Our recent Engineers Registration Act Update webinar outlined several documents released for comment by Consumer Affairs Victoria that provide useful explanations of professional engineering services, direct supervision, areas of engineering and prescriptive standards. Draft Regulations and a Code of Conduct are also available for review.
The webinar was attended by almost 100 people but if you missed it, a recording is available from www.ipwea.org/victoria/engineers-registration-act. The CAV documents are available from here and submissions are due by 7 October so don’t miss the opportunity to have your say. We’re keen to hear from you and welcome comments to vic@ipwea.org.
I’m also pleased to report that we were recently invited to present an overview of the Act at an LGPro CEO’s Forum to highlight the organisational implications of the legislation.
In other advocacy news, IPWEA has recently contributed to a sector-wide review of Local Government Victoria’s draft Integrated Strategic Planning & Reporting Framework. The Framework sets out the relationships and interdependencies between various documents mandated by the Local Government Act 2020 including the Community Vision, Council Plan, Financial Plan and Asset Plan.
We’re keen to see asset management recognised as a strategic planning discipline – as well as a stewardship activity – and we look forward the release of a final ISP&R Framework later this year. I thank the IPWEA’s Principal Advisor Asset Management, Steve Verity for supporting our local efforts in this regard. We’re also advocating for local government to be provided with support to build greater capacity and capability for best-practice asset management and look forward to offering more in this space, including a Strategic Asset Management Intensive on 18-20 November.
In governance news, our Annual General Meeting will be held at 5:00pm on 15 October. A face-to-face Leadership Forum isn’t possible this year but we’re making the best of it with an online AGM and a chance for members to e-meet the IPWEA Victoria Board from 4:30pm. This is a free member event and we hope you can join us...please register here.
Finally, we’re very pleased to be partnering with Tyre Stewardship Australia to encourage the use of crumb rubber asphalt and the DoT’s Light Traffic Crumb Rubber Asphalt specification. TSA has released a $250,000 Low Traffic Crumb Rubber Road Fund (LTCRRF) to support councils and other eligible organisations to install, upgrade, or maintain low traffic roads with CR asphalt. Information about the fund is available from here.
Matthew Hill | President, IPWEA Victoria