THREE VICSES volunteers from local units, and a former staff member, have unleashed on the organisation’s bureaucracy they claim is leading to low morale among a declining membership, and could lead to the loss of lives.

Often the first on the scene at road crashes, land or water rescues, missing person searches or medical evacuations, volunteers for the Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES) are critical to saving lives.

They’re also essential to providing support to other agencies such as police, and like the CFA, VICSES is not for the faint hearted, and largely attracts those who wish to fulfill a sense of duty.

However, claims of burdensome administration, excessive training and duplication of certificates, lack of support from head office, poorly maintained equipment and outdated facilities, are all major detractions from the rewarding experience and are hampering recruitment efforts.

Volunteer numbers are declining in all organisations across the nation, with a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in May this year stating the proportion of Australians volunteering in any capacity had declined significantly since the onset of COVID-19.

In 2021/2022 VICSES boasted just under 5000 volunteers statewide, comprised of 33.9 per cent female and 66.8 per cent male. 

However, a report by the ABC’s The Drum last month on the general decline of volunteer numbers in emergency organisations specifically singled out VICSES and said that last year its volunteer membership had dropped to a decade low.

Former SES operations manager unit support, covering the south-west of Victoria, and volunteer, Brendan Rasmussen, now of Dunkeld, featured in The Drum’s report.

As a former volunteer and staff member stationed at Hamilton and Warrnambool during his seven-month tenure, Mr Rasmussen was able to give a firsthand account of the problems within the organisation and the perils volunteers faced.

He described the main problem as “inane bureaucracy” and that it was stopping people from joining as volunteers and driving those already enlisted away.

“It’s head office bureaucracy,” he said.

“It’s the administrative burden.

“It’s the lack of funding to update poorly maintained facilities.

“And the units and volunteers themselves having to fund certain items.

“It’s all impacting the rewarding experience community service can provide.”

Mr Rasmussen said he resigned firstly as a staff member then as volunteer because he grew increasingly concerned about many things including the top-heavy bureaucracy.

“The metropolitan versus regional divide and organisational bureaucracy is impacting volunteer morale and regional unit effectiveness,” he said.

He said there was a metaphorical division between head office in Melbourne and regional SES units.

“There are actually two SES organisations in the state - metro and regional SES,” Mr Rasmussen said.

He expressed frustration at the organisation’s expectations of regional volunteers and staff to travel to Melbourne for meetings.

“They don’t realise how far out of Melbourne we are,” Mr Rasmussen said.

But in terms of specifics, he cited multiple issues that he believed needed to be urgently addressed.

He said these included the recent medium and heavy rescue vehicle compliance orders.

Another volunteer (we’ll call him Bill) from a south-west unit, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, concurred with Mr Rasmussen that this particular issue had been a major “stuff up”.

 “I’ve never seen such a dog’s breakfast,” Bill said.

“They recalled all the heavy rescue trucks to get them off the road,” he said.

“It had to do with the body fitting to the actual chassis.

“The bodies of the truck were actually coming apart.

“The body is supposed to be bolted to the chassis - and some of the bolts were coming loose and that’s why they were recalled.

“That’s why we were supplied with temporary vehicles.

“So, then we had to do compliance and regulatory work on the temporary vehicles.

“A lot of stuffing around.

“So much pressure on the volunteers.

“Now they’re going through doing the same thing with the medium rescue trucks.

“I’ve had enough.

“There’s just no support - very sad place - moral is so low it’s unbelievable.”

Mr Rasmussen said another example of the city-centric focus, that was a potential safety risk, was the dire shortage of repeaters needed specifically for communications in the Grampians, but that they were all stored in Melbourne.

“Our radios don’t work in select areas within the Grampians and in areas around Dartmoor - we need repeater stations out here,” he said. 

“These are held in Melbourne but there are opportunities to have these in regional units.”

He said that “if they really wanted more volunteers, the department and head office would have a fundamental look at the causes of low recruitment and retention and address them”. 

Mr Rasmussen said he was concerned this would not happen.

Hours and hours of web-based training

Mr Rasmussen said on top of the constant requirements to fill in forms, another major detraction preventing people joining the SES was the demands on volunteers to complete hours of online compliance focused training.

He said that the web-based recruitment process was lengthy and burdensome, often for people who were highly skilled heavy vehicle operators, farmers and the like, but who were not necessarily great with paperwork, IT, computers or administration.

He said the organisation talked about removing discrimination - “no problems with that … (but) it actively contributes to discrimination against the less technically adept”.

He said once recruited, the administrative burden continued.

Volunteers grew tired of compliance related forms and the demands to keep up to date watching hours of web-based training, all detracting from the volunteer experience.

He said often people did not complete the training.

“They just don’t come back,” Mr Rasmussen said.

“(The SES) are also chronically short of trainers.”

He also said head office didn’t seem to understand that phone network and NBN capabilities in the regions were not the same as in the metropolitan area. 

Mr Rasmussen said that a unit emergency response was a team effort, but the declining numbers was a major risk factor to life saving operations.

He said if the correct number of volunteers were not available at the nearest unit, then the next unit would also need to be called out.

“In the regions, this means that incident response could take longer due to travel distance and time (for adjacent units) to both activate and deploy,” he said.

He said if all these issues were not resolved, “volunteer unit operational effectiveness would continue to (spiral) down, exposing regional communities and people travelling into and through regional areas to higher risks”. 

He also said some of the units had terrible and antiquated facilities and that volunteers should not be expected to purchase their own hiking boots.

“If the state wants land search rescue capability in Dunkeld, Hamilton, Ararat, Stawell, Horsham - areas surrounding the Grampians - then equip the people for the task,” he said.

“Facilities are dreadful.

“In Cobden they are using a 1903 dance hall.

“In Heywood there are no change rooms.

“In Hamilton - they are using the old Hamilton Show poultry judging sheds - they’ve built their own ersatz changeroom - you can’t fit any more equipment in - there’s no room for an additional rescue vehicle or equipment. 

“Other unit facilities from Lismore and Port Campbell in the eastern side of the SES South West region through Portland and Dartmoor all have facilities challenges too.

“The only unit within the SES South West operational footprint with a first-class facility is the Port Fairy unit.”

Bill agreed and said that he was very concerned about the safety of volunteers using equipment that was “not fit for purpose”.

When asked if his unit had received any of the $28.8 million allocated for VICSES in the 2022-23 State Budget, he laughed.

“We had major issues with one of our sheds,” Bill said.

“The roller door gets stuck.

“One of these days it’ll jam shut and we won’t be able to get the vehicle out to get to a job.

“One of the units doesn’t have a change area - the members have to get changed behind the shed.

“And at another - there is no toilet that volunteers can use.

“It’s embarrassing.”

Bill concurred that there was a city country divide.

“It’s definitely paid personal vs volunteer,” he said.

“Volunteers are treated like idiots, they’re always looked down upon.

“I’m concerned about members using equipment that is not fit for purpose.

“For a lot of jobs, tier one vehicles are required but we only have tier two.

“Sometimes VicPol ask us to recover vehicles but if we don’t have adequate (equipment) to do that - it then becomes a safety issue.

“It’s a crisis - well and truly.

“At the end of the day - we are volunteers.”

Mr Rasmussen said since the episode aired on The Drum, and other media reports, there had been an increase in visits from head office. 

“Obviously recent media coverage has prompted more focus on the south-west,” he said.

However, another local SES volunteer from a different unit in the south-west who also wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution (we’ll call him Brian), agreed with what Mr Rasmussen and Bill said.

“A lot of the paperwork requirement is horrendous,” Brian said.

“How long it takes to go through the training process - we got told by one of the staff members in Melbourne that the training process takes six months.

“That’s just rubbish.

“You’re looking at anywhere between 18 months and two years.

“People just get sick of it.”

Brian agreed with the problems of equipment in Melbourne not making its way to regional units.

“We asked for better communications equipment 12 months ago - but nothing has happened,” he said.

“We can physically see our members 50 metres away (at a rescue job) - but we have no communication with them whatsoever.”

Happy to go on the record was recent recruit to the Dunkeld SES, Susie Clarke, who also didn’t hold back in her assessment of the bureaucracy.

She went so far as to say that the faults and obfuscation highlighted in the recent Robodebt Royal Commission were similar in appearance to the problems in the SES structure.

She concurred with Mr Rasmussen and the anonymous volunteers and said she was shocked by the exploitation of volunteers and the enormous demands on their time, and money.

She stressed that her criticism was not of the volunteers.

“It’s the structure,” she said.

“And it’s costly.

“They supply you with boots, overalls and a helmet - but the boots that you are supplied are for general use, they’re not for hiking.

“If you need to look for people in the Grampians – SES volunteers must purchase their own hiking boots from a designated retailer.

“You’re also not allowed to wear unrecognised clothing on a job - you have to purchase the official SES jumpers.”

She said the website was cumbersome also.

“I can never logon to the hub,” she said.

“We are wearing volunteers out asking them to do ridiculous housekeeping tasks.

“We require them for the skilled operations, crashes, search and rescue, for example.

“These administrative tasks could be undertaken by a more efficient system.”

Mrs Clarke believed that Victoria was facing 21st century emergencies with 19th century structures.

She wrote to Victorian Attorney-General, Jaclyn Symes, this week, who is also the minister for Emergency Services, and expressed her frustration at what she had observed since joining the VICSES and said, “my impression is that there is a complete lack of understanding, chaos, and oblivion by the leadership at head office”.

She said the duplication of training of VICSES volunteers was ridiculous and cited the example of industry accredited chainsaw certificates that were not accepted by VICSES.

She said this meant that even the most experienced and certified chainsaw users had to be re-trained by the SES.

“This duplication is such a waste of time and taxpayers’ money and the compliance measures are increasingly impossible to fulfil.”

Bill substantiated this claim and said that duplication of first aid training was another example of wasting volunteers’ time.

As a volunteer with the CFA as well as SES, Bill said his CFA first aid certificate wasn’t accepted by VICSES and he was required to do it all over again.

Mrs Clarke said she was also “horrified by the countless hours Dunkeld SES volunteers had to spend doing the changeover of trucks that were only temporarily supplied until they get permanent trucks”.

“Time is wasted all the time,” she said.

She said it was anticipated that there would be an increase in visitors to the Grampians region and an effective SES unit was paramount.

“These visitors will be at risk if there are no volunteers to rescue them when disasters happen.

“Local residents are also at risk.

“If the inefficiencies are not addressed - lives could be lost because of no timely help.

“If one of the three key people cannot get to a disaster - it just won’t happen.

“I can see the time when no one will be there.”

VICSES response

A statement from a VICSES spokesperson said that its volunteer numbers over the past 5-10 years had remained relatively steady.

“Each community has different needs, with some VICSES units at capacity and others actively recruiting,” they said.

“VICSES is coming off the busiest three-year period in its history in terms of the number of calls for help.

“Our members have done an incredible job during this period.

“The diversity in the roles we perform, and the increased volume of recent responses is a reason for some attrition and why several units are currently seeking more members.”

In October 2022, VICSES implemented its ‘Operating Model Review’ after significant consultation with volunteers.

“(The model) strives to put more support around our volunteer units through 14 staffed Unit Support Teams,” they said.

“VICSES has made changes to its role and training pathways to ensure we keep up with current volunteerism trends and provide opportunities to prospective members with varying degrees of availability and interests.

“To ensure we meet national standards of accreditation, modern OH&S requirements, as well as our training obligations as a Registered Training Organisation (RTO), there are necessary administrative tasks put in place to ensure the continued safety, assurance and compliance of our members.

“We continue to work with our volunteers in this space to ensure we are supporting them, as they continue to assist their local communities.”

The spokesperson said as part of the 2022-23 State Budget, VICSES received $28.8m in state-wide funding over four years towards new or repaired VICSES rescue/operational vehicles, new and upgraded facilities, volunteer training improvements, and other VICSES led initiatives.

VICSES were asked what proportion of that went to SES units in the south-west, but did not answer this question.

“Deep discontent among volunteers”

Bill said he gave up a week’s worth of wages to go to a flood job last year.

“Never again,” he said.

Mrs Clarke said the ongoing restructuring of the SES had only “led to further diminution of effective command, infrastructure, and support for the volunteers”.

She believed “lower ranks of the professional SES organisation were aware of the deep discontent among volunteers but was afraid that it was not being passed on”.

“I do not see how the existing hierarchy can improve on the chaos they have already created,” Mrs Clarke said.