State Corrections Operations Centre continues to support frontline officers

The State Corrections Operations Centre (SCOC) is a planning, oversight and reporting cell providing coordination for our operational response to COVID-19, ensuring our frontline staff receive timely, evidence-based advice and practical support to keep themselves and prisoners safe and secure. 

The SCOC supports frontline staff through planning, strategic mapping and risk identification to address the significant operational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

SCOC Commander, Assistant Commissioner Strategic Futures, Phil Barrett said the work of the SCOC allowed a strategic overview of the requirements of frontline officers, now, and into the future, helping to solve problems as they arise as well as pre-empting issues and providing officers accurate and useful information, tools and protocols during this highly dynamic time. 

“By taking a centralised approach to identifying and addressing the challenges of COVID-19, SCOC is taking some of the load off frontline officers, supporting them to focus on their work, rather than trying to recreate responses to issues as they arise. 

“The work of the SCOC is framed around a number of liaison teams with a focus on information management, stakeholder liaison, command liaison, logistics liaison, workforce capability, planning and environmental scanning, people liaison and operations liaison,” Assistant Commissioner Barrett said.  

“SCOC exists to maintain the ongoing safe and secure operations of the correctional system during the pandemic by listening to frontline staff and working to provide them with consistent, proven solutions. 

“The SCOC is working with all areas of QCS to help facilitate information flows both upward to the Executive level and to our frontline officers,” Assistant Commissioner Barrett said.   

“In this complex and ever-changing situation, having up-to-date, accurate information from across our agency, Australia and the world is vital for all of us to continue to keep everyone safe.”  

Over the past week, new procedures have been introduced into centres to decrease the risk of COVID-19 entering and spreading in prisons and reporting centres in Queensland.  

These include:  

• temperature checks for all staff on entry to correctional centres 
• securing additional supplies of Personal Protective Equipment and hygiene products to be distributed to correctional centres and community corrections regions. 
• working across government to respond to measures restricting entry to protect Queensland’s vulnerable Indigenous communities and managing the impact on QCS in terms of offenders and prisoners released who want to return to their community. 
• strategic decision mapping work to ensure we build QCS’s capability in responding to COVID-19. 
• ICT improvements, including to try and address connectivity and network issues. 
• more resources, updates and information for staff on the SCOC microsite and regular communications to the field to ensure this information is made available to officers at intranet.dcs.qld.gov.au/COVID-19-SCOC 

“The work of the SCOC also includes internal reporting and capturing daily information requests to provide situation awareness to the strategic level of the agency, which guides the decisions of our Senior Executive. 

“External reporting is also an important component of disaster and incident management, so we are keeping a wide range of key stakeholders informed and aware of QCS’ plans and actions.”