CFS, 7 news 6 pm tonight

[CFS_Firey]

I agree that no response on the radio is unacceptable, but as for busy fire ban days, don't regions take over resource tracking?

[rescue5271]

not all regions

[Firefrog]

Resource tracking is only region1.

[CFS_Firey]

Roger

[CFS_Firey]

Minister defends CFS changes
Posted Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:19am AEST

The SA Government is defending its liaison with CFS volunteers over changes. (ABC News)
South Australia's Emergency Services Minister, Carmel Zollo, has rejected suggestions that Country Fire Service (CFS) volunteers are being ignored.
The Fire Brigade Volunteers' Association says the morale of its members has declined because they are not being consulted and it is getting harder to recruit.
The Association says a key concern is a lack of consultation on the CFS changing to the Metropolitan Fire Service emergency dispatch system.
Ms Zollo says she is keen to hear of any concerns but the new arrangement are designed to ease pressure on volunteers.
"Even in the last four years or so, the CFS has gradually come on line and the information has been there and there's been consultation with paid and volunteer staff," she said.
"They do such an important job and we cannot do without them.
"The CFS has been preparing for this transition for the last two years. The ... arrangements will complement the new computer-aided dispatch system when it comes online in the next year or so."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/25/1987744.htm

[Darius]

When one person is monitoring up to 9 cfs channels it is just not possible to guarantee a response!

so is that what the service agreement says?
as you would know Mr Comms, MFS have investigated / are investigating some of these incidents (particularly the one Pip refers to) and I'm told are taking action to rectify.

[Pipster]

We were told at a meeting, informing us all of the changes, (oh yeah, that was consultation..) that there would be extra staff in at Adelaide Fire, who will cope with any busy periods, and that Regions will not be undertaking resource tracking anymore...but almost everything were told wasn't going to change, has no changed, so who knows!!!

The extra staff have not really come on line - as I understand it, there is only one extra person per shift, compared to what Adelaide Fire had prior to the transition, so a busy day will make it very difficult....

Pip

[AJ]

Maybe we should be looking at paid CFS Staff too.

If it is true that they have known this was happening for over 2 years then why didnt they conduct the consultation with volunteers.

From the was said yesterday it was CFS who set the date a long time ago for when the transfer had to happem.

maybe we should bas asking a) why didnt the staff tell us
and b) why didnt the CFS staff tell the VFBA. I sustepect however that the VFBA knew when this was all happenign and were part of the problem as well.

Maybe someone should get the minutes from the SAFECOM Board meetings where VFBA reps sit and see if it was ever discussed there? And if it was why didnt they kick up a fuss at that time? Im sure they would have?

[mengcfs]

rom the was said yesterday it was CFS who set the date a long time ago for when the transfer had to happem.

It was the Minister who set the date and made the rush happen. If she didn't set a date so close maybe this would have been a smoother transition.

[AJ]

I think you are a little behind the times

she said yesterday on radio backed up by the CFS that it was them who set the date before she was even a Minister.

[rescue5271]

There was no consultation with volunteers but consultation with paid staff with in the CFS,the only thing we where aware of was a meeting to explain the cut over to Adelaide fire..Don't think that is classed as consultation do you??? One would hope that when one calls Adelaide fire that they answer the radio?? wrong there have been a number of times right across the state that they are not answering the radio and why not?

Why does it take 7 Min's for Adelaide fire to place a stop call onto a brigade pager??? Why does it take five Min's for Adelaide fire to page a brigade to a RCR when its called in via radio??? why ddi adelaide fire not answet a group officer on radio while I was talking to them via phone and telling them he was calling???

And now where being informed that CAD is still about 18 months away....

[littlejohn]

I think you are a little behind the times

she said yesterday on radio backed up by the CFS that it was them who set the date before she was even a Minister.

Are you really sure AJ??

I believe the agreement was made some time ago and all part of the transition to the new SACAD system, but the decision of July 1 was the minister's, made just a couple of months prior.

Many people have known for a quite a while that a merger was on the cards (as part of the SACAD shift). We were just told that it wouldn't be a backward step in communications. Quite the contrary.

Suggesting the paid staff deliberately held up communications sounds to me like unwarranted s*** stirring. Unless your regional staff are truly useless, but most regions seem to be represented here and that impression hasn't been given previously.

Do you have another agenda AJ, or am I just reading your posts the wrong way??

[Pipster]

The merger of the Comcens, or whatever you want to call it, has been on the cards for some time (a few years, I think). 

There were a number of issues between both services that were sticking points,  which the two services couldn't agree on.  Presumably because of not being able to move past those sticking points, not a lot more work appears to have been done on the transition.

The Minister has then advised both services that the transition will occur, and that it will be July 1st.

There was a short time frame for it to occur - the sticking points were sorted out (not sure if that was before of after the Ministers direction) - and then the transition occurred...and then all the current problems became apparent, as I see it, because of the haste in which it was forced to occur.

And, the new SACAD system, which this is going to be part of, is months or maybe even years away.....

As for the SAFECOM advisory board - it was certainly not put to the Board prior to three months ago...I'd have to check to see if the board was advised in the last three months....

Pip

[Hicksflat14]

Just because the CFS is backing up the minister doesn't mean that what she says isn't just political spin. There are some at the top of the CFS that may want to go higher up in the system since everything is converging. For this reason they may be willing to follow the party line rather than what is best for the public and the service they lead. However I think you'll find that the staff are just as unhappy but aren't out there saying it as they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.

It was rumoured at the start of the year that this would happen, but the rumours were downplayed with assurances that the combination would only take place once the database (SACAD) was all sorted out and put to bed, which sort of meant some time between a year and two years. It wasn't till mid March that there were suggestions that it could happen and shortly thereafter the MFS agreed to take it on in some form. Of course this then led to the mad rush to make it happen.
As for summer, there is yet to be any thought about what will happen with regards to staffing levels or if the regions will take the Regional talkgroups during the day.

So yes it IS all being done on the fly. That said however its been getting more then its fair share of criticism here on SAFF. Obviously the general public doesn't give a monkeys as they think the fire service involves fire appliances and water and nothing more.

More often than not there is a bit more behind the stories than what you can read off the paging site. There are a lot of instances where people have taken stuff out of context and posted it here as a screw up when it was not. The limitation on accuracy comes from the person making the 000 call. You can have the best CAD system in the world but crud in equals crud out.

So YES the system is mucked up and both the Government and SAFECOM are responsible. It needs to be fixed. But its not as bad as what is portrayed here. Volys have the right to feel let down and the Minister should acknowledge this rather than saying everything is fine when it isn't. To say things are fine just makes people more annoyed as it makes it obvious she either doesn't care or she thinks she can just spin it away in the media.

Hicks

[CaptCom]

I hope that who ever agreed or started this lame idea of having a central dispatching system is prepared to stand in front of the coroner and explain themselves when someone loses their lives because the wrong brigade was responded or as you have all asked...what happens in a mayday...sorry MFS have turned our radio down or are too busy to answer....

they have completely filtered this up....I can't believe that we were sucked into such a situation...

I am on the alerts system and know how much local knowledge and consultation is involved with deciding what brigades to respond...not to be anymore...

I am completely furious that the minister is that stupid and more worried about looking good and covering her b(&*#^%$^%SIDE instead of listening to what is real!

go wendy and give it to them big time...

are people aware that the MFS & CFS systems are NOT compatible as promised and as a result all of our data is not in the system...

 

[CFS_Firey]

I think the idea of having a central comms centre is a fantastic idea - and I applaud the person who decided it needed to be done.
It's the way it was done that seems to have caused the problems.  I don't blame the comms operators either - if its getting too busy for them to handle CFS and MFS calls, they are clearly understaffed...

[bittenyakka]

I like this whole central dispatch idea. Yes it seem have been done badly but it is making sure closest brigade will go and takes out the ability of keeping jobs within groups.

[Alan (Big Al)]

Dunno about the whole closest appliance etc, i have seen a number of calls in our group where the wrong resource was sent, like yesterday there was a 2 car MVA with no entrapments in the middle of goolwa and MFS sent Goolwa and Mt Compass even though SES and MFS at Victor are closer 2nd rescue resources than Compass.

[Darius]

it is making sure closest brigade will go and takes out the ability of keeping jobs within groups.

no that's SACAD which is still at least 18 months away.

[CaptCom]

If you knew how much info is behind the current dispatching system, you wouldn't want to go to a central system...

I am on the alerts system and we often have vital local knowledge that influences the responses...not something that will happen anymore...

and....most people who endured Black Tuesday are super sensitive and summer or winter call in any smoke or fire...how many false alarms are they going to be responded to unneccesarily??  volunteers time is very valuable and it will take no time at all to brown them off if they are often responding to an auto dispatch that is a non event...you will find they will wait until the second alarm...

if you are someone who lives to hear their pager go, you will love it...for those of us who have livlihoods to make, especially farming communities...couldn't be worse...

sorry but it's a huge step backwards...

[Firefrog]

In my view it's taken the community out of the system....The CFS has always been the community protecting itself by having a fire service where community members are the service provider.

While there is a need for a central coordinating authority with overall control, the community should never be taken out of the call receipt loop for the reasons mentioned by Captcom above.

How can centralising create a more robust system - Answer it can't...What it does is introduce vunerabilty in the system where a busy day will saturate the available staff and overwhelm the system.

With Alerts or the now gone ERS7 the communities took the load and remained available to the community for advice and response.

I remember taking tons of ERS7 calls from concerned residents, just looking for reassurance or a quick update.
Not going to happen now.

I don't really like the direction of the CFS these days.....

[CFS_Firey]

I understand what you're saying, but I can't quite see the reason that a single comms centre is bad.  It's the way it has been done that seems to be the problem.

If instead of MFS taking over our CRD, would it be a problem if SHQ had instead taken over MFS CRD and nothing had changed for CFS? 

[Darius]

Don't get confused between what the CFS is calling CRD and SACAD.  What was supposed to happen was to simply move the CRD from SOCC to MFS, nothing was supposed to change about the way brigades were responded.  For various reasons (cockups) it didn't happen quite like that.  SACAD is yet to come and that is where all the changes in responses are supposed to happen.

A single comms centre is good, if done properly, and there is no reason why once these current problems are sorted out that can't be the case.  (Of course it should have all been worked out before the cutover but that's a different problem and not the fault of MFS).  So while for some groups/regions the current situation is indeed a step backwards (due to aforementioned cockups), it should improve and hopefully, in due course, be better. 

When SACAD comes in is when we will loose (under the present plans) local input and suffer from having "all your eggs in one basket" (ie. no fallbacks like being able to answer 000 calls locally if we have a complete comms centre overload).

The local input is not really required in near Adelaide areas, some groups (Mt Lofty, Heysen, Para, Mawson) have been responded by MFS, not SOCC, for years now anyway, but in more rural areas it is (even the more rural areas of region 1).

The R1 volunteer management committee (VMC) are putting together what we as a region want to see in the business rules for SACAD, which includes these types of things as options for groups to choose.  The R1VMC has written to other regional VMCs as well on the subject.  So Captcom, and anyone else, you need to get your ideas for how it should work put forward by your regional VMCs as well.  If all regions say much the same thing and COAC endorses it then that's how you make it happen.  It's a pity that volunteers have to waste so much of their time sorting out this kind of thing that should be the job of the staff paid to do it, but there ya go.

[Jono]

The other night at training. One station was trying to reach Adelaide Fire on 124, they tried several times and eventually gave up I think. There seemed to be nobody home on 124. :S

[rescue5271]

I hope all these no answer the radio at Adelaide fire are being recorded and a call to the regional office also???