Australia – ACBP releases Blueprint for Reform 2013-2018

On 3 July 2013, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBP) announced the release of its Blueprint for Reform 2013-2018 (the Blueprint). The Blueprint sets forth the challenges facing Australia’s primary border agency and the strategy and reforms needed to meet the challenges.

The challenges include: significant increases in the amount of international trade and travel; more complex cargo supply chains and passenger travel routes; and increasingly sophisticated serious and organised crime.

In order to meet those challenges the ACBP will focus on three tracks:

1. Its People and Operating Model: A professional and agile Service that is adaptive to change
2. Modernisation: Efficient business systems, streamlined processes and sophisticated intelligence
3. Integrity: A disciplined Service culture and workforce hardened against corruption

The Blueprint states that while some reforms have already started, others are complex and will involve continuing conversations with officers, stakeholders and others. The reform is expected to implemented over the life of several parliaments. In developing the Blueprint ACBP has drawn on many inputs: suggestions from its people and their representatives, industry and government stakeholders, and external advice from the Customs Reform Board and the recent independent Capability Review of the Service carried out by the Australian Public Service Commission.