The Inspector-General for Emergency Management recommends that Emergency Management Victoria streamlines the existing suite of work underway to identify gaps in the sector's capability and capacity to deliver a comprehensive sector-wide capability development strategy for operational and strategic personnel – including volunteers – that considers:
a) all capabilities identified through the Victorian Preparedness Framework and additional strategic emergency management capabilities
b) all capability development mechanisms (including accreditation, work-based learning, training and exercising).
EMV will establish a full-time, permanent workforce for the SCC, significantly increasing the State’s standing capacity to deliver public information, intelligence, logistical support, emergency management planning, and emergency risk and consequence analysis. This will be achieved through a funding commitment of $17.06 million to support an additional 46 permanent staff based at the SCC.
The State Control Centre (SCC) is Victoria’s primary control centre for the management of emergencies. The SCC is the hub of a network of regional and incident control centres across the state and is managed by EMV.
In the 2020–21 State Budget, the Victorian Government committed funding to significantly expand the SCC’s workforce to deliver enhanced functionality.
EMV has recruited 48 additional fixed-term staff to fill key functional roles within the SCC until June 2022 to support sustained emergency management operations. All positions have been active since January 2021.
IGEM reports this action as complete on the basis that EMV has increased staffing within the resources available but notes that the ongoing nature of the roles is dependent on recurrent funding being secured. IGEM notes that this presents a risk to the sustainable implementation of this action and the standing capacity of the SCC should these fixed-term roles cease.
EMV intends that SCC workforce requirements beyond June 2022 will be considered as part of the sector’s Operating Model Review (refer to Action 4.3 and Action 15.8 on page 121 of IGEM's 2021 progress report).