Commissioner's Foreword
This Corporate Plan is the first for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) under the new Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and under a new leadership team headed by myself, the Deputy Commissioners and the Chief Operating Officer. This plan builds on the AFP’s history and sets out a new path for our future.
The AFP has a proud place in Australian law enforcement. As an agency we enjoy a remit – unique in Australia – supporting domestic and international policing operations, working on national priorities and in the national interest.
The AFP’s current operating environment is characterised by the pervasiveness of the internet and globalisation, the increased national threat level and the evolving, complex nature of crime. My term as Commissioner is likely to be dominated by national security. However, I do not want our focus on national security to be at the expense of our traditional policing responsibilities such as transnational crime and organised crime. Everything we do is a priority. It is a matter of how we manoeuvre between those priorities. This is the challenge of modern policing.
We will meet this challenge by aligning our capabilities (the skills we have and the skills we have access to) and our capacity (how many people we have) to our operations. This alignment will allow us to retain our flexibility, ensure that we are efficient and ensure that the AFP is future-proofed against the challenges we face.
To help us deliver a ‘future-capable’ AFP we need to understand what the landscape might look like. This year the AFP is developing an AFP Future Directions Paper which will draw on the support of our key stakeholders and partners. This paper will refresh our current thinking by understanding demands and provide a road map for the future.
Our people are the AFP’s greatest strength. One of my first priorities is to continue developing a workplace that is safe, diverse, fair, accountable and respectful. To attain our goals we need a flexible and agile workforce with a range of capabilities.
We need the right people, with the right support, the right skills and the right capabilities. To achieve this, the AFP has embarked on a comprehensive workforce planning programme. In the next four years we will assess our capabilities, identify gaps and implement strategies to deliver the future AFP workforce.
Capability is a key theme for the AFP into the future, and encompasses the knowledge, skills, diversity, systems and technology needed to support our objectives. The police officer is a critical component of our investigative team, but we also consider important the capability and skills of operational specialists and support staff. We will build a truly integrated and innovative workforce.
The AFP’s success in the last 35 years has come from the support and strength of the relationships we have developed with our domestic and international partners. In an increasingly connected world, our international linkages are the AFP’s competitive advantage. We continue to operate one of the world’s largest and most diverse law enforcement international networks and contribute to a wide range of international peacekeeping and police development missions.
I am proud to lead the AFP into the future and look forward to working closely with our stakeholders to meet our responsibility for keeping the Australian community safe.
It is with pleasure that I, as the accountable authority of the AFP, present the 2015-16 corporate plan, which covers the period from 2015-16 to 2018-19, as required under paragraph 35(1)(b) of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. This plan is prepared in accordance with the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rules 2014.