The Inspector-General for Emergency Management recommends that the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (or the single entity referenced in Recommendation 4) – in conjunction with legislated fuel management organisations – develop a common set of objectives, metrics and reporting requirements for fuel management that form part of a compulsory regime that enables the Victorian Government to report publicly on a holistic fuel management program.
The reporting requirements should:
a) apply to all organisations with a legislated role in fuel management; across public and private land (all land tenures); and at all levels – state, regional and municipal
b) include residual risk where appropriate – however, complementary metrics should be developed if residual risk cannot be determined.
DELWP will expand the fuel management Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Framework and the annual Fuel Management Report, to incorporate private land, roadsides and public land managed by other agencies. This will commence with available activity data included in the 2021–22 report, building to a suite of relevant measures to provide transparency on activities and effectiveness in reducing bushfire risk.
This action builds on work completed by DELWP in 2021 under FSIP1 Action 3.5 to identify the changes required to more fully incorporate private land and roadsides in the fuel management Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Framework and the annual Fuel Management Report.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Framework
DELWP provided IGEM with a confidential draft of an expanded Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Framework that includes fuel management activities on private land, roadsides and public land managed by other agencies within its scope.
The framework is being developed alongside the whole-of-sector bushfire management strategy currently being progressed under FSIP1 Action 3.3.
Fuel Management Report
DELWP plans to include all available activity data for private land, roadsides and public land managed by other agencies in the 2021–22 Fuel Management Report due for publication later in 2022, along with information on how these fuel management activities contribute to risk reduction.