General News
23 May, 2025
ESVF to provide funding stream for SES
Funding sustainability is within VICSES' grasp after years of financial struggle through the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund.
After years of advocacy from VICSES and its volunteers, sustainable funding seems to be within the organisation’s grasp through the controversial Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund (ESVF).
The recently passed legislation, which will replace the existing Fire Services Property Levy (FSPL) on July 1, expands the number of emergency services the levy supports to include VICSES among others.
Unlike Fire Rescue Victoria and CFA who were supported in part by the FSPL, for years VICSES has relied on funding from the state budget, grants, and community fundraising.
Last year, then Maryborough SES deputy controller Emily Hooke said SES volunteers, like other emergency services, deserve reliable funding.
“The SES receives no recurring funding and yet a significant amount of emergency services rely on us in some shape or form. We are proud supporters of all emergency services but if we work as one, we should be funded as one,” she said.
Ms Hooke described how the Maryborough unit’s funding struggle, like many others, threatened their ability to remain operational.
“In Maryborough we have a unit that is too small, that has asbestos in the walls, and is no longer feasible,” she said.
Speaking with The Maryborough District Advertiser earlier this week, Essendon unit controller John Bates described how units often required additional funding to be fully operational — including simply maintaining equipment and facilities.
“As an organisation SES has learned to do well with not enough money,” he said.
It’s Mr Bate’s understanding that each unit’s ability to fundraise or receive grants reduces the further they are away from a major city.
“[Currently] our volunteers need to spend a significant period of time doing fundraising and this is an unsustainable position,” he said.
It’s a situation that seems to have grown increasingly worse for Maryborough’s SES unit over the past decade.
From losing dollar-for-dollar funding from council in 2015, a loss of over $10,000 a year, to the competition between units for what grant funding is available — funding has been an ongoing challenge for the unit.
Sustainability of funding was the main goal of Fund VICSES, a group that recommended changes to the FSPL last year.
“That sustainability was a really essential need in helping Victoria be best prepared for the natural hazards that climate change is going to throw at us over the next five years,” Mr Bates said.
It’s a sentiment the State Government echoed citing an average of 20,000 callouts a year for VICSES between 2009 and 2013. In the past three years that yearly average has increased by 15,000.
“These changes will give emergency services the funding and equipment they need as they face natural disasters which are happening more often and becoming more destructive,” Treasurer Jaclyn Symes said.
However, Mr Bates emphasised the implementation of the legislation is purely a State Government decision.
“What the Fund VICSES group was trying to do was achieve sustainable funding for VICSES that was not subject to the vagaries of government,” he said.
“We believe that’s what we’ve achieved but importantly … the Victorian Government chose this method.”
The State Government’s implementation has proved to be controversial, particularly within farming communities and the CFA — whose volunteers are often farmers.
While all landowners will pay more, primary producers are expecting to pay tens of thousands of dollars extra under the fund — 150 percent more than the FSPL.
Despite this, the new legislation promises to fund 95 percent of CFA’s and VICSES’s budget.
Mr Bates said it’ll allow VICSES to plan for the future, not just annually around the state budget.
“It’ll allow the agency to get the best outcome for the funds it receives,” he said.