Guest Post: FENZ – friends or fiends?
A guest post by Owen Jennings:
Our neighbours lost their home to a fire. There was no fire brigade in our small district. It was devastating and took a huge emotional toll as well as massive inconvenience. It was, however, the motivation to form a volunteer brigade and obtain a used vehicle suitable for a rural locality.
It became one of 300 rural fire brigades – some community volunteer groups, some council run, some run by DOC and some forestry run. They were by no means a homogenous group. While there was a regulated framework they operated in, it was done in a fragmented and variable manner. Rural brigades involve some 11,000 volunteers who are usually committed, rightly proud of their community contribution but who often feel neglected or ignored at Wellington level.
Peter Dunne, back in 2012, decided there were problems that needed fixing. A typical interfering politician he insisted on a review and then designed a reformed organisation that tried to amalgamate the various parts of fire and emergency work. It was birthed in 2017.
It has been a failure, an abject failure. Only a miracle means the failure hasn’t resulted in greater losses – lives, buildings, property.
At board level the new organisation, Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) was chaired by Paul Swain. It was clearly a ‘job for the boys’ appointment. There was the token Māori appointment. A bean counter and the inevitable lawyer. To say the initial board under-performed is a huge understatement. Boards appointed since have not done any better. The country is paying a high price for DEI and political appointments.
Management has been disastrous and at the last time they were under scrutiny looked even devious being deliberately deceptive answering questions. It is fair to say the organisation is a horrible mess that will take a decade to retrieve and create normality.
Problems include governance and leadership failure, confused accountability, poor strategic direction, mismanagement at the top levels, delays in deploying new equipment, procurement problems, loss of senior staff because of incompetence, gross overspending, breakdown in relationships, harassment claims, poor financial control, cost overruns and a great deal more. In fact, its hard to find an area of activity in the organisation that hasn’t been screwed over.
A ‘tip of the iceberg’ issue emerged when it was shown senior management hired a PR outfit for $90,000 to try and hide their lack of performance at just one public outing.
Of more concern is the purchase of 30 trucks in 2017 that have never done an hour’s work. All a bit hard to believe but the 30 trucks made in the UK had to be shipped back for repairs and now nine years later still haven’t been used.
Another 30 trucks ordered in 2019 had to be returned because of cracked chassis issues. These trucks can easily exceed $1 million each in cost. FENZ will not give any buy price information.
Mainstream media don’t cover much of these shenanigans. It would show up DEI appointments.
Meanwhile services in most rural areas are in poor order with old, regularly-breaking-down trucks. Training is in disarray. Volunteerism is abused with irritating issues like slow reimbursements, difficult admin problems. The urban/rural divide animosity persists. Paperwork and rules have increased but recognition has not.
There has only been a marginal improvement in urban fire fighting services. Too many areas remain under-performing.
It’s a disaster story going back over ten years. It will be interesting to find whether the current Select Committee that is nearly completed questioning FENZ hierarchy will offer an improved road ahead. National’s Tim Costley has been doing a good job of putting heat on senior FENZ officials who have less than helpful and cooperative.
Certainly, change is urgently needed in what is an essential and important agency,