Measuring success for fire and rescue services

This project concept was developed by Fire Rescue Victoria. 

Fire and rescue services have for many years measured their performance against internal or external benchmarks. The Emergency Management section of the Report on Government Services by the Productivity Commission sets out an outcomes framework for fire events that include some outcomes-based performance measures and fire and rescue services have also developed outcomes-based reporting frameworks in recent years. There is limited evidence-based contemporary analysis to help inform, monitor and evaluate the value and impact of service delivery of fire and rescue agencies. Many measures used in Australia remain output-related rather than outcome-based and there has historically been a focus on response times as a measure of success for fire and rescue services with a limited understanding of how that translates into successful outcomes for the community.

This project aims to identify evidence-based measures that will support fire and rescue services to create their own performance frameworks based on objective criteria and support continuous improvement of policy and regulatory settings and short- and long-term business planning. It will review how success is, or can be, determined for fire and rescue services and synthesise current practices in performance measurement and reporting.

This project will produce a set of principles and supporting guidance for use by fire and rescue services to design and refine their own performance measurement frameworks, as well as a range of potential evidence-based performance indicators and measures for fire and rescue services that are based on a strong intellectual foundation. The principles and guidance will also have application to other fire and emergency services.

The project will contribute to building a shared understanding of how societal and governmental expectations of fire and rescue services play out in strategic and policy goal setting and measuring performance towards those goals.