Fire Services Review

Unified fire services organisation to be set up

The Minister announced on 13 November 2015 that as a result of the Fire Services Review the government would bring urban and rural fire services together into one unified fire services organisation.

Read the Minister’s speech.

Here’s some background information on

Read the Cabinet decision (.pdf 2mb) and the full Cabinet paper (.pdf 2.6mb)

Further announcements about funding for the new organisation, to be called Fire and Emergency New Zealand, are here: Fire Services Transition

Read the submissions on the Fire Services Review

Read the Executive Summary:

Read the full Submissions Summary report:

Here is a list of all submitters:

Discussion Document and supporting information

Read the full document or a summary:

On 24 June, a supplementary paper to the Discussion Document was released to discuss the importance of community engagement for our fire services.

More information

Minister's media release (7 August 2015): Broad support for changes to our fire services (Beehive website)

Minister's media release (27 Mayt 2015): Submissions called for on Fire Services Review (Beehive website)

Background papers

Other reports

What led to the Fire Services Review?

The independent Fire Review Panel in 2012, led by Paul Swain, made a number of recommendations to Cabinet. (See: Report of the Fire Review Panel, December 2012)

In September 2013, Cabinet agreed next steps based on the recommendations in that report and the Fire Services Review in 2015 was the next stage of that process. (See: Cabinet Decisions on Fire Service Review, September 2013)

Who and what was involved?

The Department of Internal Affairs and the New Zealand Fire Service Commission worked together on the review on the Minister’s behalf.

The scope of the review included mandate and governance, legislation modernisation, funding, rural and urban fire services structures, coordination with other emergency services, and volunteer and workforce engagement and support.

Further background