Good morning Alan

Thanks for your email. I have passed your request onto our OIA team for processing

Many thanks

LOU

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Thompson [mailto:[FOI #4790 email]]
Sent: Wednesday, 19 October 2016 9:17 a.m.
To: Web Communications <[email address]>
Subject: Official Information request - Independent assessment by TDM Consulting Report on the financial context of the fire services merger.

The New Zealand Fire Service Commission,

In April 2016 Cabinet agreed to commence a course of action to merge the NZ Fire Service and the 56 Rural Fire Authorities into one fire service entity.

This merger was found to require an injection of additional funding from the fire service levy (on insurance policies) and a further Crown contribution. One of the conditions for the release of the Crown funding for this transition was that an independent assessment was to be undertaken of the Commissioon's financial context to confirm the need for the capital injection.

The Minister outlined this requirment in his paper to the Cabinet Economic Growth and Infrastructure Committee in April 2016. It was recorded in the Minute of Decision EGI-16MIN-0064 that TDM Consulting had been engaged to to provide this independent assessment of the financial context, the challanges faced and the opportunities available to the Fire Service as it looks to transition to a single unified fire services organisation. It was further recorded that this assessment was due for completion in April/May 2016.

In light of the significant concerns around the funding model of the new entity I request a copy of the TDM Consulting report as identified above. This request is made under the provisions of the Offcial Information Act.

Yours faithfully

Alan Thompson
Lower Hutt

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Hello Mr Thompson

Please find attached our letter acknowledging receipt of your request to provide information

Kind regards,

Tracey

Tracey Morgan
Executive & Ministerial Services Coordinator
_____________________________
New Zealand Fire Service

DDI: (04) 496 3641

Mobile: (027) 406 6905

Fax: (04) 496 3700

Email: [email address]

National Headquarters, Level 12, 80 The Terrace

PO Box 2133, Wellington 6140
__________________________________________

Te Manatū o ngā ratonga ohotata kia haumaru ake ai a Aotearoa │Leading integrated fire and emergency services for a safer New Zealand

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Good afternoon Alan
thank you for your email
I have passed this onto our OIA team for processing
Kind regards

LOU

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Thompson [mailto:[email address]]
Sent: Tuesday, 1 November 2016 4:14 p.m.
To: Web Communications <[email address]>
Subject: Official Information request - Failure of Incident Ground Communications at 3rd Alarm Chemical Spill in the Waikato

Official Information Act Request – Incident Ground Communication Issues Waikato

Background to this OIA Request

The NZ Fire service and the NRFA have embarked upon a strategy to introduce incompatible Incident Ground Communications (IGC) within the urban fire services and between the urban and rural fire services.
Prior to 2015 this strategy was ad hoc and urban fire regions decided on a local basis as to whether they would use VHF or UHF for IGC. Beginning with the Waikato area in early 2015 this strategy became formalised as a result of the decision by NZ Fire Service to prefer UHF for urban brigades. Waikato was used as a pilot to tender for and purchase UHF handheld radio equipment for the Paid city brigades of Hamilton. Some $2 million of new UHF radios were delivered to Hamilton around mid 2015.

The high risk of this strategy of introducing nationwide incompatibility in IGC radio equipment has been raised by the writer with the NZ Fire Service and the NRFA. The strategy to adopt Dual Band radios, carry two radios and/or introduce Cross Band Repeating to try to resolve this incompatibility problem and provide some inter-operability capability has also been identified by the writer as flawed and a serious H&S risk to fire fighters. The Hamilton 2015 IGC replacement included some dual band radios that could operate on either UHF or VHF to provide inter-operability with volunteer brigades outside of Hamilton City.
On the 24th of September 2015 a road accident involving as serious chemical spill occurred in the Waikato. A formal operational review of this 3rd Alarm level incident identified operational failures at every level of the response. Central to the Command and Control problems was the lack of reliable radio communications.
The incident occurred in a location where LMR and Cellph reception was very poor. There are many such locations throughout NZ and these are a fact of life for our emergency services.

More significantly the operational review identified that in the early stages of the incident the additional Hamilton City resources arriving at the Safe Forward Point were unable to communicate with the Incident Controller using Incident Ground Communications.

The IC was on the 1st arriving appliance, a volunteer truck from Cambridge. The incident was at a location where it was known that the LMR (and Cell Phones) were unreliable. The operational review report further identified that communications were initially unable to be established using Incident Ground Communication radios. This was in spite of the two locations being less than 500 metres apart in “line of sight”, this being well within the capability of 5-7km that IGC radios can operate “line of sight”.

The operational report identified this very significant failure (of IGC) and the serious problems and risks that resulted as a consequence. The report identified the reasons the LMR (and Cell Phone) communications did not work but made no attempt to identify the reasons for the unusual failure of IGC or recommend any action to address this matter.
The communications issues and in particular Incident Ground Communications placed the lives of responders and others at serious risk and was a major contributing factor in the many failings in the response to this incident documented in the report.

OIA Information Request

Under the provisions of the OIA I request the following information from the NZ Fire Service:
1. Confirmation that the Paid brigades of the NZ Fire Service brigades located in Hamilton and who responded to this chemical spill incident in September 2015 were equipped with UHF incident ground radios as their primary IGC capability.

2. Confirmation that the Cambridge volunteer brigade who were the first response/arrival and their OIC was the IC for the incident were equipped with and used VHF IGC radios.

3. Any notes, reports, emails and other documentation prepared during the operational review that addressed and identified the reasons why IGC radio communications could not be established with the IC located at the incident location and the following arrivals who were at the SFP (a very short distance away and in line of sight).

This should include any such records confirm that the IGC communications problems were a result of the arriving appliances trying to contact CAMB441 using UHF IGC radios that were incompatible with the Volunteer’s VHF IGC radios.

4. After some hours of confusion and delay communication were established from the SFP and the IC at CAM441. I request any information specific to IGC that identifies how this communication was subsequently established (eg on VHF ESB, UHF ESB, local Repeater, etc).

Alan Thompson
Lower Hutt

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[email address]

Is [New Zealand Fire Service Commission request email] the wrong address for Official Information requests to New Zealand Fire Service Commission? If so, please contact us using this form:
https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA page.

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Dear Alan

Please find attached a response from Leigh Deuchars, acting Director,
Office of the Chief Executive to your official information request
received on 19 October 2016.

Kind regards

 

 

Louise

 

[1]New-Zealand-Fire-Service-(NZFS)_FULLCOLOUR_small.jpgLouise Robinson
Business Services Coordinator to Leigh Deuchars, acting Director Office of
the Chief Executive

______________________________
New Zealand Fire Service

Phone: (04) 496 3694 or Extn: 4694

Mobile: (021) 833 640

Fax: (04) 496 3700

Email:  [2][email address]

National Headquarters, Level 12, 80 The Terrace

PO Box 2133, Wellington  6140
__________________________________________
Te Manat¨± o ng¨¡ ratonga ohotata kia haumaru ake ai a Aotearoa ©¦Leading
integrated fire and emergency services for a safer New Zealand

 

 

 

[3][IMG] [4][IMG] [5][IMG] [6][IMG] [7][IMG] [8][IMG]

Leading integrated fire and emergency services for a safer New Zealand ¦
Te Manatu o nga ratonga ohotata kia haumaru ake ai a Aotearoa

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