yesterday’s thinking.
Fire Service Modernisation
The Victorian government claims to want to modernise the Country Fire Authority, but it was a very modern Authority and well in advance of its time when it came into being in 1945:
(1) For the more effective control of the prevention and suppression of fires in the country area of Victoria there shall be an Authority appointed by the Governor in Council to be called the "Country Fire Authority".
(2) By such name such Authority shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal and shall be capable in law of suing and of being sued and of taking purchasing holding exchanging leasing and disposing of real and personal property.
That’s right, as it states in the current CFA Act an Authority not a fire service or fire brigade!
Section 6F Recognition of Authority as a volunteer-based organisation
The Parliament recognises that the Authority is first and foremost a volunteer-based organisation, in which volunteer officers and members are supported by employees in a fully integrated manner..
That was the original intention, an Authority that is “first and foremost a volunteer-based organisation” that still stands in the current Country Fire Authority Act — not a fire brigade or fire service as is the Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Brigade (MFB).
Section 14 Control of the prevention and suppression of fires in the country area
The control of the prevention and suppression of fires in the country area of Victoria is, subject to this Act, vested in the Authority.
In recent times CFA management seems to have more concentrated more on being a fire brigade than addressing its full role as an Authority and neglecting its fire prevention responsibilities:
Over time governments have helped with the downgrading of the CFA for example the revocation of CFA’s section 44 inspection responsibility. How this was handled is a shameful story for another day.
On volunteers being labelled by some as "unprofessional" that's tripe, as CFA volunteers are required to be trained, assessed and qualified for whatever roles they perform. Consequently, was it appropriate for a government that should be working in Victoria's best interests to allow denigration of volunteers to be publicly canvassed in the Melbourne CBD? As a volunteer myself, I found it extremely offensive and needing a response.
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
DELWP, another government agency failing its customers:
Referring to Minister Merlino's statement in the final paragraph of Mayor Clarke in the Diamond Valley Leader story concerning preparedness for the coming fire season, a record $29.4 million in Victoria's biggest ever firefighting aircraft fleet", is Minister Merlino unaware that the very day when aircraft are most required weather conditions usually prevent or at least severely restrict their use e.g. they were of little or no help in preventing the losses at Wye River–Separation Creek on Christmas Day 2015. Makes me wonder, is Minister Merlino seeking to "snow" us, or has he been mislead by his advisors?
Finally, for the benefit of Minister Melino and those who feel that to be a professional requires being paid to do the job, here’s a fire and rescue department worth spending some time looking into Fairfax Country Fire and Rescue Department, Virginia, adjoining Washington DC.
HERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE TO HAVE INPUT TO FUTURE FIRE MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS FOR VICTORIA AND I URGE EVERYONE AS THE TRUE CUSTOMERS TO HAVE THEIR SAY, BUT TIME IS SHORT.
