Review into the treatment of women at the Australian Defence Force ...

Implementation actionsResponsibility for actioning this Recommendation was formally delegated by the VCDF to COMADC on17 March 2012. 3 In the relevant Minute the VCDF states that:You are to enlist the support of the Deputy Chiefs of Service in managing this task; I expectthat you will delegate this task to COMDT ADFA and the ADC Reviews Implementation Team(RIT), and I also expect that the Deputy Chiefs will task their senior personnel managers withsupporting this activity.The Audit has also sighted a subsequent Minute from Deputy Chief of Navy to the Director General NavyPersonnel actioning this matter and requesting advice on Navy postings to ADFA. ADFA informs theAudit that a copy of a similar directive was not registered and could not be located for Army or Air Force.ADFA and the Career Management AgenciesOn 10 July 2012, COMDT wrote to the Directors General – Personnel for each Service to progress workon this Recommendation.A meeting between the COMDT and the Directors General – Personnel or their representatives tookplace on 24 July. This was a valued meeting as one participant noted:It was a constructive discussion because all three of us have different career managementmechanisms feeding all of our training institutions. 4There were no minutes or notes of outcomes from this meeting 5 however a member of the Audit teamsubsequently met with the Directors-General of Personnel of each Service to get some feedback onthe nature and outcomes of this meeting and progress on the implementation of this Recommendation.At these meetings, held on 21 November 2012, each of the Directors-General independently referredto an agreement that the COMDT would forward selection criteria for positions at ADFA for the careermanagers to assess potential candidates against. However, as at 21 November, each stated that theyhad not seen anything come back to them from ADFA. This was followed up by the Audit team with theRIT. On 30 November the RIT confirmed that they were currently reviewing the selection criteria and dutystatements. The RIT also stated that they had requested that ‘each of the Services provide us with thedocuments that they rely on when selecting potential staff for posting to ADFA’. 6On 12 February 2013 the Audit received a copy of the Duty Statement and Selection Criteria for anADFA Divisional Officer noting that pending final ADFA clearance it would then be sent to the CareerManagement Agencies to assist in their selection of ADFA staff for 2014. 7 The Audit notes that it hastaken considerable time to get to this point, however, the revised duty statement which clearly reflectsthe capabilities, values, behaviours and leadership attributes required of Divisional Officers at ADFA isa positive development.The Audit is unaware of similar developments in relation to other staff posted to ADFA.Audit findingsThere were a number of changes addressing this Recommendation that occurred in 2012. These areexamined below.Audit Report: Review into the Treatment of Women at the Australian Defence Force Academy • 2013 • 49