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Tags: annex, appropriateness, climate record, corporate strategy, forward program, future products, graphic services, hydrological, national climate, oceano, optimal balance, program advisory board, public interest, public weather, related services, services maintenance, severe weather, stakeholder, statutory body, strategic assessment,Pages: 6
Language: english
Created: Mon Mar 1 17:16:11 2004
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Annex
BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY
ADVISORY BOARD
Establishment of (i) The changing environment affecting
national and international demand
the Bureau of for the provision of meteorological
and related services;
Meteorology (ii) The Bureau's Corporate Strategy and
Forward Program;
Advisory Board (iii) The optimal balance of resources to
be applied to the various public
interest priorities of the Bureau
Following on from the 2001 report of the including severe weather warning
Strategic Assessment of the Bureau, and on services, provision of public weather,
the recommendation of the Parliamentary climate, hydrological and oceano-
Secretary, the Prime Minister formally graphic services, maintenance of the
approved the creation of the Bureau of national climate record and the con-
Meteorology Advisory Board in June 2002 duct of research and investigation;
with a view to its commencing operation in (iv) The appropriateness of the allocation
the first half of 200203. The Board was of current and future products and
established initially as a non-statutory body. services provided by the Bureau in
the categories of free, cost recover-
able or commercial;
Role of the Bureau (v) Stakeholder views of the Bureau's
Board current products and services and
emerging needs;
The function of the Advisory Board is to (vi) Any other issues of relevance to
advise the Parliamentary Secretary and the ensuring the efficiency and effective-
Director of Meteorology on issues of ness of the Bureau of Meteorology;
relevance to the proper discharge of the b) To respond to issues and requests
functions of the Bureau. More specifically, addressed to it by the Minister, the
the role is set out in the following terms of Director of Meteorology and members
reference approved by the Parliamentary of the stakeholder community; and
Secretary. c) To report, at least annually, to the
Minister on its activities and to make
recommendations in relation to the per-
Terms of Reference formance and future direction of the
The major responsibilities of the Board Bureau.
are to:
a) To keep under review, and advise the
Minister and Director of Meteorology on:
306
307
Membership
Membership of the Board is by · Agriculture;
Parliamentary Secretary invitation, after · Aviation;
consultation with the Prime Minister. The · Defence;
initial proposed membership of the · Fire and Emergency Services;
Advisory Board was agreed in September · Environmental Management;
and the Hon. Dr Sharman Stone MP sent · Marine;
letters of invitation to the prospective · Media;
members in early October. While the and/or, as representatives of the following
Director and the Portfolio Secretary are specialist fields:
included as ex-officio members, the bal- · Economics;
ance of membership is constituted so as to · Law;
broadly reflect the Bureau's stakeholder · Meteorology; and/or
community, with individual members · Scientific research.
selected on the basis of their ability to con- Not surprisingly, some members are recog-
tribute at the highest level to the develop- nised as contributing expertise and experi-
ment of meteorology in Australia. ence in more than one of these areas.
Members were selected to represent, as At 30 June 2003, the Bureau Advisory
far as possible, the following broad sectors: Board comprised the following members:
Member Position
Professor Vicki Sara (Chair) Chief Executive Officer
Australian Research Council
Mr Ian Castles AO Visiting Fellow
National Centre for Development Studies
Mr Mackenzie Craig Primary Producer
Mr Barry Grear AO Chairman of the South Australian State Disaster
Committee
Ms Sue Howard Director of Radio
ABC
Mr Russell Miller Partner
Minter Ellison
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger Senior Adviser
Airborne Research Australia
Professor Gillian Triggs Chair in Law
Faculty of Law
University of Melbourne
Mr Roger Beale AM Secretary
(ex officio) Department of the Environment and Heritage
Dr John Zillman AO Director of Meteorology
(ex officio) Bureau of Meteorology
308
From top left to bottom right: Vicki Sara, Ian Castles, McKenzie Craig, Barry Grear, Sue Howard,
Russell Miller, Peter Schwerdfeger, Gillian Triggs, Roger Beale and John Zillman.
Dr Zillman's term as Director of ly be the Bureau's Head Office, although
Meteorology coincided with the end of the from time to time meetings may be held at
financial year, and thus the conclusion of other locations and/or venues.
his ex-officio role on the Advisory Board. For 200203, the following meetings of
At his last meeting as a Board member, the the Advisory Board were held:
Board expressed gratitude to Dr Zillman
3 December (meeting 2002/1)
for his accomplishments as Director of
Held at Parliament House, Canberra
Meteorology and in building a world class
Attendance: Chair Professor Sara,
Bureau of Meteorology for Australia.
Members Castles, Craig, Grear, Howard,
The incoming Director of Meteorology,
Miller, Schwerdtfeger, Triggs, Beale and
Dr Geoff Love, will join the Board in
Zillman.
200304.
20 March (meeting 2003/1)
Held at the Bureau's Head Office,
Activities of the Melbourne
Attendance: Chair Professor Sara,
Board 200203 Members Castles, Craig, Grear, Howard,
Miller, Schwerdtfeger, Triggs, Beale and
Zillman.
Meetings 11 June (meeting 2003/2)
A minimum of two Advisory Board meet- Held at the Bureau's Head Office,
ings are to be held each calendar year with Melbourne
an expected maximum of four meetings per Attendance: Chair Professor Sara,
year. The location for meetings will general- Members Castles, Craig, Howard,
Schwerdtfeger, Triggs, Beale and Zillman.
309
Apologies: Miller and Grear. broad overview of the Bureau's 2002-03
The Hon. Dr Sharman Stone MP, Budget and Forward Estimates situation,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for trends in Operating Expenses and Running
the Environment and Heritage, attended Costs, and a summary of current resource
the inaugural meeting of the Board on 3 issues. At the request of the Board, further
December, welcoming the Advisory Board's consideration was given to the issue at
active engagement and expressing her meeting 2003/1 in light of additional infor-
thanks to the Chair and members for mation on parameter settings for the 2003-
accepting their positions on the Board. The 04 Budget process.
Parliamentary Secretary also met with the
Board during meeting 2003/2.
Staffing
Major Issues examined As a specific component of the Bureau's
resourcing issue, the Board looked in detail
in 200203 at Bureau staffing matters at meeting
2003/2.
At the first meeting of the Board (2002/1),
Bureau staffing levels have decreased
members were provided with an introduc-
by 20% since 1990-91, and by 8% compared
tion to the Role and Operation of the
to 1994-95 benchmark levels with a project-
Bureau along with specific strategic chal-
ed loss of up to a further 100 in Average
lenges and opportunities facing the
Staffing Level (ASL) over the next five
Bureau.
years. There have been decreases in all
In the two subsequent meetings, the
major staff categories apart from
Board commenced detailed analysis of
Information Technology Officers and
strategic issues as follows:
Meteorologists.
· the Forward Program 2003-08 and its
The Bureau has maintained its essential
resourcing;
operations and services over the past
· staffing the Bureau;
decade in the face of this overall decline in
· consideration of the Bureau's charging
staff numbers through:
policy;
· greatly increased workloads on individ-
· feasibility of integration of the National
ual staff;
Tidal Facility Australia (NTFA); and
· higher levels of risk associated with
· examination of various options for
equipment maintenance and system
training.
disruption;
· reduced hours of coverage in many
Forward Program offices and `borrowing' of severe
weather forecasting staff from other
200308 and its states during prolonged severe weather
Resourcing events, such as fires and floods;
· failure to meet the growing needs of the
The Bureau's Forward Program 200308 was community and specialist user groups
considered at meeting 2003/1. The Board for high quality data and information in
commended the Bureau on the high quali- a range of formats;
ty of its Forward Program document and · failure to keep pace with the advancing
offered some suggestions for improvement international state of the art of meteoro-
focusing mainly on the need for prioritisa- logical systems and techniques; and
tion of activities and resources. · substantial thinning of professional and
At meeting 2002/1, the Board consid- technical expertise in many aspects of
ered a paper on Resourcing which set out a the Bureau's operation.
310
The Board expressed its total support an intention to focus on the SSU mission
for the Bureau in building a strong case for statement at a future meeting.
resources but strongly emphasised the
need for the Bureau to adopt a forward-
looking focus in addressing staffing pres- National Tidal Facility
sures. It stressed the importance of a tar- Australia (NTFA)
geted communication strategy that better
makes the connection between staff reduc- As a current issue before the Bureau, the
tions and the actual impacts on the advice of the Board was sought on the pro-
Australian public. A number of specific posed transfer of the functions of the
suggestions as to how the Bureau could NTFA to the Bureau, noting the resource
support its claims were provided. issues associated with the transfer and the
In reinforcing the need for a compelling proposed strategy for addressing future
case on resource needs, the Board noted funding arrangements.
that it may be more appropriate to build The Board supported the concept of
towards the 200506 Budget process and to absorbing the National Tidal Facility of
develop a strong and multi-layered case Australia (NTFA) within the Bureau, but
that works at all levels from Ministerial to expressed strong concerns about the possi-
the public at large. ble impact of this on other Bureau opera-
tions. It noted the need to address more
comprehensively:
Charging Policy · the funding basis for NTFA services,
particularly in terms of the split
The Bureau's charging policy is set down between public good and commercial
in 12 Principles that take into account the services;
primary public interest role of the Bureau, · the state of the NTFA's assets, including
the `public good' characteristics of many ownership and depreciation funding;
Bureau products and services, and · the effective provision of the tsunami
Australia's commitment to various inter- warning service; and
national Conventions and Regulations · the proposed model of incorporating
arising therefrom. The Board examined the the facility within the Bureau.
Bureau's charging principles and accepted The Board strongly supported the
them in general, with suggestions for Portfolio Secretary in convening a meeting
minor modifications. of key agencies with an interest in the
The Board also considered the choice NTFA, including Geoscience Australia and
the Bureau faces in drawing the line the Department of Finance and
between its basic service and commercial Administration (DoFA), to map out full
services at the margin. In general, the costs and develop an appropriate funding
Board was persuaded that the Bureau's strategy involving major stakeholders.
current approach to charging is in line with
government policy and that major changes
bore significant risk to the balance of com- Training
mercial and public interest activities. High-quality education and training pro-
Board members also discussed the sta- grams for staff are essential to the capacity
tus and operation of the Bureau's Special of National Meteorological Services to
Services Unit (SSU). The Board considered deliver the outcomes expected of them by
whether there would be benefits in having Government and the community and to
the SSU more or less integrated than it is sustaining high levels of performance over
presently, but on balance felt that the cur- time. The Bureau has conducted in-house
rent model is about right. The Board noted training of specialist staff since 1937.
311
Bureau training activities are periodi- the delivery of the initial training of pro-
cally reviewed and evaluated, with the fessional meteorologists which involved
most recent evaluation undertaken in 1997. BMTC becoming a university campus. The
A consistent thrust of review outcomes Board acknowledged the quality of the
over the past two decades has been the current training programs but emphasised
need to optimise collaboration with the ter- the need to explore any additional benefits
tiary sector, particularly in the training of for the Bureau and its trainees that may be
professional staff. Most recently, the 2001 offered by alternative arrangements.
Strategic Assessment of the Bureau of
Meteorology considered there may be
scope for savings to the Bureau through Inspection of Bureau
greater use of partnership arrangements Facilities
with universities.
In order to progress the matter, the The opportunity to see the Bureau in
Board considered the issues around train- action has been a significant part of the
ing professional meteorologists at meeting Advisory Board's introduction to the
2003/2. Discussion focused on a range of Bureau and understanding of its services
options that were put forward in relation and operations.
to the delivery of the professional training In conjunction with scheduled meet-
function in partnership with universities, ings, the Advisory Board have toured the
including maintaining the current in-house following Bureau facilities:
arrangements. · the National Meteorological and
The Board noted issues relating to the Oceanographic Operations Centre
relative cost of the various options and the (NMOC);
strategic issues they raise as well as the · the Bureau of Meteorology Research
critical linkage between recruitment and Centre (BMRC);
training in the Bureau. Current relation- · the National Climate Centre (NCC);
ships and involvement with Australian · the Victorian Regional Office (VRO); and
universities were considered, as were the · the Bureau's Field Training Annexe.
potential impacts on the range of appli-
cants and on training of defence and over-
seas National Meteorological Service
Board Representation
(NMS) personnel. Members of the Bureau Advisory Board
The Board acknowledged the need to will, from time to time, be invited to attend
make a fully informed and objective deci- Bureau activities to represent the Board
sion on this matter. To this end, they com- and to increase their knowledge of the
missioned a study of the feasibility and Bureau, its operations, services, clients and
implications of an alternative option for stakeholders.
Board members undertook the following representation duties during 200203.
Member Activity Date
Peter Schwerdtfeger 14th World Meteorological Congress May 2003
Geneva, Switzerland
Mackenzie Craig Regional Users Forum June 2003
Mildura