SES welcomes Victorian Auditor-General's Office Report

Today the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office published its report on managing emergency services volunteers, presenting their audit recommendations of CFA and SES’ management of their volunteer workforce.

SES welcomes and accepts the recommendations of the Victorian Auditor-General’s report. Volunteers are integral to the work of SES and we value their immense contribution and commitment – last year SES volunteers contributed over 300,000 hours of their time to serve their community.

SES is developing an action plan for the implementation of all the report’s recommendations. This action plan will be completed by the end of March 2014. The issues and challenges identified by the Auditor-General, reinforce those identified by SES. We are working hard to address them and current initiatives include:

* Identifying improvements for our ERAS-e system

* A recruitment and retention pilot in the Central Region to inform the development of an organisational-wide recruitment and retention strategy

* A data integrity project that seeks to scope and prioritise enhancements to governance, systems, processes, training and documentation relating to key SES data

SES is working in partnership with CFA, and other agencies in the sector, to enhance our  volunteer capacity and capability.

Through the steadfast support and commitment of our volunteers SES is able to play a vital role in the Victorian emergency services sector, contributing to improving the safety of all Victorians.

John Casey, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Victoria State Emergency Service

Claire Higgins, Chair