The Ineffective Governance and Lack of Accountability at Rural Ambulance Victoria

The heart of these issues is the culture that has been created by management.


Rural Ambulance Victoria (RAV) is one of three emergency ambulance service providers in Victoria, Australia.

RAV was formed in 1999 as an amalgamation of five regional ambulance services.

RAV has administrative and operational jurisdiction for the 1.4 million people living and working in rural Victoria – an area of more than 215,000 square kilometers extending from the boundaries of Melbourne to the borders of New South Wales and South Australia. This represents 27% of the State’s population and 95% of the land area.

RAV’s workforce is 1,340 comprising approximately 1,176 operational staff, including 349 Ambulance Community Officers and 28 CERT members, utilising a fleet of 307 front line ambulance vehicles and 99 operational support vehicles.

Staff are dispersed across 118 Branches, 8 Area Offices, 5 Communications Centres, 12 Workshops and a centralised Head Office located in Ballarat.

The Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks ordered an investigation into the RAV following a series of damaging revelations in The Melbourne Age.

In one case, a senior manager was accused of forging signatures in order to get jobs for underqualified friends, but was allowed to resign rather than be sacked or punished after an internal investigation.

In another, the Victorian Parliament was told that the area manager at RAV's Mildura branch had been allowed to keep his job despite being found to have sexually harassed his personal assistant.

The State Services Authority reviewed the governance and effectiveness of the RVA. The interim report was presented to the Victorian Parliament on July 18th, 2006.

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The review found that bringing together five geographically dispersed organisations with distinct histories, cultures, systems and processes, while continuing to provide quality services to the community, had been a complex and challenging task.

The following key issues were identified:

Organisational Culture

• RAV operated as a set of separate organisations rather than a unified, single entity with consistent management practices, cultures and behaviors.
  
• RAV had a hierarchical, autocratic and highly centralized culture and leadership style.
  
• In this environment, many of RAV’s staff felt disempowered and not valued.
  
• A ‘them and us’ culture permeated management and staff interactions within RAV and this led to a widely perceived absence of respect and trust between management and staff.

Vision

• The organisation’s strategic directions were not well understood or embraced by staff.
  
• There appeared to be limited identification among staff with RAV as an organisation (compared with identification with a particular work unit or Area Office, for example).
  
• Staff participation in RAV’s vision and direction setting was limited.
  

Allocation of Roles and Authority

• Allocation of roles and responsibilities between RAV’s Head Office and Area Offices was found to be unclear, with the result that difficult decisions were frequently ‘passed on’ rather than dealt with.
  
• This lack of clarity was compounded by gaps in managers’ training and competencies and by Area Managers not having the authority and decision-making power to manage issues locally.
  
• The absence of a focus on problem prevention and early resolution contributed to the rapid and ongoing escalation of problems. Local managers were unable to respond to elementary staff requests without Head Office approval. In cases of workplace conflict, this lack of local authority saw matters escalated to Head Office, followed by a generally slow resolution which further complicated and compounded the issues’ satisfactory resolution.
  Communication.
  
• There was found to be limited avenues for staff and management to communicate and consult with regards to proposed organizational changes, emerging issues or problems, and to identify and progress ideas for improvement.
  
• Staff used industrial and grievance procedures to give attention to matters that would otherwise be addressed through effective day-to-day management.

People Management

• RAV did not have policies and procedures on misconduct / discipline; general investigations (ie – not limited to discrimination, sexual harassment or workplace bullying); general grievances; managing staff under-performance and performance management.
  
• When there was workplace conflict and this was reported there was:
  o A lack of confidence in the human resource processes;
  o Perceptions of bias in investigations and decision making;
  o Lack of transparency in decision making;
  o Breaches of confidentiality;
  o Difficulties with communication, information flow, responsiveness and timeliness;
  o Allegations of victimization of complainants; and
  o Fear of retribution following the lodging of a complaint.
  
• The large number of managers and staff in acting arrangements and secondments within the organisation impeded RAV’s decision-making capacity.
  
• Areas for development in the people management skills and capabilities of managers were not systematically and proactively addressed.
  
• Accountabilities within the organisation for modeling and addressing particular behaviors including management practices were found to be poorly defined.
  
• RAV’s recruitment and selection processes were widely perceived as lacking transparency.
  
• Accountabilities and consequences for unacceptable management and staff behaviors were unclear and inconsistent across the organisation.
  

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Upon presentation of the report to the Victorian Parliament, the Chief Executive Officer of RAV, Mr Doug Kimberley resigned following more than three months of sick leave.