The Inspector-General for Emergency Management recommends that Emergency Management Victoria – in consultation with relevant agencies – develop a system to manage personnel and asset deployments to all tiers of incident management to meet the needs of the emergency and support the health and wellbeing of personnel.
Where appropriate and within occupational health and safety requirements, this may include:
a) standardised shift rosters across agencies and incident management tiers
b) a single or integrated platform to allow consistent recording of shift times and locations
c) records of accreditation, qualification, training and currency.
EMV will work with the sector to update and re-issue the multi-agency Fatigue Management Safety Fact Sheet and include fatigue management content within pre-season briefings.
IGEM’s 2021 progress report noted that EMV planned to reissue an updated fatigue management fact sheet before the 2021–22 summer season. IGEM understands that this did not occur and that EMV has no immediate plan to reissue an updated fact sheet.
IGEM notes that the original fact sheet and agency-specific guidance remain available via EM-COP. EMV also hosts a fatigue management module on the EM Learning platform.
IGEM also positively notes the establishment of Safety Coordination and Capability Group to address mutual safety issues, including fatigue management, across the sector.
Pre-season briefings
The 2021–22 pre-season preparedness briefings were held online, with a theme of Safety and Fatigue. Presenters were invited from all sector tiers and organisations, with many reinforcing messaging around safety and fatigue for emergency services staff and volunteers. The sessions were well attended by sector partners across a variety of organisations and sector roles.
IGEM notes that key safety information reflecting the current operational environment is made available to agencies via the rolling State Operations Plan available on EM-COP.