Duty officer

The Australian National University's Duty Officer is a key strategic initiative and part of a holistic review and enhancement of the University's critical incident management culture, procedures, and policies.

Critical Incident Management (CIM) and associated structures, responsibilities, and processes is an established discipline involving a systemised approach that assists in minimising the human, operational, financial, legal, regulatory, reputational, and other significant material consequences arising from a disruptive incident. The Duty Officer functions within this broader context.

The Duty Officer role is designed to facilitate the management and appropriate direct escalation and de-escalation of disruptive incidents that can have significant impact on the University's activities.

The intent of the scope of operations of the role is captured in the definition of a critical Incident: “an event which may adversely affect the University (as an organisation) and requires an immediate management response. It is likely to cause significant personal illness or injury, substantial impact to operations and commercial prospects, a degradation of reputation, or lead to an impact on the wider community.”

The Duty Officer has considerable decision-making discretion to ensure disruptive events are mitigated at the relative level of threat they pose to the organisation and to do so in a coordinated and direct chain of command.

To contact the Duty Officer about an incident, please speak to Security on (02) 6125 2249.