Conclusion

This is the final quarter in year two of the outcomes-based fire services performance reporting. FSIM acknowledges the significant work undertaken by CFA and FRV in developing, refining, and reporting on their Outcomes Frameworks and looks forward to further progress being made by the agencies in their Outcomes Framework reporting in year three.

Recently, the Victorian Government shifted its strategic direction to focus on outcomes to demonstrate its value to the community. In the past, government and command control environments such as the CFA and FRV have measured what it does (outputs), but not necessarily what they have achieved (outcomes). Focusing on outcomes instead of outputs allows agencies to better identify the long-term aims of what they want to achieve and evaluate their progress towards those aims. However, identifying and reporting meaningful change takes time, resources, and specialist expertise to transition from an output to an outcomes-orientated approach.

CFA and FRV are continuing to refine their Outcomes Framework indicators and improve their data collection and analysis approaches. Their performance-based measures are not setup to describe reform change but are focused on the strategic aims of the individual agencies.

Although it is important that the public are provided with regular updates on agency performance, quarterly progress updates, as currently reported, provide limited progress insight between quarters, and require longer time frames for data and analysis to mature to support agencies in their transition from delivering a story of outputs to a story of outcomes.

Updated