The Annual Report sets out the results the New Zealand Fire Service Commission (Commission) has achieved against its annual plan (Statement of Intent). The annual report describes some of the key events that have occurred during each year, sets out the key results and the financial performance of the Commission against its intended performance.

The Commission's annual report is formally tabled in Parliament each year and is analysed by select committees to judge whether the Commission has delivered value to New Zealand communities.

Featured below is the table of contents and a short overview from the report. If you would like to read the report click on the download pdf link in the blue box to your right.

Table of Contents

Chairperson’s Letter 2
Commission Overview 4
National Rural Fire Authority Overview 7
Fire Service Overview 10
Statement of Responsibility 21
Audit Report 22
Statement of Service Performance 24
Statement of Accounting Policies 60
Statement specifying financial performance 63
Statement of financial performance 66
Statement of movements in equity 66
Statement of financial position 67
Statement of cashflows 68
Statement of commitments 69
Statement of contingent liabilities 69
Notes to the financial statements 70

New Zealand Fire Service Commission Annual Report

Pursuant to section 150 of the Crown Entities Act 2004 I present the annual report of the New Zealand.Fire Service Commission for the year ended 30 June 2006.

Fire Outcomes

The Commission’s principal statutory responsibility is to reduce the incidence of fire and its consequences for people,.property, communities and the environment. elsewhere in this report we spell out the wide range of strategies and.business plans adopted to discharge that responsibility. the Commission monitors four key indicators to assess its.performance in this area. One indicator of the outcomes of fires for people is residential fire fatalities. I am pleased to.report that residential fire fatalities fell to just 13 in 2006. this represents a fire fatality rate of just 0.31 per 100,000 population and puts New Zealand close to the best in the world on this measure. this is an extraordinary achievement when we consider that in 1996 the fire fatality rate exceeded 0.90 per 100,000 population.

It is unwise, of course, to read too much into a single year’s performance particularly for outcome indicators like hectares lost to wildfire as seasonal and other factors may have a substantial bearing on the results. It is more important to consider the longer-term trend rather than the year-on-year performances. In this respect the 10-year comparative table below shows the Commission continues to make substantial progress across a broad range of fire outcome measures.

Shared Knowledge/Confident Communities

Fire services have a critical role to play in achieving one of Governments key priorities: safe communities. the themes of our annual reports over the last three years — More than Fighting Fires, Partners in Community Safety and enhancing Community Security — have highlighted the contribution New Zealand’s fire services make across the entire spectrum of emergency preparedness and response. this year’s theme explores the concept of communities and fire services sharing their knowledge and experience with each other to ensure that communities, households and individuals are:

• Better prepared for fires and other emergencies
• Confident they know how to respond in the event of a fire or other emergency
• Confident their local fire services will be there to assist them in their time of need
  

The focus is on the quality of our engagement with communities; how well we listen to and heed what communities tell us, how well we deliver our fire safety and other public education messages and how well we respond to everyday calls for assistance. We trust the stories used to illustrate this year’s theme go some way to demonstrating howNew Zealand’s fire services contribute to Government’s objective of safe communities.

National Training Centre

The Commission’s new National training Centre at eastgate, Rotorua was opened in July 2006. It offers a world-class training venue for career and volunteer firefighters with state-of-the-art realistic fire training facilities that meet.and exceed all environmental discharge requirements. the centre represents a major investment by the Commission and underscores its commitment to sustaining and improving the skills and capability of fire services’ people well into the future. Importantly, the site can be expanded to incorporate a broader range of emergency services training.
the Commission is confident a wide range of emergency management agencies will take advantage of the facilities the centre offers.

Volunteers

The NZ Fire Service is largely a volunteer service and like volunteer organisations across all sectors of society it is vulnerable to threats to the volunteer ethic. During the last year the Commission completed a comprehensive survey of NZ Fire Service volunteer brigades and their members. the results showed volunteer numbers have remained reasonably constant since 1994 (the year of the last comprehensive survey) but the average age of volunteers has increased and turnover in the first five years of membership is very high. New initiatives in the areas of employer recognition and family-friendly brigades have been developed to address some of the concerns. Further initiatives to foster and sustain volunteerism will be rolled out in the coming year.

National Rural Fire Authority

During the year Commission members resolved to place greater emphasis on the Commission’s role as the National Rural Fire Authority. In future members will regularly convene as the National Rural Fire Authority rather than deal with Authority matters within meetings of the NZ Fire Service Commission. We expect the increased focus on rural matters will improve our engagement with key stakeholders in the rural sector and we intend to undertake field trips in conjunction with meetings of the Authority. Consistent with the decision to give the role of the Authority a higher profile, we have included a separate section in this report on the business of the Authority during 2005/06.

Acknowledgements

I thank the members of the Commission for their unfailing support during the year. In particular I would like to acknowledge the contribution of dr Piers Reid whose terms of office expired shortly after the end of the year. I would also like to welcome to the Commission Bob Francis who replaced dr Reid. On behalf of the Commission I express our appreciation of the services of the Chief executive Mike hall, his senior management team and all staff and volunteers.

Yours sincerely

Dame Margaret Bazley, DNZM
Chairperson