Leadership in the Public Sector Awards ceremony

The FVT automates processing of PCI forms, and referrals to legal services, interpreters and family violence practitioners, streamlines engagement with VicPol, and automates the coordination of the court list for registry. The FVT has transformed how the court communicates with professional court users from a paper-based, handwritten system into an online portal and helps to link court users with services and ensures they do not have to repeat their whole story, improving their court experience and engagement with the family violence justice system. Between October 2022 and May 2023, the FVT will roll out to 16 courts (12 courts to date). 

The Modelling and Analytical Epidemiology Unit at the Department of Health is unique within government, providing an entirely bespoke intelligence service to support public health policy, producing scenario modelling, insight into epidemiological activity and helping to predict the length, severity and impact of COVID-19 waves.

The team investigates and analyses complex epidemiological data and has guided government policy in addressing issues such as vaccine distribution, COVID-19 treatment among priority populations, intelligence on health system capacity and vulnerability amongst many other topics. It provides the Victorian Government with scientific evidence and awareness of the inter-jurisdictional and international outlook of COVID-19’s evolution, allowing for the benchmark and adaption of policy settings in-line with best and emerging practice.

The team’s success is underpinned by exemplary skills in analytical epidemiology, research methods, data linkage, and a strong desire to collaborate, share practice and innovate. The team works in partnership with the Burnet Institute, using COVASIM model technology.

The Place-based Agenda was formed to strengthen how government partners with place-based approaches (PBAs) to tackle long-term, complex issues in their local communities.

The initiative was initially led by the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, and implemented by an innovative cross-government team. The team worked closely with partner place-based approaches across Victoria and a range of external organisations with deep expertise in working collaboratively across sectors.

With this collaborative approach, the Place-based Agenda delivered a range of resources for the Victorian Public Sector, which can also be of benefit to others working in place, including a framework creating a common definition of Place-based Agendas, a first for Victoria; new guidance and tools strengthening how the VPS works in place; independent research providing Victorian-specific evidence; and pilot new ways of working with Place-based Agendas, including more flexible funding and improved access to government-held data.

The creation of the new Schools Mental Health Fund and Menu implemented a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, expanding student mental health support with a focus on evidence-based interventions.

All government schools receive an allocation from the new Fund, which they spend on programs, training or staff listed on the new Menu. The Mental Health Fund and Menu Unit at the Department of Education led the design of the Fund, including a successful business case of $200 million for four years and $87 million ongoing. The team also led the design of the Menu, and ran a large-scale competitive process for providers to be on the Menu, assessing applications on strength of evidence, usability by schools, capacity to reach across Victoria and value for money. The process involved wide consultation with schools, students, program providers, academia and others across the education and mental health sectors.

The establishment of Victoria Police’s Sexual Offences and Family Violence Unit (SOFVU) in November 2021 is a standalone unit that investigates sexual assault, sexual harassment, predatory behaviours and family violence matters perpetrated by Victoria Police personnel. The project undertook a review of the existing sexual offences and predatory behaviour taskforce operating model, embed an Employee Related Family Violence stream and implemented a contemporary victim-centric framework and operating model incorporating both crime themes.

The SOFVU mission is to provide a victim-centric response in the investigation of family violence, sexual offences and sexual harassment (including predatory behaviour) committed by employees of Victoria Police. Specialist investigative, intelligence and welfare support practices contribute to holding employees to account for criminal family violence and sexual offending. SOFVU personnel are committed to reducing workplace harm and contributing to culture change across the organisation to ensure Victoria Police employees are supported and confident to call out unacceptable behaviour and criminal offending to achieve a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace.

The GardenSafe program is the Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA) low-cost, community science participation program that allows residents to supply samples of their soil for testing of trace metals and metalloids. The program is EPA’s tool to educate and empower Victorians to meet their General Environmental Duty (GED). To date, 1,117 Victorians have registered for GardenSafe, and 296 households have provided over 800 soil samples. The program has evaluated 580 samples, with 194 reports sent to participating households. GardenSafe has been able to identify 141 trace metal exceedances in the 580 samples. The reports include information to enable the resident to make an informed decision about how to manage this potential risk. GardenSafe is a citizen-centric program empowering the community to better understand the soil health of their garden. It is simplistically designed, and accessible, to ensure it can reach a broad spectrum of the community.

The North Richmond Precinct Initiative is a unique place-based partnership between residents, businesses, local government, service providers and government departments – the goal is to build on strengths and solve local issues, while operating in a complex environment with contested community views. North Richmond is a diverse and creative community, with Victoria’s first medically supervised injecting room located in the area.

The Initiative has worked with many agencies to generate revitalisation (with a total investment exceeding $206million) resulting in improved spaces (playgrounds, lighting, walking paths, community rooms and a youth hub), increased security and coordinated outreach services. Importantly, resident voice, skills and governance are core components. The approach has been rich in learning and generated positive outcomes all built on relationships with community and agencies.

Led by the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, The Get Active Kids (GAK) program supports children from low-income families and disadvantaged circumstances to participate in organised sport and recreation by helping fund their registration/membership, uniforms and equipment costs up to $200.
 
Responding to a clear community need for support amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, the GAK runs two parallel models: reimbursement – where families pay for activities then submit a receipt and receive payment – and voucher – where families receive a unique voucher and use it with activity providers to receive a discount. GAK also makes special provisions for applicants who are children in out-of-home care and temporary visa holders.

Launched in 2022, GAK has made over 85,000 voucher payments totalling almost $16 million, supporting low-income families and the community sports sector. Around half of the voucher recipients (40,000 children) reported they would not have been able to participate in their activity without the voucher.

Service Victoria worked with the Department of Treasury and Finance, MAV and local government organisations to develop automatic approvals, saving customers, businesses and council staff time, effort and money. These new online transactions can be quickly and easily accessed through Service Victoria. It enables local businesses to get immediate approval for permits for low-risk activities, including skip bins, fitness training and footpath trading.
 
Customers can apply, pay for and instantly get these permits at their own convenience, thus reducing waiting time for customers and significantly reducing processing time for council staff. Automatic approvals also support improvement in productivity for councils and reduce pressure on council budgets and resources by removing labour costs associated with permit administration.
 
Available since September 2022, five local councils currently offer automatic approvals for specific permits, with work underway to make more transactions available and include more councils in the future.

In April 2022, the Wage Inspectorate and its Legal and Communications Teams, began a proactive compliance and education campaign to ensure the safety and compliance of children under 15 employed in fast food outlets, restaurants and cafes in regional Victoria. The campaign aimed to: increase awareness of the Wage Inspectorate’s role in regulating child employment; educate employers about child employment laws; detect and prevent non-compliance among businesses employing minors; and investigate offences and take proportionate compliance action.

The campaign was directed at businesses in the Bass Coast, La Trobe City and Baw Baw Shires in the lead-up to the Easter holiday period when child employment typically increases. Tactics included focusing on popular holiday destinations where businesses employ young staff during peak periods and areas of a growing population where there may be an increased prevalence of young jobseekers.

The campaign generated significant media coverage and an increase in social media engagement through Wage Inspectorate’s channels. In total, 225 compliance checks and 86 unannounced site visits were conducted, and 19 investigations and one prosecution were undertaken. Overall, the campaign shone a light on significant invisible harm.

Operation River Gum was a joint operation between the Conservation Regulator (CR) and Parks Victoria from 2021–22, targeting illegal commercial-scale removal of firewood from Victorian public land along the Murray River corridor and its southern tributaries.

To effectively reduce harm, areas of concern – with overlapping high Aboriginal cultural and biodiversity values – were identified through GIS analysis, CR intelligence holdings and active ground-truthing. This work then defined the focus area for operational effort.

The operation resulted successful prosecutions in the Magistrates Court, with a majority for offences within the Lower Goulburn National Park. The operation aimed to inform the community on how to legally source firewood and was implemented through targeted advertising on Facebook and Gumtree, and through traditional media channels in print, online and radio.

The operation leveraged a community engagement approach through targeted advertising on Facebook and Gumtree in conjunction with targeted media in print, online and radio channels. Intelligence from 2022 indicates there has been a reduction in the frequency of illegal firewood removal from the target area.

A regulator of the Wage Inspectorate’s size can typically expect to experience a higher rate of churn than larger agencies with more extensive career pathways. To retain staff, Wage Inspectorate have a strong focus on creating a positive, engaged culture and clearly outlines to all staff how they can positively contribute to the Victorian community to assist retention and attract good, talented people.

The Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) Process Improvement Program has used innovative approaches to deliver over $4.5m of savings and significantly improve ways of working, allowing staff to focus on higher-value work. The solutions also reduce staff frustration with processes and make EPA a better place to work, not only because systems and processes are continuously improving, but because we empower staff with great ideas to make them a reality. 

Bendigo Kangan Institute’s Digital Teacher Capability Program provides foundational- to advanced-level teacher training. The program is unique due to its holistic and integrated plan, centrally supported to provide a sustainable and strategic operating model for teacher capability uplift. With a key focus on learning and development of educators, the model has gone from ad-hoc, local and inconsistent with a lack of overarching governance in 2018 to a high-level of maturity and end-to-end capability cycle with full governance aligned to ASQAs requirements and student needs.

The Institute’s Teacher Incentive Program is offered to industry professionals interested in pursuing a teaching career in TAFE. It provides mentorship opportunities and financial incentives to undertake and complete the required qualifications to become qualified teachers in vocational training and be employed in the TAFE sector by Bendigo Kangan Institute.

In 2017, IBAC handed down its findings into allegations of serious corruption in the education and training sector. Bendigo Kangan Institute (BKI) set out to become an organisation that embodies integrity in all it does and to build a strong ethical culture based on integrity, transparency and accountability. This resulted in the introduction of BKI’s Integrity Program in 2020.

Five years on from the finding, BKI’s Integrity Program has delivered a significant uplift in leadership capability, increased employee understanding of what integrity looks like, enabled mechanisms for reporting suspected improper conduct and activated controls to manage fraud and corruption risks. The People Matters Survey results and case stories demonstrate BKI’s leadership and improvement, engendering a commitment to continuously improve and spearhead integrity across the sector.

On 1 July 2019, the Department of Transport (DoT) formally integrated three former public sector organisations: the former Department of Transport, Public Transport Victoria, and VicRoads. Several challenges DoT faced included multiple disconnected processes, a lack of process transparency, and gaps in process improvement capabilities across its employees, all of which were critical to support achieving a truly integrated Department.

The Business Integration and Improvement (BII) function within DoT was tasked with driving process integration and improvement and establishing a culture of continuous improvement. The BII team developed a three-tiered framework to execute continuous process improvement projects, but also to build a sustainable continuous improvement culture based on cross-organisational continuous improvement capabilities and a mindset of continuous improvement. Senior leadership sponsored this very important work and acknowledged that continuous improvement is the responsibility of every public sector employee.

The Brimbank Aquatic and Wellness Centre (BAWC) is a brave, new and exemplar leisure centre that challenges the status quo of building and operating gas-fuelled aquatic centres that are traditionally Australian Council’s biggest energy consuming and greenhouse gas emitting facilities.

BAWC is Australia’s first 6 Star Green Star, 100% renewable energy powered, zero greenhouse gas emissions aquatic centre and home to one of the largest rooftop solar PV system on an Australian aquatic centre.

The sustainable redevelopment of BAWC has far exceeded environmental objectives within both Council’s Climate Emergency Plan which includes a target of zero net emissions for Council operations by 2030, and an action to ‘assess the feasibility of electric alternatives to building new, or upgrading old, gas infrastructure in Council buildings’, and Environmentally Sustainable Design Framework, which contains a mandate to reach an accredited 5 Star Green Star Rating from the Green Building Council of Australia.

The Victorian Healthy Homes Program (VHHP) has changed the lives of more than 1,000 at-risk Victorians, making them healthier, happier, and more comfortable. Analysis from this randomised controlled trial indicated that a relatively minor home upgrade, at an average cost of $2,809, had wide-ranging benefits over the winter period. The upgrade resulted in a significant increase in indoor temperatures, which was also reported by the householders’ subjective experience; and health benefits, including reduced reporting of breathlessness and improved quality of life, particularly in mental health and social care. Health benefits translated to cost savings, with $887 per person saved in the healthcare system over winter. These outweighed energy savings: for every $1 saved in energy costs, more than $10 saved in healthcare costs. Cost-benefit analysis indicated that the upgrade is cost-saving within three years.

The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action’s Water Cycle Adaptation Action Plan (WCAAP) is one of seven plans prepared under the Climate Change Act 2017 by the Victorian Government. The WCAAP will guide statewide adaptation action over the next five years, based on our current scientific understanding, risk-informed needs and emerging opportunities. The WCAAP 2022-26 is the first system-wide adaptation plan to be prepared for the water cycle under the Climate Change Act 2017 and was the first of the seven legislated systems to complete the plan.

The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) Field Dispatcher Deployment Initiative reflects an emergency-management mindset in which frontline services reflect the characteristics of a responsive, scalable and agile emergency response agency. This includes all aspects, from planning, exercising and being response-ready, to delivering services within agreed benchmarks regardless of the operating environment.

This initiative considered the value of ESTA Emergency Communications Officers (ECO) being deployed to an incident control centre, which managed incidents and emergencies at a local level. A crucial element of success included the ability to provide real-time intelligence, and even dispatch resources, to respond to incidents at this local level, which undoubtedly saved lives. Other elements include the improvement of situational awareness among incident controllers and the enhancement of timeliness and quality and incident response.

The SynSurv Public Health Vigilance provides a world-first near real-time system to evaluate data from hospital emergency departments and provide early warning of possible public health events. Triage text collected during admission in emergency departments across Victoria provides the earliest evidence of emerging public health threats. Advanced analytical tools developed by this project, and now deployed, monitor this triage text to identify the emergence of targeted public health risks. Health and emergency management authorities are alerted early of patterns of emergence across the state’s health system that flag a potential need for the mobilisation of emergency and health services.

One example is thunderstorm asthma, where SynSurv detected a potential event on 9 November 2022 within an hour of the first cases appearing. When such an event escalates into an incident similar to the one that occurred on 21 November 2016, early mobilisation of Victorian Emergency Services will enable significantly improved response and improved outcomes. This initiative was the result of a partnership between the Victorian Centre for Data Insights and the Health Protection Branch at the Department of Health – SynSurv Public Health Vigilance.

The Victorian Pro-Bono Flood Assistance project was a collaboration between Jobs Victoria, Local Government Victoria, professional services firms and councils following the October 2022 Victorian floods. Recognising the scale of the recovery effort required, the project secured the pro-bono services of seven firms to support the councils most impacted by the floods between November 2022 and February 2023.
 
Delivered through an innovative model to leverage skills across a regional area, the project provided councils with swift access to a broad range of support and resources, such as project management, human resources and workforce management, planning and financial frameworks to support flood recovery efforts.
 
The model quickly met the common needs of councils and responded flexibly to emerging needs as the flood waters receded and priorities changed. The project was successful in achieving its goals to support councils and provided an innovative, scalable model that could be replicated for future emergencies.

Lilydale District and Yarra Valley Education Plan schools have developed a Collaborative Indigenous Strategy, supporting needs of Koorie students, improving student knowledge, and targeting Aboriginal inclusion. The vision of the state-wide Marrung Aboriginal Education Plan 2016–2026 is at the centre. This commitment means students experience culturally inclusive education, in an environment where they feel safe to stand strong in their identity. Aboriginal cultures and histories are celebrated and learnt by school community. Students have opportunities to connect with their culture and communities, and pathways to achieve their aspirations. The strategy sees Aboriginal culture and history celebrated and embedded in the schools’ curriculums. Koorie students feel sense of connection, are strong in cultural identity and engaged in secondary education to reach their goals. Koorie student voices are heard, their learning needs tailored to. Partnerships with local Aboriginal communities have developed and strengthened relationships offer students greater pathways, development, and transition opportunities.

Water is Life – Traditional Owner Access to Water Roadmap is a nation-leading policy that establishes pathways to increase Traditional Owner roles, responsibilities and resourcing in water management in Victoria. Originally outlined in the Victorian Government’s Water for Victoria 2016 policy commitments, this project forms a key pillar of the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action’s Aboriginal Water Program. Importantly, the project prioritised collaboration and partnership with Traditional Owners to facilitate the development of a Traditional Owner-led Aboriginal water policy. In addition to strengthened relationships between Traditional Owners and government, and an enhanced understanding of TO priorities, this approach resulted in the release of Water is Life – Traditional Owner Access to Water Roadmap, a groundbreaking, multi-lingual publication that places the government’s policy position and Traditional Owner voices side by side. Notably, Water is Life includes twenty-seven Nation Statements from Traditional Owners across Victoria, outlining their aspirations for the future of water and waterway management in Victoria.