Fire Rescue Victoria: $1 billion service fails to release performance data

The $1 billion Fire Rescue Victoria service has not released key data on fire fatalities and its response times since September last year.

Fire Rescue Victoria has failed to supply the state’s monitor Niall Blair with data on its performance since September last year.

Victorians have been left in the dark on how their $1 billion Fire Rescue Victoria service is performing across Melbourne and 20 major regional centres – from Warrnambool to Wodonga.

FRV has not supplied Victoria’s Fire Services Implementation Monitor Niall Blair with critical data on fire fatalities, operational fleet availability, or structural and road rescue response times since September last year.

A spokeswoman for the service said a “cyber-attack on 15 December 2022 had a severe impact on FRV information and computer technology systems and reporting capabilities”.

“FRV has kept all stakeholders, including the Fire Services Implementation Monitor (FSIM), informed about the challenges being experienced and about the work we have undertaken with our partners to find solutions,” she said.

Even prior to the December cyber attack FRV was having problems, telling Mr Blair an IT incident in September last year had affected 14,000 records relating to eight performance measures.

FRV has struggled to meet key performance measures ever since it took control of 38 CFA stations and all its career firefighters on July 1, 2020.

Past reports compiled by Mr Blair show FRV firefighters have repeatedly fallen short on meeting response time benchmarks and maintaining operational capability.

Data from FSIM reports from 2021-22 show FRV road rescue call-outs meeting their 13.5 minute benchmark had fallen from 90 per cent to 84.1 per cent since mid-2020.

Response times have declined despite FRV exceeding its firefighter employment target of 3596 for the 2021-22 financial year, having already recruited 3658, lifting its wages bill to $842.3 million.

In his latest 2022-23 quarterly report on the fire services performance Mr Blair stated “FRV’s continued data and reporting challenges impacts FSIM’s ability to provide more comprehensive outcomes performance commentary.

“In addition, the lack of data and reporting results in less transparency to the community on FRV’s progress against its identified outcome indicators,” he said.

FRV reported on just seven of its 27 performance measures.

In contrast CFA reported on 29 indicators for the first nine months of 2022-23, including eight fire-related deaths, the number of house fires it kept to one room, community engagement, volunteer training and others.

The FRV spokeswoman said “work to restore its systems and recover data progresses”.

“FRV’s capacity to report continues to improve, with more data available to report in quarter 4 2023, including response times and number of fatalities,” she said.

“Data for quarter 4, 2023 was provided to the FSIM by the legislated due date of August 1, 2023.”

But that data is yet to be made public.