Second Q&A: the role of the group

The Chief discussed the role of the group and local command and control in CFA, and answered nearly 30 questions in an hour. Watch the replay here.

The next online Q&A session will be held at 7pm on Wednesday 8 August, hosted by Regional Commander, Office of the Chief Officer Alan Ellis. This will be an opportunity for members to put their views directly to the working party looking at the role of the Group, which is led by Alan.

Members can pre-submit questions by emailing onlineforum@cfa.vic.gov.au.

The session will take place below – sign up for an email reminder now.

Unanswered questions to be addressed in the next session are:

Question from Online Guest

“Good evening Chief,
Do you have a statistical “over the thumb” estimate as to the amount of level 1 and 2 incidents which are dealt with entirely at Brigade/Group/Divcom level, compared to the number of incidents which need a fully deployed Level 3/ICC infrastructure? and follow-up question, what is the amount of training/infrastructure funding input provided to these “lower level” incident control structures, managed by Brigades/Groups compared with ICC related training and infrastructure investment?”

Comment from Trevor from Nhill
“I am a bit late in this chat, and it is fantastic to see this topic in this forum, good work Euan.”

Question from Bob
“Euan, do you think there is a perception / expectation that group members can access brigade records and therefore brigade members across systems? Online, etc... There seems to be a fair amount of inconsistency / transparency...”

Question from Keith Purchase D12
“Over the latter years we have seen smaller groups of brigades amalgamated into larger super groups (municipal catchments) which have become large unwieldy juggernauts, is this likely to continue or will we revert back to smaller local command units with the larger groups?”

Comment from Guest
“I tend to agree with Steve, that IMT roles do not belong to rank so the role of not only DGO & GO could be considered operationally defunct, but those of Captain, Lieut, SSO, SO etc.”

Question from Eric Collier
“Bernie, I sincerely hope that there will never be "outranking" - it's about having the right qualifications for the job. Chief, is this the right thinking?”

Question from Greg
“Thanks for having this discussion CO Euan. It is entirely appropriate to have a review of the role of the group. I am not sure though why the current position is confusing: ;the role of the group is not to manage the fire but to see that the fire is managed’.

It seems plain to me that like ranking officers in a brigade, the current position is that groups and brigades see that they are prepared in every way including appropriate training & skills maintenance at their own level and to see that the right people are appointed to AIIMS roles as needed to manage all types of incidents in accordance with their qualifications, aptitudes, endorsements and experience. Ranked officers may or may not actually fill those roles depending on their own suitability for the task assigned. This seems straight forward to me - do I have it wrong as the current status of things?”

See also:

• Chief Q&A: Role of the group
• Fiskville Q&A replay
• Q&A with Lex de Man
• Q and A with Acting Chief Officer Steve Warrington
• Q&A with the Chief: Mentoring and leadership
• Discuss PPC with the Chief
• Discuss diversity with the CEO
• Discuss roadside burns with the Chief
• CEO Q&A: Pressures on service delivery
• Chat with the CEO - Beyond Stay or Go.