SURF LIFE SAVING AUSTRALIA ANNUAL REPORT 2007–08

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER’S REPORT
I am proud to be part of a team which has the passion,
commitment and intent to propel SLSA into our next century of
saving lives in the water, and to enrich Australia and Australian
lives. I am very confident to say that the best is yet to come.
ANOTHER YEAR OF ACHIEVEMENT
I am very pleased to present a review of operations for
SLSA for the 2007–08 period, my fi rst full fi nancial year as
CEO. As I outlined in last year’s report, SLSA has adopted a
new strategic management plan ‘Saving Lives in the Water’.
Our performance against our targets is outlined and rated in
the preceding pages. This scorecard is critical to ensuring
we are focussed on delivering the broader strategic
direction set out by the Australian Council (the AC, the
‘board’ of SLSA). I believe that the scorecard demonstrates
that we have achieved much—many of the areas previously
rated ‘red’ are now ‘amber’ or ‘green’. Clearly there is
an element of subjectivity in any self-rating assessment
however the scorecard has been reviewed in detail by the
BOM and the AC. Our next step in this process will be to
assign objective key performance indicators (KPIs) to the
various tactics and I look forward to being able to report
on this next year.
GETTING THE BASICS RIGHT
A focus for the last period and for the next is enhancing
our internal management and governance processes.
As with many other organisations, large and small,
we have a number of ‘legacy’ systems and processes,
not all of which lend themselves to streamlined service
delivery to our stakeholders and some of which are
reaching the end of their useful life.
BUILDING SMARTER IT SYSTEMS
An example of this investment in core systems is
the development of a comprehensive information,
communication and technology (ICT) ‘road-map’
for smarter, ‘e’ffi cient systems on and off the beach.
During 2007–08 SLSA commissioned the KAZ Group
to provide a long term ICT strategy on behalf of the
organisation that would:
• Investigate the current major applications and
determine the data used and created.
• Design a central data repository model.
• Investigate reporting requirements of major
stakeholders to ensure the new repository will deliver
improvements to the production of these reports.
• Determine platform architecture options.
• Determine an integration strategy.
This strategy will allow SLSA to:
• Improve the quality and access to data.
• Improve the predictability in ICT budgeting
and outcomes.
• Provide consistent information recording
and reporting across the organisation.
The KAZ report is due in early 2008–09 and a
priority thereafter will be funding these new systems.
With limited resources and many competing priorities,
it is sometimes tempting to underspend on our ‘back end’
systems. However we simply must get the basics right
before we can hope to provide consistent service to our
current stakeholders, both internal and external, as well
as successfully adapt to a changing environment.
ENHANCING OUR CORE INTELLIGENCE
During the period we have devoted signifi cant resources
to improving our intelligence gathering and reporting
processes to help identify in a timely fashion, among other
things, drowning ‘black spots’. This is absolutely critical to
fulfi lling our mission of ‘saving lives in the water’ and is, in
fact, the fi rst strategy identifi ed in our management plan.
Our data is now much more developed in this area and
has provided the evidence base for the development of our
Total Service Plan. This plan is all about developing smarter
lifesaving services and directing them to the area of most
need. For example, a key recommendation of the plan is
to work with state centres to develop intervention plans to
address and eradicate black spots, including the expansion
of frontline services to fi ll any service gaps. This represents
a signifi cant change from the previous ‘organic style’
growth of lifesaving services to evidence-based allocation.
SECTION 02—OVERVIEW OF OPERATIONS AND ACTIVITIES
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