2023-24 Quarter 3 Fire Services Outcomes Framework Progress Report

This report is informed by the Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) and Fire Rescue Victoria’s (FRV) respective outcomes framework progress updates for the quarter 3 (Q3) 2023-24 reporting period (1 January to 31 March 2024).

This quarter, CFA reported on all 26 quarterly indicators from its 2023-24 CFA Year Four Outcomes Framework and FRV reported on 18 measures against 12 indicators from the FRV Outcomes Framework.

FRV’s December 2022 cyber-attack continues to affect data availability and its ability to report against all outcome framework indicators. FSIM understands FRV continues to work to restore its IT systems (Australian Incident Reporting System (AIRS) and FireCode) for future reporting will be restored in the 2024-25 FY and advises that FireCode will now be restored by September 2024.

Protected industrial actions at the CFA and FRV continue to affect data quality for some FRV indicators, such as indicators relating to the capture and reporting of false alarms and fleet availability.

CFA and FRV results are reported by exception under FSIM’s reporting criteria:

Demonstrates a notable achievement:

• CFA met baseline for indicator ‘Decrease in average time to control bushfires’ (2.2.4) and has shown continuous improvement over the last four quarters, demonstrating a notable achievement.
• CFA indicator ‘Increase in percentage of grass and scrub fires contained to 5 hectares’ (2.2.2) has met baseline for the first time since Q2 2022-23.
• FRV measure ‘Percentage of emergency medical response (EMR) within 9.2 minutes’ (2.1.3a) has met target for the fifteenth consecutive quarter.

Continuing off-track trend over repeated quarter:

• CFA’s indicator ‘Decrease average time spent suppressing structure fires (time spent on scene of incident)’ (2.2.3) has not met baseline since Q2 2022-23.
• FRV’s measure ‘Number of injuries and near misses per 1000 FTE’ (3.1.1a), which informs the indicator ‘Increase in support and maintenance of firefighters’ physical and psychological health’ (3.1.1) has seen a steady reduction in performance since Q4 2022-23.
• FRV’s measure ‘Percentage of response to structure fire incidents within 7.7 minutes’ (2.1.3a) did not meet target for the fourteenth consecutive quarter.

Significant change from the previous quarter (positive or negative):

• CFA’s indicator ‘Decrease in stock loss due to fires’ (2.3.4) recorded an increase of 137 stock lost compared to the previous quarter.
• FRV’s measure ‘Number of incidents other than structure fires and other non-fire related incidents within FRV districts: non-structure fires’ (1.3.3) recorded an increase of 522 non-structure fires this quarter.

FSIM acknowledges CFA and FRV for their ongoing cooperation and active contribution to FSIM’s monitoring and reporting activities.