The Service Managers Council held its first meeting for 2010 at the CVIAQ office and was well supported with seventeen attendees. Acting chairman, Mr Paul Woodland welcomed all Council members and Guest Speaker, Mr Chris Kroehn, Business Manager for SkillsTech Australia.

The meeting commenced with Mr Chris Kroehn speaking to the Council about SkillsTech’s learning and assessment strategy for 2010. Mr Kroehn discussed learning and assessment techniques currently in use such as the six week blocks of college based delivery with a combination of written and practical assessment. Mr Kroehn explained that the assessment must include performance criteria and underpinning knowledge to meet specific key competencies. Additional to this assessment is the use of third party evidence which involves the instructor contacting the student’s workshop supervisor to discuss the performance of the apprentice at the worksite.

The council discussed at length SkillsTech’s use of the K & J results reporting method determining that this kind of reporting was too broad and didn’t provide the employer with enough detail on the apprentice’s performance. The Council suggested that SkillsTech consider attaching a report about an apprentice’s standard within a competency to the result sheet or adopting a more detailed results schedule categorising “J” into performance levels of J1 to J5 where J1 would indicate a high competence and J5 indicating an average but passable competence.

Mr Kroehn also circulated building plans of the Heavy Vehicle Centre of Excellence currently under construction at Acacia Ridge. Mr Kroehn advised that the new 3,000m² building will house the Diesel Fitting and AUR courses. Handover is to be in July 2010 with the official opening being September 2010.

Mr Gilbert reported on the progress of the Future Workforce project. He advised that he had been successful in obtaining state government funding to create a ‘Industry Ambassadors’ training package which will ultimately be made available to apprentices to enable them to promote the industry to school leavers and other students in their school environment. Federal government funding for an expanded rollout of this program plus additional projects is still pending. Mr Gilbert circulated a workforce survey which council discussed. Some suggestions were made that Mr Gilbert agreed to include prior to the rollout of the survey. The development of a workforce plan was discussed and draft of this plan will be put to the council at the next meeting.
  
CVIAQ’s Technical & Regulatory Officer, Mr John Samson, presented his technical report to the council which included a report on his attendance at the International Heavy Vehicle Symposium in Melbourne, advice on items from the recent Technical Liaison Group (TLG) meeting being the discussion on vehicle width and the progress of the National Heavy Vehicle Braking Strategy. Mr Samson also spoke at length on the controversial repair register issue. 

Mr Woodland reported on the progress of the Schools to Industry tours being organised for 2010 and his initial meetings with the newly appointed Community Partnership Brokers who have replaced the Local Community Partnership Groups (LCPs) that CVIAQ had so successfully partnered with in previous tours.

As there was no further business the Acting Chairman closed the meeting at 11.15am.