2023-24 Quarter 2 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 2 (Q2) 2023-24 reporting period (1 October to 30 December 2023).

In this quarter, FRV reported on 19 measures against 12 quarterly indicators in its outcomes framework and CFA reported on all quarterly indicators in its 2022-23 outcomes framework.

The December 2022 cyber-attack continues to impact on FRV's data availability and its ability to fulsomely report against all the indicators in its outcomes framework. FSIM understands that FRV continues to work to restore its IT systems (AIRS and FireCode) for future reporting and advises that FireCode will be restored by June 2024 and AIRS will be restored for reporting from 1 August 2024.

Industrial action continues to impact data quality for some FRV indicators. False alarm data (captured in three of FRV’s indicators - 1.2.3, 1.3.3 and 3.4.1b) is not being recorded correctly, and the reported result for this quarter may be comparatively lower than Q2 FY2022-23. Separately, FRV has not been able to access total fleet availability data (measure 2.1.3b) in the regions for formal reporting against their outcomes indicator due to protected industrial action by some CFA staff.

Agencies’ results have been reported by exception under FSIM’s reporting criteria:

Demonstrates a notable achievement:

• FRV had a 21 per cent increase (since the last quarter) in its delivery of fire education and risk reduction programs, with 264 programs delivered this quarter.
• CFA increased its community engagement by 165 per cent since last quarter, engaging with 68,378 community members through a range of forums including fire safety planning workshops, community events and school education programs.

Continuing off-track trend over repeated quarter:

• FRV did not meet their 90 per cent target for the measure ‘percentage of response to structure fire incidents within 7.7 minutes’ for the thirteenth consecutive quarter (i.e. since Q2 2020-21). This quarter, FRV recorded a result of 87.29 per cent for response times to structure fire incidents within 7.7 minutes.
• FRV has reported reduced performance in all measures under the indicator ‘increase support and maintenance of firefighters’ physical and psychological health’ since Q4 2022-23.
• CFA did not meet their quarterly baseline of 55 minutes and thirty-five seconds for the indicator ‘decrease average time spent suppressing structure fires’, recording a result of 136 minutes and 31 seconds this quarter.

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

• CFA reported 91 workplace injuries this quarter, representing a 16.7 per cent increase on the quarterly baseline.

Varies more than 5 per cent from the agency’s baseline or average over time:

• CFA reported a total of 166 house fires this quarter. This is a reduction of 41 house fires compared to the previous quarter (19.8 per cent decrease) and is 22 house fires below the quarterly baseline.
• CFA recorded a positive result for 'Increase in percentage of structure fires contained to room of origin’ with a result of 58 per cent. This is a 53.6 per cent increase from the quarterly baseline and the fifth consecutive quarter since Q2 2022-23 that CFA have met the baseline for this indicator.

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