• Overview
• Highlights
• Management and Organisation
• Corporate Achievements
• Major Issues
• Resource Use

The Bureau implemented a number of important service-improvement initiatives during 2001-02, including significant enhancement of its supercomputing and telecommunication network, the finalisation of plans for a fiveyear marine service upgrade program and the installation of a major new radar facility in support of Australia’s national weather watch radar network.

Other achievements included major systems upgrades in support of forecasting services and information access and delivery. The Bureau developed a range of guidance tools in support of forecasting services, implemented a highly effective text-to-speech telephone service and enhanced the range of publicly accessible radar information in support of rural and regional Australia.

In addition to the usual wide range of ongoing policy, resource and governance issues, the special focus of senior management during 2001-02 was on follow up to the recommendations of the Strategic Assessment of the operating environment of the Bureau. The major issues dealt with during the year included:

• development of strategies for the optimum deployment of the Bureau’s diminishing staff and infrastructure related resources.
• negotiation and finalisation of a Certified Agreement between the Bureau, its staff and the Unions.
• management of the processes associated with the establishment of the proposed Bureau of Meteorology Advisory Board.
• preparation for the Bureau’s move to Executive Agency status, including the establishment of an Executive Agency Transition Task Force to coordinate the transition process.
• development of alternative accommodation plans for the Bureau’s Head Office and Victorian Regional Office in anticipation of the expiry of the lease on the present accommodation in early 2004.

Most of the essential ongoing operations of the Bureau were carried out to acceptable standards with equipment serviceability and data volumes either maintained or increasing, forecast skill generally maintaining its long term improving trend and public access to, and use of, many of the Bureau’s services continuing to expand rapidly, especially so in the case of the Internet based services.

An overview of the long term trends of a selection of general output indicators is shown in Figure 13 by way of demonstration of the slow but steady progress in Australian meteorological science and service provision that has been maintained despite the substantial real reductions in resources over recent decades (Figure 12). The corresponding input (resource use) indicators are summarised at the end of this chapter.

The purpose of the remainder of this chapter is to provide a more detailed overview of the performance of the Bureau over the past year, focussing, in turn, on:

• the key highlights of achievement in each of the major areas of activity that make up the total integrated operation of the Bureau, from observation and data collection through research and service provision to the international cooperation on which the Bureau’s services so heavily depend;
• the major developments and changes in the management and organisation of the Bureau during 2001-02, including a summary of the internal management strategy employed during the year;
• an assessment of progress on each of the major undertakings identified a year ago as the corporate priorities of the Bureau for 2001-02;
• several major additional issues which the Bureau was called on to address during the year; and
• a summary of resource use for the year.