Dear Captain and Secretary
Can you please foward this email to your brigade members? A hard copy is also being posted for use on brigade notice boards/in brigade meetings.
As we enter another fire season, CFA is better equipped and resourced than ever before and a huge amount of work is going on to prepare for the season and implement recommendations of the Royal Commission.
CFA is a team and family, made up of over 58,000 volunteers and around 1,600 staff who share an enormous duty and privilege in protecting the community.
Our organisation has been through some very difficult times and seen much change in the past 18 months and now is the time to stand together as a strong, united team. With our focus very much on preparing for the upcoming fire season, I’d like to address a number of topics that have been the subject of recent discussions. I hope that by addressing these issues, I can provide some reassurance as we continue our focus on the fire season.
Additional funding to support volunteerism
CFA recognises that volunteers are under ever-increasing pressure at the same time as delivering the highest levels of committed, professional service. In its response to the Royal Commission final report, the State Government announced a $44.5 million package to support our volunteers.
This includes funding for 2,000 additional emergency pagers. There is funding to upgrade our regional training grounds and we have been given funds to employ 64 volunteer support officers to work directly in support of our volunteer brigades.
Additional career firefighters
CFA services the growth corridors of our state including around half of Melbourne and all of regional Victoria. In the growing urban areas we have a service delivery standard of having a truck on scene within eight minutes of receiving the call, 90 per cent of the time. In some cases, our volunteer brigades are responding to more than 800 calls per year.
We need additional career staff to support the hard work of our volunteers to meet this standard and CFA has consulted with brigades in the growth corridors that require additional support.
Additional career firefighters will be phased in over six years. They were requested by the CFA Chief Officer; the CFA Board supported this request and Government provided the funding.
The additional firefighters will not be at the expense of funding or support for volunteers, they will help CFA continue to serve the community in these rapidly increasing growth corridors.
Importantly, we would expect to see significant growth in volunteer numbers - especially in these growth corridors - as our career firefighting force also grows.
Structural Personal Protective Clothing
To ensure clarity around the provision of Structural PPC, I provide the following advice. To be classified as a structural firefighter for the purpose of the PPC replacement roll-out program, a member must have successfully completed the Wildfire with Low Structure competency and be a member of an eligible brigade.
Breathing Apparatus accreditation is not in itself the primary eligibility criteria for the allocation of Structural PPC.
CFA is confident 15,000 replacement Structural PPC units will meet our needs for appropriately qualified firefighters at more than 500 eligible brigades and the $32 million program is expected to be completed in June 2011.
Operational training
There will be no reduction in the funding of operational training.
Funding for training, skills maintenance, uniforms and equipment has risen by more than 150 per cent in the past three years. CFA is also increasing its investment in training through a new area dedicated to operational training and volunteerism.
Consultation
I acknowledge that Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria (VFBV) is concerned over consultation regarding the new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement covering CFA operational staff.
This agreement is between CFA and the United Firefighters Union - which represents CFA operational staff – and is better than the previous agreement. It will benefit the whole organisation, both paid and volunteer firefighters.
CFA volunteers’ representatives were not involved in the negotiations, as is appropriate, but they were consulted a number of times along the way. CFA consults a great deal with VFBV, including regular CFA/VFBV board meetings.
Any concerns between CFA and VFBV should be resolved in line with the dispute resolution principle of the Volunteer Charter.
To finish, I would like to thank you for your hard work and dedication and draw your attention to a comment I read recently from Scott Peschel, a Colac CFA volunteer for almost 13 years, that I think captures the spirit of CFA.
Scott grew up in Melbourne but joined CFA after his family moved into the region and says CFA has been ‘very rewarding’ for him. He says: "I decided to join up for a bit of a challenge and excitement, and also to serve the community.”
We are all here to serve the community. CFA provides a high standard of service to the community through a volunteer system supported by career staff – it is something we are all proud of.
We value our volunteers and recognise the critical role they play in protecting Victorians - we would not exist without them. We are committed to working and consulting with all CFA members including volunteers.
With new Chief Officer Euan Ferguson joining us in November, CFA will be further strengthened and it is important to remain focused on the coming fire season, to stand together, and protect our communities.
Your new CO will continue to be in contact with you and, if you would like to provide feedback on this letter, you can visit the CFA Connect forum thread: ‘Message from Acting CO Steve Warrington’. (You need to be logged into CFA Connect to access this thread)
Steve Warrington
Acting Chief Officer
