The Australian Government Department of Defence skip navigation links |

Minister | Navy | Army | Air Force | Department

Defending Australia and its National Interests

Corporate Services and Infrastructure Group

Stating their case

By Alan Henderson

Side story: The business of improvement

CSIG's vision is to play a key role in supporting Defence capability. The extent to which the link between CSIG products and services and capability is direct, varies significantly. Ultimately though, the effectiveness of our call centres and quality of mess meals - to cite two examples - influences the retention of trained Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel. Hence, all CSIG activities have a bearing on capability. If they didn't, we would not be providing the product or service.

Similarly, the strength of the link between Defence Legal (DL) within CSIG and capability can appear to vary - from the drafting of wills to advising on the laws of armed conflict.

Defence Legal is the national organisation that provides legal advice and other services to our Ministers, the ADF and the Department. While the head office is located in Canberra, there are about 140 personnel within Service commands, bases and units around Australia or on operational deployments and exchange postings overseas. DL also has approximately 320 Reserve force personnel serving around Australia - many of these Reserve members are eminent lawyers in their civilian careers and bring a wealth of specialist knowledge and experience to their DL duties.

The mission of DL is "to contribute effectively to the success of Defence by providing legal services". Fulfilling this mission requires expertise across a broad spectrum of legal responsibilities. The diversity of expertise is reflected in DL's internal structure, which includes directorates responsible for:

  • operations law (including law of armed conflict);
  • international agreements and arrangements;
  • administrative law;
  • military justice;
  • legislation;
  • litigation;
  • freedom of information; and
  • access to classified historical records.

There are few other entities either in government or in civilian legal practice which require this breadth of legal know-how.

The spectrum of advice includes "traditional" legal services to ADF members such as the drafting of Wills - 6167 of these were provided in 2004 alone. Individual legal advice in relation to both military justice and a limited number of other matters is also provided. At the sharp end of the spectrum, Legal Officers provide high level advice to the staff of commands, formations, units and detachments.

DL also provides high level advice to senior officials on a day to day basis, as well as advice to government on Defence-related international agreements and arrangements. For example, DL staff provided advice on the arrangements underpinning the ADF involvement in both phases of Operation Sumatra Assist.

At the operational level, DL is integrally involved in Defence strategic policy and planning, operations, exercises and the provision of advice on the law of armed conflict. Currently, there are a number of legal officers deployed on a range of ADF operations, from the Middle East to East Timor.

Operational legal issues, particularly in the international arena, have rarely been more complex than over the past two years. During 2003-05, approximately 25 ADF legal officers from the Navy, Army and Air Force were deployed in support of Operations Falconer/Catalyst in Iraq, Operation Anode in the Solomon Islands and Operation Citadel/Spire in East Timor. These deployed legal officers, together with their Australian-based counterparts, have provided advice to commanders on a range of legal issues at the strategic, operational and tactical level of operations.

DL is also responsible for managing, on behalf of Defence, the conduct of litigation in courts and tribunals, including advice on monetary claims against the Commonwealth. An example of the work undertaken is the 112 ongoing matters arising from the 1964 collision of the HMAS MELBOURNE and HMAS VOYAGER. These represent only a small proportion of the matters currently being litigated across Defence.

The Division is also in the process of establishing directorates to deal with claims of defective administration and new procedures for the management of external legal services. Defence spent $38.7m on external legal services in 2003-04 and has recently reviewed its external expenditure model to assure the delivery of legal services in a way that is better coordinated and ensures the best use of resources.

DL also administers two specialist centres. As profiled in the March edition of Defence, The Military Law Centre (MLC) has responsibility for the formulation and delivery of legal education and training to ADF Legal Officers and the wider ADF. In addition The Asia Pacific Centre for Military Law (APCML) - established in 2001 in collaboration with the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne - provides training and education to representatives of armed forces from throughout the Asia Pacific region. In fact, the Charter of the APCML is to facilitate cooperation amongst military forces of the Asia Pacific Region in the research, training and implementation of the laws governing military operations. Recent VIP visitors include the Crown Princess of Sweden - who was briefed on the Challenges of Peace Keeping Project after she had expressed an interest in military legal issues.

Responsibility for the policy and implementation of the Freedom of Information Act for all of Defence also falls to Defence Legal, which coordinates action on requests for information, including managing internal reviews and responses to FOI related complaints. Similarly, access to Defence classified historical records is managed by the Division.

More information on Defence Legal services can be found at:
http://intranet.defence.gov.au/legal/.

[ top of page ]

|

The business of improvement

Corporate Services and Infrastructure Group (CSIG) is responsible for the delivery of a diverse range of support services to Defence. These products include buildings and facilities maintenance, information systems, personnel administration, hospitality and catering, cleaning, library, housing and relocations, and many more (see our Product Catalogue on CSIG Online). CSIG is committed to improving the delivery of our products and one of the ways we do this is by monitoring customer satisfaction.

In the December 2004 edition of this magazine, Deputy Secretary (DepSec) Corporate Services thanked respondents to the CSIG customer satisfaction surveys which were conducted in May of the same year. The results of these surveys provide CSIG with the opportunity to identify products or bases/regions that are generating high levels of satisfaction and, more importantly, identify areas for improvement.

The National Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) received over 6,600 responses (a response rate of 36%) and returned results representative of the views of people at all levels of Defence, right across Australia. The Base and Unit Commanders Satisfaction Survey (BUCSS) received 178 responses, representing a response rate of 64%, which provides a valuable source of information from commanders who are closely involved in the negotiation and monitoring of base services agreements with CSIG. Our performance is also discussed at Business Partnering Fora with representatives of our Group level customers.

The results of the 2004 surveys showed customer satisfaction levels varied across products and across the Services, Groups, CSIG Regions, Bases and Establishments. In general, however, the results were pleasing insofar as they indicate that changes implemented during 2002 and 2003 have generally boosted satisfaction levels from the 2002 surveys.

Improvement initiatives

While results from the 2004 surveys were reasonably pleasing for most products, our analysis highlighted a number of 'areas for improvement'. Key areas for improvement include:

  • Facilities Maintenance;
  • Military Personnel Relocations;
  • Military Personnel Administration;
  • Hospitality and Catering; and
  • Accommodation Management (living in and transit accommodation).

Other areas marked for improvement include Access Control and Stores Management.

The Business Improvement Project (BIP) is in reality, a 'super project' which is a significant part of CSIG's continuous focus to improve the way it does business. The BIP Governance Board, with senior representatives from other Defence Groups, oversees the progress of a range of targeted reviews and improvement projects. While these projects may be at different stages of progress, ultimately they are all anticipated to lead to significant enhancements in the way we do business. This is achieved through a blend of improved use of technology, centralisation of processing functions and the provision of more timely and reliable advice and assistance through an increased focus on good old fashioned customer service!

For instance, the BIP includes initiatives that focus on hospitality and catering, logistics management (including stores management), access control (security), review of ADF Relocations and the agreement with the Defence Housing Authority, reform of mail and freight services, reform of travel services and customer service delivery. These projects address many of the areas highlighted for improvement from survey results and more.

The latter of these projects - customer service delivery - is important to everyone in Defence. From November 2004, CSIG has provided Defence people with three easily accessible and high quality avenues to access advice and assistance with CSIG services. There's telephone access to a call centre through 1800 DEFENCE, Intranet access through CSIG Online (http://intranet.defence.gov.au/csig/), and improved face to face service delivery through the new Customer Service Centres (CSC). All three service delivery 'access points' have proven to be popular improvements to the way we do business. The trial of the 13 CSCs, formerly Shopfronts, from November 2004, is coming to a conclusion and if they are judged to be successful, over 50 more will be opened across Australia over the next 12 months.

You will have also read or heard about the new Defence Travel Card (DTC). The ongoing implementation of the DTC is overseen by the BIP. Full roll-out of the DTC, together with other travel related initiatives, will lead to much simpler processes for travellers in making bookings and paying for travel and accommodation arrangements, and will also realise significant savings for each Defence Group.

On top of all that, we have secured significant increases in the budget for the maintenance of facilities across Defence. Understandably, satisfaction levels with facilities maintenance (FACOPS) services has been low. The substantial increase in funding for facilities maintenance, which started in the 2004-05 budget, should enable us to gradually address some of the concerns in this important area but it will take time (and perhaps even more money).

On-base accommodation is another area of low satisfaction where additional funding has also been allocated. We are in the early stages of the Single Living Environment and Accommodation Precinct (LEAP) project. Over several years, Single LEAP will focus on improving the standard and mix of permanent living accommodation for single members to better meet Defence's current and emerging accommodation needs at various bases around Australia.

Maintaining the momentum

CSIG will maintain its efforts to continuously improve our relationships with our customers and the services we deliver. The results of the surveys, together with feedback from other sources will enable us to refine our priority areas for improvement. As the national survey reports are finalised, further analysis of the results is being undertaken and CSIG will address any other significant areas of concern.

More information on the services that CSIG provides and our improvement initiative is available on the CSIG web site http://intranet.defence.gov.au/csig/).

Lindsay Kranz
A/ Head National Operations Division

[ top of page ]