Welcome 2011 – and to the first key event for the year in the ACE calendar - the National Leaders' Forum on the 16th and 17th February in Adelaide.

This forum begins an agenda that will dominate our work throughout 2011. As an organisation - ACE National is only as strong as its membership and the sector is only as strong as the DES’s operating within. In shaping our future as a sector, this year ACE National will aim to equip our membership with capability at both the leadership and practitioner level to ensure a sustainable future and one we have all influenced.

With that in mind the forum will focus on leadership – both through ACE National and at the service level. We will be launching the Disability Employment Australia (nee ACE National) three year strategic plan and working with the CEO/General Manager’s on strategies to realise a number of the leadership objectives across the sector. Given the political environment we are currently operating in we will look to build confidence in being a political persuader at the local level and broader. There will be a continued focus on workforce development for the sector – flowing out of the 2010 ACE National DES Workforce Survey that many of you participated in; and will hold practitioner session on data, performance and other key topics. We will hold a sessions on employer engagement at the NDRC level and medium to small enterprise level.

Minister Ellis is attending and DEEWR will host a Q&A session to cover of the hot topics you have identified and provide an update on their focus for 2011.

ACE National will also cover our response to the consultation of the 2012 Procurement process initiated by the Minister in December 2010, and the work we have completed to that point advocating our positions on 2012 and Procurement.