Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation

|| Home || Search || Contact ||  Publications Eshop  || Privacy Statement ||

Operational Reporting
 

How our Staff are Employed Staff Numbers and Remuneration Staff Training Commonwealth Disability Strategy Accountability to Industry Corporate Publications

Public Relations The Web Project Listings Royalties Scholarships

Key Ojective To attract and retain an innovative, productive, creative and committed group of staff. Key Results Corporate systems that continue to meet accreditation standards with ISO 9002 Quality Assurance from SGS International Certification Services Pty. Ltd. No claims lodged with Comcare in 2001–02. Absenteeism of 21 hours per employee in 2001–02, down from 24 hours per employee in 2000–01. $916 per person training investment. The Year Ahead Continued priority on staff undertaking work related continuing education programs to ensure their preferences continue to grow and they stay with the Corporation. Have a workplace which results in zero Comcare claims. Ensure the Corporation is in the lowest 25 per cent quartile on absenteeism when compared to industry benchmarks.

How our staff are employed RIRDC staff are employed under Section 87 of the PIERD Act 1989. This legislation requires the Corporation to determine appropriate terms and conditions of employment for its staff.  During 2001–02 all staff other than those on individual contracts were covered by the RIRDC General Terms and Conditions of Employment. These terms were reviewed in September 2000 and a new two year agreement endorsed by the Board and the staff. It took effect from 1 October 2000. Under these arrangements the Corporation reserves the right to employ new staff on either individual contracts or on the general terms and conditions. Staff numbers and remunerations At the end June 2002 the Corporation had 15 staff members engaged on a full-time basis. Eight of these were on individual contracts. RIRDC also had a number of part-time staff. Details on the salaries of full-time staff are summarised in the table below. Consistent with its legislative obligations, the Corporation is an equal opportunity employer. Remuneration of full-time RIRDC staff Salary Range ($) 210 001 –220 000 190 001 –200 000 160 001 –170 000 150 001 –160 000 120 001 –130 000 110 001 –120 000 100 001 –110 000 70 001 –80 000  60 001 –70 000  50 001 –60 000  40 001 –50 000  30 001 –40 000  Staff at 30 June 2002 1 -  - 1 1 1 - 1  3 1 4 2 Staff at 30 June 2001 - 1 1* - 2 - 2 - 2 3 5 - Remuneration includes salaries, superannuation, accrued leave and other benefits. * Includes a provision for redundancy payment In addition to the resources above, the Corporation had eight external managers contracted to manage various R&D sub-programs. The organisational structure at the end June 2002 is shown in Figure 1.

Staff training

The Corporation's training investment in 2001–02 was $15,935. This compares with $39,453 in 2000–01. This drop is due to staff who completed post-graduate qualifications. On a per capita basis for full-time equivalent staff, this represents an investment of nearly $916 in 2001–02. This investment focused primarily on on-going tertiary education and computer application courses.

Human Resources Benchmarking^(a) RIRDC in Context
 

(a) William M.Mercer Cullen Egan Dell,Corporate Benchmark Monitor: Benchmarking in Practice,August 2002.		Q1	Median		Q3		Average
(b)“By Size ”:The RIRDC benchmark group is <200	By Size(b)
	Training expenditure Per employee ($)
	– Benchmark	834	1,592		2,120		2,036
	– RIRDC			1,176
	Training Expenditure as % of Base Salary Costs
	– Benchmark	1.19	2.31		3.39		3.14
	– RIRDC			1.61
	Total Staff Turnover (%)
	– Benchmark	9.7	13.47		15.99		21.51
	– RIRDC			15.79
	Sick Leave Days per Employee
	– Benchmark	3.22	3.99		4.96		3.92
	– RIRDC			2.90
(c)“By Industry ”:The RIRDC benchmark group is Government Business Enterprise (GBE)	By Industry (c)
	Training expenditure Per employee ($)
	– Benchmark	612	994		1,657		1,147
	– RIRDC			1,176
	Training Expenditure as % of Base Salary Costs
	– Benchmark	1.04	1.58		2.2		1.81
	– RIRDC			1.61
	Total Staff Turnover (%)
	– Benchmark	5.68	7.14		12.71		18.1
	– RIRDC			15.79
	Sick Leave Days per Employee
	– Benchmark	4.23	5.33		6.77		5.3
	– RIRDC			2.90

Commonwealth’s Disability Strategy

The Federal Government has decided that progress in implementing the Commonwealth’s Disability Strategy should be reported by all Commonwealth agencies. The Government is using this Strategy to ensure its policies, programs and services are as accessible to people with disabilities as they are to all Australians. The Corporation is committed to preparing indicators under the Strategy for future reporting and to identifying areas for improvement by systems changes or organisation-wide solutions.

Organisational Structure

Our People

Our Staff Values:

To nurture a climate of mutual trust and respect

To understand, accept and value individual differences and capabilities

To recognise and respect the role of a cohesive and co-operative team, built on shared goals, successes and setbacks

To communicate, question and consult openly and honestly throughout the whole organisation

To clearly define roles, delegations, responsibilities and accountabilities

To support and commit to personal and professional development.

Accountability to Industry

For the purposes of reporting on operations in 2001–02, RIRDC had three organisations prescribed by Section 7 of its legislation. This requires RIRDC to report annually on its activities each financial period. This accountability runs parallel to RIRDC’s Annual Report to the Minister and the Parliament. Separately, it is relevant to note that the Deer, Honeybee and Rice Industries are nominated as representative bodies for the Primary Industry (Excise) Levies Act 1999. Formal reporting during 2001–02 occurred as follows:

National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) 14 November 2001.

The Australian Egg Industry Association (AEIA) 19 November 2001.

Australian Chicken Meat Association (ACMA) 18 December 2001 by correspondence

RIRDC’s reporting to these three prescribed bodies was done when industry meetings were being held for their own purposes. The Corporation made no payments towards the costs of these meetings.

On 13 April 2002 the Corporation reported to the Deer Industry Association of Australia on the operations of Sub-Program 2.4 Deer. The cost of this consultation to the Corporation was around $4,000.

The reporting of these consultation arrangements is in accord with guidelines issued by the then Minister on 6 July 1998 on the ‘Funding of Consultation Costs by Primary Industry and Energy Portfolio Statutory Authorities’.

In relation to these guidelines, it should be noted that our representative organisations held operative research contracts with the Corporation in 2001–02, listed as follows:

Corporate Publications

The Corporation continues to have a very active publications program. The Corporation now has more than 800 publications in its series. Sales in 2001–02 amounted to $122,207. This compares with $127,147 in the previous year. Actual sales numbers in 2001–02 were 9,284 compared with 11,259 in 2000–01. There has been a very significant increase in downloading of reports from our website. Details on new publications issued in 2001–02 for each Sub-Program are set out under each respective Sub-Program.

The Corporation’s pricing policy is based on recouping only the costs of printing and distribution for Sub-Program specific publications. Corporate publications are free and, for 2001–02, included:

Corporate documents

• 2000–01 Annual Report
• 2001–02 Annual Operational Plan
• 2001–02 Program Prospectus
• 2001–02 RIRDC Research in Progress (issued as individual Sub-Program chapters)
• Publications Catalogue

Newsletters

Corporate Newsletter (four issues)

Newsletters for 13 of the Sub-Programs:

Agroforestry and Farm Forestry

Organic Produce

Tea Tree Oil

Essential Oils

Wildflowers and Native Plants

Asian Foods

Deer

New Plant Products

Human Capital, Communications and Information Systems – Rural Australia Online

Honeybee – R&D Updates

Fodder Crops

Pasture Seeds

Rice R&D Update Farmers’ Newsletter

Five Year Plans All industry sub programs have plans that are available free to stakeholders.

Public Relations

The Corporation’s Public Relations program focuses on the promotion of report results to encourage the practical adoption of this knowledge.

During the past year, there has been ongoing development of promotion in agricultural, urban and regional media.

Traditional communications channels are employed, with targeted advertising and media releases.

The successful use of two monthly email newsletters, which have more than 1700 subscribers, shows there are opportunities for low-cost communications through non-traditional channels.

One newsletter contains short articles on RIRDC reports and other news, while the second is a full list of all news reports posted the website each month.

The Corporation also continued to market its products both directly and indirectly through:

Direct mail campaigns to libraries and known RIRDC publication clients; and

Various Corporation newsletters.

The Web - www.rirdc.gov.au

The website continued to deliver a growing range of research reports and corporate information to stakeholders and target audiences important to the Corporation. In a major development, the Internet site was moved to a new, improved server in December. The new arrangement put the RIRDC server hosting on a more stable, professional and commercial footing.

Immediate benefits included better site traffic reporting and analysis software, a more efficient site searching facility and a separate fast search engine for the research reports. The front page was slightly modified to accommodate the two new search facilities.

The new search facilities on the homepage resulted in a dramatic jump in "hits" from an average of about 170,00 a month to more than 690,00 in March 2002, as the graph below shows. However, the hits settled down again in May (634,000) and June (532,543).

Most visitors entered the site through the "home" page. Most gained entry to other pages through the site search facility and most were referred to the RIRDC site through major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and NineMSN (in that order).

The online bookshop averaged about 15 transactions a month valued at between $500 and $800. The program pages in which each Sub-Program has a virtual 'home page' continue to be popular. The emailed newsletter and the list of new research reports continued to be well received by nearly 2000 recipients each month with much positive feedback.

The fourth Government Online Survey was completed for the National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE) showing that RIRDC complied very substantially with the Government's online requirements for editorial production, design, security, access, online procurement and privacy issues.

RIRDC Rural Women’s Award 2002 - www.ruralwomensaward.gov.au

This site was established in November 1999 when the Corporation first launched the RIRDC Rural Women’s Award 2000 and has been maintained in line with the recent launch of the Award’s year 2002 program. Access to the site can also be gained through RIRDC’s home page.

RIRDC Extranet

The Corporation has also established an Extranet which enables its Directors and external research managers access to corporate information, previously only available as a local area networked Intranet.

This site works both locally and online and is constantly updated and monitored. It is password protected so that only authorised users can gain access.

Project Listings

This Annual Report does not contain a listing of projects under contract. There were 590 at the end of June 2002. The comparable figure for last year was 612.

As an aid to getting the details on each of these individual projects, the Corporation has finalised its Research-in-Progress report, which shows ‘current status’ of projects at the end of May 2002.

In addition, all projects completed in 2001–02 have summaries showing their key outcomes. As already noted, this report Research-in-Progress, June 2002 has been published on our website (www.rirdc.gov.au) under each respective program area.

Royalties

During 2001–02 the Corporation received $112,252 (exclusive of GST) in royalty income from the following activities.

Royalties of $77,170 were generated from sales in relation to vaccines developed for Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma synoviae, research outputs of RIRDC’s Chicken Meat and Egg Sub-Programs.

Royalties of $21,603 were received from the development and licensing of varieties of certain species of fodder legumes for sowing seed and seed export. This research and commercialisation was undertaken by RIRDC in association with Seedco Australia Cooperative Limited.

Royalties of $12,160 were generated from three lines of forage crops developed as part of RIRDC’s Pasture Seeds and Fodder Crops Sub-Programs. This research and commercialisation was undertaken in association with the University of Western Australia.

Royalties of $687 were received from sales of the Australian Rainman computer software developed under the Corporation’s Resilient Agricultural Systems Sub-Program. The software analysis information for approximately 4000 locations throughout Australia and incorporates the likely effects of the Southern Oscillation Index and of the Sea Surface Temperatures in the Indian Ocean on rainfall in the coming season.

Royalties of $632 were generated from sales of the ILT 20A vaccine that was developed by CSIRO with funding from the RIRDC’s Chicken Meat and Egg Sub-Programs to control infectious laryngotracheitis, a viral respiratory tract disease in poultry.

Scholarships

A key aim of the R&D program is to ensure that portfolio-related industries are supported by people with high-quality scientific, technical and leadership skills. In 2001–02 the programs also continued to support conferences and field days aimed at providing the platform for transferring information and commercialising R&D outcomes.

The formal postgraduate education program of the Corporation seeks to ensure the industries have a continuous supply of well-trained people. In 2001–02 the Corporation spent $266,124 (GST exclusive) on this area, $185,957 for continuing scholarships and $80,167 for new scholarships.

Scholarships awarded in 2001–02
In 2001–02 the Corporation funded 5 new scholarships as detailed below.
 

Name	Sub-Program	Research topic	Organisation
Wilson Leonard	Resilient Agricultural Systems	Value adding to effluents from intensive aquaculture using hydroponic crops	Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Allan Knight	Essential Oils and Plant Extracts	Bioactivity of eucalpytus oil and its derivatives	Murdoch University
Sundrela Kamhieh	Horses	Borna Virus immunomodulation and neuropathogenesis: epidemiology and pathology of infection in Australia	University of Sydney
Scott Sheedy	Chicken Meat	Live vectoring of therapeutic and prophylactic proteins and pathogenesis in necrotic enteritis	CSIRO Livestock Industries (in association with Monash University)
Megan Jolly	Eggs	Infectious bronchitis vaccination of laying hens	University of New England

Ongoing scholarships

The Corporation sponsored 13 ongoing post graduate scholarships in 2001–02.

Name	Sub-Program	Research topic		Organisation
Amelia Martyn	Wildflowers and Native Plants	Physiology and control of bract burn in waratahs		University of Sydney
Wendy Coppin	Wildflowers and Native Plants	The genetics and disease resistance in kangaroo paw		University of Sydney
Robert Doupe	Resilient Agricultural Systems	Selection for faster growing black beam		Murdoch University
Nerida McGilchrist	Horses	The development of safe and efficient grain feeding practices for the Australian Horse Industry		University of New England
Jacqueline Kattenbelt	Chicken Meat; Egg	The reverse genetics of Newcastle disease		CSIRO Animal Health (in association with Deakin University)
Tyron Venn	Agroforestry	Socio-economic evaluation of management options for native forests on Aurakun community land, Cape York		University of Queensland
Andrew Beaton	New Animal Products	Factors that influence meat quality from kangaroos		University of Sydney
Jenifer Ticehurst	Agroforestry	Hydrological analysis of the spatially explicit integration of agroforestry into Australia's farming systems		Australian National University
Louise Hilton	Chicken Meat; Egg		The overall objective of this research is to enhance disease resistance and vaccine efficacy in poultry through the administration of cytokine therapy	CSIRO Livestock Industries (in association with Melbourne University)
Michelle Peters	Egg		To develop an attenuated strain of Chicken Anaemia Virus suitable for vaccination of chickens	University of Melbourne
Lisa Jane Daniel	Resilient Agricultural Systems		Development of Biotechnology: Rural Industry Integration Processes	University of Queensland
Xuanli Ma	Wildflowers and Native Plants		Development of Molecular Markers to Support Wildflower Breeding	University of Western Australia
David Pearson	Resilient Agricultural Systems		Brokering a new reality in sustainable food production – the necessity for marketer mandated information in the organic food industry	University of New England

Site map Contact us Feedback Links Disclaimer Privacy Statement