OESC has developed Victoria’s Emergency Management Performance Standards and Assurance Framework to assess the performance of the state's emergency management sector and its constituent partners.  This provides a consistent basis for monitoring and assessing individual and collective performance across the sector.

Integral to this are the Victorian Emergency Management Performance Standards (VEMPS).  These are outcome-based and describe community and government expectations to help drive a culture of continuous improvement in the preparation for and management of major emergencies in Victoria.
VEMPS outlines the 25 standards that provide the common benchmarks against which the performance of the state’s emergency management sector can be measured.  Each standard is comprised of:
• Expectations - statements of government and community expectations that describe the outcomes for safer, more resilient communities
• Standards - what partners should do to meet community and government expectations
• Good Practice Indicators - strategies and controls that partners should be implementing in order to meet a standard.
Whilst the VEMPS focus on large-scale emergencies, they can also be applied to day-to-day events as a 'health check' on partner agencies’ capacity and capability to scale up seamlessly to a major emergency.
OESC has developed a Capability Self-Assessment Tool for partners to evaluate their individual and collective performance against the VEMPS.

From late 2012 into early 2013, seven of Victoria's emergency service agencies and 11 Councils piloted the Capability Self-Assessment Tool to identify the added value from this new approach.  That pilot has now matured into implementation across the sector.  OESC is keen to work with other jurisdictions to develop the VEMPS and the Assurance Framework more broadly.