The Commissioner's Review
As the 2010 - 11 year draws to a close, so too does an era in the SES. For the last four years, our focus has been on achieving the outcomes of the 2007 - 11 Corporate Plan, but we will now enter into an exciting, new period for the NSW SES.
Considerable time has been spent over the past two years, working towards the development of the One SES Plan, launched on 1 July 2011. Consultation and collaboration has taken place at every level of the organisation to determine where each of our members would like to see this great Service go, and then even more time devoted to working out the road map that will take us to that final destination.
While all of this work has been done, there have still been great achievements for the NSW SES.
Cultural change has been high on the list of priorities, and I am extremely proud of the achievements of the Service over the past 12 months. A very subtle but pertinent shift has taken place in the way we work together. Historically there has been a blurry distinction between the roles of staff and volunteers, but for the first time the Service has acknowledged that each and every member of the NSW SES is working towards the same goal – to work with our communities to better prepare for severe weather.
For the first time, the SES has formally embraced staff members as volunteers and vice-versa, with career workshops being held across the State to assist members with application processes and interview techniques ahead of the mass recruitment seen this year.
It is the single largest staff recruitment drive that the Service has ever seen in its 56 years, and the quality and quantity of applicants that applied for each position shows just how valued this organisation is in the community.
In order to fit our additional staff into State Headquarters, a refurbishment of the building took place over three months. Almost every staff member was relocated in the building, which enabled a more appropriate grouping of working teams and units and better structures of command to ensure that we will deliver nothing but the best for our volunteers and the community.
New business units were created to increase the capability of the Service and the appointment of a Deputy Commissioner Corporate Services and Planning has allowed the SES to create two separate, yet interdependent directorates that focus on the delivery of operational requirements as well as the corporate side of the business.
With the recruitment, restructure and refurbishment now completed, I stand proud, with the best team behind me, ready to deliver to the communities of NSW.
All of this was taking place as we entered a very busy operational year. In last year’s Annual Report, I stated that it was one of the busiest in the Service’s history, and yet this year has far outstripped it in terms of operational response.
Our members have been assisting their own communities as well as our brothers and sisters across the borders, with deployments to Victoria, Western Australia and of course, Queensland.
While we were battling with major flooding on the far and mid-north coast of NSW, Queensland was also experiencing devastating flooding across their State. As we deployed storm teams and Swiftwater Rescue Technicians to areas that were anticipating severe weather and flooding, our counterparts in Queensland were evacuating tens of thousands of residents as an ‘inland-tsunami’ was impacting communities and lives.
I have never been more proud of our members as I was when we put out the request for members to travel to Cyclone Yasi affected areas. Those who could go away as a part of the taskforce were sent, and so many more offered their services in a range of ways, equally important as those doing the work ‘on the ground’.
Catering and transportation crews were working out the logistics of moving and supporting our people, while others volunteered to stay behind and continue to help the communities of NSW who were affected by flooding. Others stayed in their own units in case the weather should hit back home.
It truly was an all-Service response with each member contributing in their own way.
Incident management teams went to Victoria to assist with the significant flooding that was experienced south of our border, and came home with lessons learned that have enhanced our knowledge and skills which makes our Service so strong in emergency response.
We continued to assist the Police and other agencies with searches, Road-crash Rescue and Community First Responder duties.
A Canine Capability has been developed through the year, and I can say that we have the first Volunteer Canine Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) capability to offer the people of NSW.
The SES has also worked extremely hard to further develop our flood-rescue capability across the State. A major focus has been ensuring that as many front-line members as possible have been put through the Swiftwater Awareness program and more than 200 trained Swiftwater Rescue Technicians trained up around the State – with the highest density in areas that have the greatest flood risks.
Our inter-agency work has continued to rise and all of the emergency services in NSW have had some amazing opportunities to learn so much from each other through training exercises, scenarios and working groups.
The State Disaster Rescue Competition was recently won by our Kiama Team, and they then moved to the next stage by representing NSW at the National Disaster Rescue Competition in Adelaide. Our Coffs Harbour Road-crash Rescue Team competed in the Australasian Road Rescue Organisation (ARRO) competition in New Zealand early in the 2011 - 12 financial year.
Through all of this, we have had a change of Government and now under the leadership of Hon. Michael Gallacher, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, we are in a great position to allow our Service to deliver the best possible response to the communities of NSW and for that I am grateful.
Murray Kear AFSM
Commissioner NSW SES
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