No improvement in safety management in Victorian aquatic facilities

Despite improvements in recent years, Live Saving Victoria (LSV) has identified static or declining standards across key aspects of operations in Victorian aquatic facilities during 2011/12.

Releasing its Aquatic Facility Safety Assessment (AFSA) Victorian State of Industry Report 2011/12, LSV Manager Aquatic Risk and Research Services Andy Dennis highlighted that the report identified static or declining standards across the overall key aspects of facility operation.

Explaining the findings, Dennis stated "this may be a natural plateau, with mean scores in various areas now consistently in and around the 80-90% range (or) it may also be attributed to the number of facilities who undertook their first AFSA in 2011/12.

"While the lack of noticeable improvement itself may not necessary be an area for concern, the decreases noted within certain sections should be."

The report shows mean Compliance Scores in the Administration and Technical Operations sections each declining by 5% when compared with 2009/10 scores.

Dennis adds "the biggest concern however, remains the fact that less than one quarter of the public pools in the State currently go through this independent assessment process, which is strongly recommended by the Royal Life Saving Society, the Coroners Prevention Unit and Life Saving Victoria.

"Risk management is essential for the safe, successful and continued operation of aquatic facilities."

The AFSA is a process designed to assist facility managers in improving safety by auditing an aquatic facility against the best practice standards set out in the Guidelines for Safe Pool Operation (GSPO). This independent and detailed assessment reviews key aspects of operation including facility design, administration, technical operation, first aid, programming and supervision.

The AFSA Victorian State of Industry Report provides an overview of the state of aquatic facilities based on these assessments for a given financial year. It identifies common areas of strength and weakness and can be used to compare mean 'item' and 'sectional' scores with previous years. Furthermore, it provides the management and staff of assessed facilities the opportunity to calculate and benchmark their performance against the rest of the industry.

The data used for the 2011/12 report was obtained from the 70 AFSAs completed across Victoria.

The full AFSA VictorianState of Industry Report can be viewed at www.lifesavingvictoria.com.au/resources/documents/2011-2012_AFSA_Industry_Report3.pdf

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