The only constant is change...
"The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change - that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be."
Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry.
It’s almost three years since the Board signed off the CFA Corporate Plan 2007 to 2011. Since then much water has passed under the bridge. There have been significant events both at home and abroad that are now beginning to take effect on the broader Australian community from business to government to individuals.
Some of these events of both a global and local nature are already having an impact on CFA. The continuing drought and the pace of growth in Victoria are two local issues that are now leading us to review several aspects of how we conduct our business.
The Board and management can’t ignore the economic, environmental and political changes facing Victorians and impacting CFA. In fact we need to address these big issues now and decide how we might need to adjust our strategic corporate plan to reflect both current and inevitable events.
In this context we think it’s time to have another look at the current CFA Corporate Plan with the objective of at least refreshing it to address both current and potential events over the next three years. The purpose of the Corporate Plan is to guide and inform CFA members and its stakeholders of the medium-term direction CFA is pursuing. It’s important to note that whilst we need to refresh the Corporate Plan, there are many parts of it that will remain unchanged.
The most pressing issue for CFA is the impact of the drought from the perspective of the emerging challenge around the sustainability of water supply for firefighting and secondly, the effect that lack of water is having on many of our rural volunteers, particularly those who are farmers. We are already seeing the emergence of very serious consequences in rural Victoria – and as a result the capacity of CFA rural volunteers to continue their support as members of fire brigades. The future viability of some of our brigades is a significant issue.
Growth is the other big challenge for CFA. Our service area in Greater Melbourne will grow by an extra one million people in the next 15 or so years. The urban growth boundaries are about to be expanded – all of this in CFA territory. That will require CFA to make many long-term decisions as to how we might need to adapt our service delivery into the growth corridors. In regional Victoria, it’s a similar picture. An extra half a million people will move into the regional cities in the next 15 years.
A third event that we can’t escape is the global financial crisis. For several years, CFA has been most fortunate in that the State Government has been very supportive in maintaining not only a strong funding model but also creating very generous annual budgets. However, like every other government agency, we are in a competitive funding environment and that means we have to accept that there is only so much of the pie that can go around. The Government has made it clear that transport, health and education will be top of the priority list in the immediate years ahead. Against this background we will have to work closely with our partners. As an example, we will have to take a more strategic approach to bids to Government for funds in the future because we can no longer make submissions in isolation from the whole emergency services sector.
These three issues could broadly be described as external risks to CFA and we have already done much work in recent times to identify which risks will have the most impact on our ability to achieve corporate objectives. Our plan here is to design a process where risks will be appropriately classified as low, medium or high. This will lead us to prioritise the most impending risks that we need to address and manage.
There are other matters that we need to re-examine. One is our CFA organisational values. Are they relevant, what do they mean, do we live them and are they part of our culture? The Board, with management, is committed to establishing a set of values that are clearly understood and accepted across our broad and diverse CFA family. Values that reflect our beliefs, influence our behaviour and mould our culture.
In refreshing the Corporate Plan, the Board has made it clear that it should be done on the basis that any change to CFA’s strategic direction should be evidence-based to better inform our planning processes used to produce our Annual Plan and to ensure that planning undertaken by Directorates and Areas is aligned and integrated. This work will accelerate in 2009 with the aim of producing a refreshed Corporate Plan by mid-next year.
In conclusion, on behalf of the Board, I wish you all a safe and enjoyable festive season. The New Year, like those gone before, will again present challenges and opportunities, some new and some on-going. I am confident that we are well placed to deal with the challenges and seize the opportunities, and through continuing to support each other and working as a team we will succeed.
Kerry Murphy
Chairman
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