Corporate Plan 2026-2027

Acknowledgement of country

Triple Zero Victoria acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land and waterways across Victoria, noting their continued care for country for more than 60,000 years and ongoing role in emergency services.

We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

TZV’s State Emergency Communications Centres are located on the lands of the Wurundjeri (East Burwood), Wadawurrung (Ballarat) and Bunurong (Williams Landing).

Inclusion

At Triple Zero Victoria, we are continuing to focus on building an inclusive culture as a priority that will drive and contribute to our long-term sustainability and success.

Our people are deeply committed to the communities they serve and are among the most dedicated and highly skilled in their field. We are connected by purpose and proud of what we do.

We recognise that valuing everyone’s contribution and talents supports our commitment to promote full participation in our communities and foster and promote a high performing public service.

We are pleased to present Triple Zero Victoria’s (TZV) 2026-27 Corporate Plan. TZV provides a critical service to Victorians. We are the frontline to the frontline, and we provide timely, trusted care and connection in your emergency.

Our 2026-27 Corporate Plan builds on the accomplishments already achieved in our three-year Strategic Plan. Last year we were pleased to work with the the Emergency Management Commissioner (EMC) and our Emergency Service Organisations (ESO) to establish new performance standards that better reflect how we deliver our services to the public and our partner ESOs.

In 2026-27 our focus remains on delivery of call-taking and dispatch (CTD) services and commitment to the Victorian community; On your worst day, we’re here.

We will continue to ensure our people are safe at work with a strong sense of belonging, pride and purpose and supported to respond to increasing demand and changing community expectations.

We are part of a bigger system. As partners within Victoria’s integrated community safety, emergency management and health sectors, we will continue supporting our ESO partners in working towards many common objectives.

The multi-year program to deliver a Next Generation Computer Aided Dispatch (Next Gen CAD) System, identified as the first Operational Committee inter-agency strategic priority, will continue in collaboration with our partners, and will require a whole of organisation effort.

In 2026-27 we will also progress critical work to replace TZV’s telephony system, which services all 000 call-taking in Victoria.

We are immensely proud to lead a dedicated, committed and exceptionally capable workforce. Together we must ensure our organisation is strong, smart and sustainable for the thousands of Victorians who on every day, need our help.

We recognise the importance of effective partnerships and interoperability to achieve shared outcomes

TZV connects the community with the emergency services help they need when they need it. How we work together is critical to our shared success for communities. TZV will continue to help our partners to achieve shared strategic and operational goals by collaborating on agency and government-funded programs that improve community outcomes and reduce risk.

As partners within Victoria’s community safety, emergency management and health systems, we share many common objectives.

Common objectives

• We are focused on building safer, more resilient communities
• We hold a shared view of significant state-wide risks and work collaboratively to prepare for and mitigate these risks
• Supporting, protecting and developing people is paramount across the sector
• We share challenges and opportunities to manage demand for services
• We are committed to developing sustainable, agile and capable organisations.

Next Gen CAD, our first inter-agency strategic priority

Inter-agency strategic priorities set the joint strategic focus of Emergency Service Organisation (ESO) partners and TZV. TZV’s Next Gen Computer Aided Dispatch (Next Gen CAD) project has been identified as the first strategic priority.

The Victorian Government is funding Next Gen CAD, the most critical system-build in the history of Victoria’s emergency call-taking and dispatch (CTD) services. It will be more reliable and secure, with greater functionality, than our current system, and is designed to improve outcomes for the community and our ESO partners.

We provide services within a nationally federated model of Triple Zero

Commonwealth legislation establishes and regulates Triple Zero (000) services in Australia. No matter where you are in Australia, when you call Triple Zero (000), you first speak to Telstra, the Emergency Call Person (ECP).

TZV will continue to work closely with the Department of Government Services and Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) to increase participation at the national level and build its interjurisdictional relationships, doing all we can to advocate for continuous improvements to national Triple Zero (000) services.

Our workforce of more than 1500 people, help thousands of people every day

TZV’s employees include our emergency communication officers – the frontline of the frontline - and operational and corporate support teams, many of whom also have skills to assist during periods of peak demand surge response.

TZV’s team is made up of highly skilled and dedicated professionals who are deeply committed to serving our community. TZV is committed to supporting and developing our people to achieve their best.

A range of mechanisms across the business aim to ensure our people are safe at work with a strong sense of belonging, pride and purpose. In 2026-27, we will implement culture initiatives in response to workforce feedback from participation in the 2026 People Matter Survey including diversity, equity and inclusion events.

Workforce capability and capacity

Our integrated resource management, workforce planning and deployment processes across our three operational centres ensure we have the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right place at the right time.

Priority activities will continue to build the capability and capacity of the TZV workforce, including:

• An increase in call-taker/dispatcher recruitment pipeline
• A readiness program to support Next Gen CAD and supporting teams and leaders to transition to a new system and ways of working.

Whilst the Corporate Plan lays out our prioritised actions for the next 12 months. The TZV Strategic Plan articulates what success looks like over the next three years, confirming our purpose, commitment, clear strategic domains and outcomes.

Our Commitment

On your worst day, we're here. We connect you to the right help with expertise and care.

Our Purpose

Providing timely, trusted care and connection in your emergency.

Strategic Goal 1

Every call, every community

Communities are at the heart of our work. When we receive a call for help, we’re calm, professional, caring, and expert at what we do. We want to deliver the highest quality service to every community member, every time.

Our Focus in 2026-27

To support high-quality, accessible and responsive services, we will focus on four priorities:

1. Sustain and develop call-taking service delivery - ensure our services continue to meet the demand of the Victorian community.
2. Public performance and outcomes reporting - provide improved transparency and trust in TZV performance and contribution to community outcomes.
3. Community access and experience - build engagement to better understand and support the needs of different community segments
4. Community awareness and partnership - to increase awareness, confidence and understanding of TZV's critical link between the community and our ESO partners.

Strategic Goal Two

Trusted partnerships that drive performance

Every minute we dispatch, connect with, and support Victoria’s other emergency services to be safe and deliver their best. How we work together is critical to our shared success for communities.

Our Focus in 2026-2027

To support the long-term nature of building trusted and effective partnerships, we will focus on four priorities.

1. Dispatch and operational communications service delivery - ensure our dispatch and operational communications services continue to meet the evolving needs of emergency service partners.
2. Emergency management planning - improve TZV’s business continuity and emergency management arrangements to strengthen our ability to respond to significant emergency events, in collaboration with emergency management partners.
3. ESO and sector priority programs - collaborate with ESOs and community safety, emergency management and health sector partners on shared priorities that reduce risk and continuously improve the delivery of critical emergency services to build safer, more resilient communities.
4. Intelligence uplift - enhance our intelligence capability to drive intelligence led decision making for TZV and our emergency service partners.

Strategic Goal Three

Our people make the difference

Our workforce helps thousands of people every day. Whether they assist callers and emergency responders or provide critical services behind the scenes, we will support and develop our people to achieve their best.

Our Focus in 2026-27

To stay committed to supporting and developing our people to achieve their best, we will focus on four priorities:

1. Health and safety program - strengthening workplace risk management and the prevention of injuries, with a particular focus on identifying and mitigating psychosocial hazards.
2. Industrial relations program - implementation of the Support Office Enterprise Agreement and proactive workforce engagement on future operating model changes.
3. Transformation readiness - support workforce readiness for Next Gen CAD transition, including supporting TZV leaders to deliver change through transformation.
4. Workforce strategy - produce a workforce strategy to develop our workforce of the future and optimize our workforce capacity.
   

Strategic Goal Four

Optimised systems and a sustainable organisation

To deliver outstanding services our organisation must be strong, smart, agile and sustainable. Our technology systems and services must enable our performance and support continued growth in demand.

Our Focus in 2026-27

To support high-quality, accessible and responsive services, we will focus on four priorties:

1. Resilient ecosystem - continue to improve reliability, resilience, responsiveness and security of current critical infrastructure.
2. Sustainable operating model - optimise future design and sustainability of our operating, financial and workforce models to deliver critical services efficiently and respond to increasing demand and changing community expectations.
3. Next Generation CAD - implement a more reliable and secure emergency services CAD system that enables improved outcomes for the community, our ESO partners and our people.
4. Upgrading Victoria’s Triple Zero telephony - plan, engage and prepare for a new telephony system to replace aging infrastructure and technology, ensuring that community health and public safety is continually maintained.

Providing call taking and dispatch services

TZV receives annual grant funding from the Department of Justice and Community Safety for the purpose of delivering call-taking and dispatch services. In 2026-27, we will focus on actions to ensure our critical emergency services continue to be delivered efficiently and effectively.

The 2026-27 Victorian Budget committed funding of $101.9 million over five years to upgrade Victoria’s Triple Zero telephone infrastructure so that Triple Zero Victoria can continue to provide a timely and reliable response to emergency calls.

Other fees

TZV generates a small amount of other fee income from project revenue to deliver specific purpose projects, fee revenue for fire alarm monitoring, and interest received on cash and deposits.

Next Gen CAD program

In 2026-27, funding has been allocated to TZV to continue the design, build and implementation of Next Gen CAD, our new call taking and dispatch platform.

Next Gen CAD is a critical system-build required to support TZV’s ability to meet evolving needs of Victoria’s community safety, emergency management and health services partners and community members.

TZV will continue to progress the project aligned to Minister for Emergency Services and Treasurer approved phased project funding release.

Capital funding

Under the current funding model TZV does not receive a capital component in its annual base funding and is not funded for depreciation.

TZV continues to assess and seek appropriate budget support to sustain the lifecycle replacement of critical assets and infrastructure.

TZV has been successful in receiving capital funding allocation to support Next Gen CAD, our new call taking and dispatch platform, and an upgrade to our Telephony infrastructure.

Our department performance standards

Triple Zero Victoria will continue to report against the department performance statement (DPS) measures and targets published in the Victorian State Budget papers. Our 2026-27 DPS measures have been revised to align with the new TZV Performance Standards for the highest priority call answer, call processing and dispatch timeliness measures. For the first time quantity measures and a combined quality measure have been included, recognising the importance of balancing both timeliness and quality of services in achieving community safety objectives.

2026-27 DPS forecast

Triple Zero Victoria will face significant challenges from call demand pressures to maintain performance standards. Call demand is forecast to increase for all service lines. In 2026-27, TZV expects to:

• Answer 2.95 million emergency calls
• Dispatch 4.85 million events
  

Victoria’s growing and ageing population is the single most significant structural driver of demand, particularly for Ambulance services.
Our 2026-27 priority actions all contribute to ensuring our services continue to meet the demand of the Victorian community and we can provide timely, trusted care and connection.

We have several arrangements in place in 2026-27 to ensure we will meet performance, including:

• A 24/7 State Duty Officer providing active performance monitoring and response actions and strengthened incident management capability.
• Enhanced performance dashboards to support tailored coaching and development.
• A dedicated quality assurance and improvement function.
• Stronger integration of our officers within EM sector control centres to support the state’s emergency response.
• Continuation of the AV end of shift staffing expansion.
  

Aligned with the Victorian Government’s focus on efficiency, TZV will also find efficiency interventions that maximise capacity, without reducing quality of service to the community, from our existing funded resource profile.

2026 to 2027 DPS measure performance forecast

Triple Zero Victoria are expecting to meet performance in all timeliness measures, including all 000 call answer speed measures.