FENZ chief executive Kerry Gregory told MPs not much progress was made in 2023 because they had other priorities. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The country's largest cities remain without local committees to plan for emergencies, including fires and floods, seven years after they were made mandatory.
MPs at a select committee expressed dissatisfaction with Fire and Emergency's local planning efforts demanded under 2017 legislation.
It set up seven committees in more sparsely populated areas, including the Chathams, in 2020 and is working on another four - in Taranaki, Tasman, Southland and Waikato, the first in a metro area.
But five others, including in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, are last on the waiting list.
"We have made a prudent decision to establish four this year and then spread them out to the next four next year," FENZ board chairperson Rebecca Keoghan told a select committee at Parliament.
"The other consideration for us has been, 'What went well with the first seven?' "
A 2021 evaluation of committees - called LACs - said they were working but "many of the challenges experienced in the first year are because Fire and Emergency did not have systems in place to advise, or respond to the advice of LACs".
National MP Tom Rutherford asked why no committees were set up last year.
FENZ chief executive Kerry Gregory said they had other priorities, and that the agency also wanted to make sure the LACs were working "in a meaningful way" before setting up any others.
Yet asked how they were determining if the LACs were even working, he said "we haven't sought feedback from communities as a whole", though they met with the committees themselves.
"This is a line of questioning we've asked repeatedly around standing up these committees, and there is I think a shared disappointment that we still haven't got them all stood up," said governance and administration select committee chair and Labour MP Rachel Boyack.
LACs are meant to give residents a channel for telling FENZ what risks they face and resources - from crews to trucks to other gear - they might need.
Applications from locals to be appointed to the four latest committees open next week and run till mid-April, FENZ said on Thursday.
"Planning is underway for establishing the last five LACs in Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Whanganui-Manawatu, Wellington, and Canterbury," it said in a statement.
"At this stage we intend to establish Auckland next to enable learning from its establishment to inform the set-up of the remaining LACs, which include large metropolitan areas."
Gregory said another key mechanism was local fire plans, and they were consulting about these now.
Last year FENZ told RNZ it would not produce any written local plans, despite the legislation requiring it, and the government said that was acceptable.
Councils in Wellington have expressed frustration at that.
FENZ's website now suggests it did some plans in 2021 that it was now updating.
The regions hardest hit by Cyclone Gabrielle - Hawke's Bay, Tai Rāwhiti and Northland - were among the first seven areas with local area committees.
Documents RNZ has reported on show FENZ lacked resources and planning in some places, but it has argued this had to do with the unprecedented scale of the storms.