Brigade and Membership Classification Project

At its meeting in December 2008, the CFA Board approved the development of a project to change the way in which Brigades and Brigade Members are classified within CFA. This decision was the culmination of an extended consultation process that engaged all members of CFA, VFBV and the UFU in responses to a Discussion Paper that was released in July 2007 and a Position Paper in March 2008. The Chief Officer has now released details of the next phase of the Project. The material presented here provides an overview including:

• Governance Arrangements;

• Key Milestones and Time Frames; and

• Ongoing Consultation Processes.

Governance Arrangements

The Brigade and Membership Classification Project will be overseen by a Steering Committee comprising the Chief Officer, General Manager Alan Davies, Operations Manager Graeme Armstrong, CFA Corporate Council, Helen Proctor, VFBV CEO, Andrew Ford and Deputy Chief Officer Geoff Conway. Project management will be undertaken by a working group comprising representatives from the Operations Directorate, Community Safety, Human Resources, Asset Management, VFBV and staff from Areas across the state. The working group will be convened by DCO Conway.

Key Milestones and Time Frames

The key steps in the project are identified in the following table. These timeframes have been amended to reflect the concerns of General Managers in relation to workload in the field and the need to focus on organizational recovery activities. The project has now been extended out to two years and will deliberately limit the implementation of changes at Brigade level to the second year of the project.

Task	Commencement Date	Expected Completion
Development of project plan	January 2009	April 2009
Development of communications plan	January 2009	April 2009
Development of Chief Officer’s Standing Orders – Brigade Classification including consultation process	April 2009	July 2009
Development of proposed changes to legislation and regulation including consultation process	April 2009	August 2009
Development of Chief Officer’s Standing Orders – Brigade Management including consultation process	July 2009	October 2009
Development of Chief Officer’s Standing Orders – Brigade Membership Classification including consultation process	July 2009	October 2009
Develop changes to CFA IT systems	July 2009	June 2010
Develop changes to CFA documentation and proforma	July 2009	June 2010
Implement Brigade Classification arrangements (Brigades will be provided with advice on the detail of the Brigade Classification process but will not be required to act or initiate change until 2010)	August 2009	August 2010
Implement Brigade Management Arrangements	September 2010	June 2011
Implement Brigade Membership Classification arrangements	September 2010	June 2011
Close out report to the Board		June 2011

DCO Geoff Conway, the Project Manager for the Brigade and Membership Classification stressed that the time frames shown here are indicative only and reflect, and will be impacted by, a number of factors. For example:

• Some of the changes proposed require amendments to legislation and regulation and therefore will depend on the Government’s legislative program for the next year.

• CFA staff and brigades have been through one of the most challenging wildfire campaigns in the history of the organisation. There is a huge workload in organisational recovery, support of the debriefing process, Royal Commission and Coronial Inquests. It is understood that the Brigade and Membership Classification Project will be one of the many competing priorities for CFA members over the next two years.

• There are a number of areas of the project were additional consultation with CFA members is required to build specific detail around changes that need to occur.

Consultation Process

As indicated above, there will be a small number of new Chief Officer’s Standing Orders and amendments to existing Standing Orders and Standard Operating Procedures. There is a well established development and consultation process in place for these documents.