Update

Payments for Long-duration Fires

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Last Monday, UFBA representatives participated in the Fire and Emergency workshop for the Incident Capability and Payments Alignment project. The UFBA initiated this project with FENZ to bring consistency and fairness for volunteers when they are deployed to long-duration fires.

The project has now been established to improve FENZ’s ability to attract and retain capability for long-duration events – such as wildfires and weather events. This may include extending payment entitlements to those currently indelible and standardisation of existing entitlements.

While the long-term solution is being worked on, there was a consensus that an interim solution needs to be in place by December this year for the upcoming fire season. The objectives of the interim solution are to:

  • Establish a consistent payment framework for attending long-duration incidents which supports Fire and Emergency’s capacity and capability requirements for the next 24 months
  • Improve clarity of payment entitlements
  • Implement ASAP with minimal change to current systems and processes

On Monday 17 October, all volunteers were emailed a survey to allow feedback on the project and interim solution. UFBA encourages members to have their say and submit their feedback.

The project team will present a proposed long-term solution to the Fire and Emergency Board in March 2023. This will be followed by formal consultation with personnel, the UFBA and other unions, and associated organisations. Implementation of the long-term solution will commence in 2024.

A project steering committee has been established to guide the project and ensure it delivers successful outcomes. As this piece of work is extremely important to UFBA members, the UFBA CE is a member of this committee. The Committee is Chaired by Stephanie Rotarangi, Deputy Chief Executive Service Delivery Design.

The UFBA also has representation on the Tactical Advisory Group who will provide guidance and advice to the Committee.

Once the long-term work has more traction, the UFBA Membership Advisory Panel will be calling for members to establish a UFBA Reference Group to support and advise the UFBA representatives on the committee and advisory group. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, email tayla@ufba.org.nz to be kept updated.

More information about the project can be found on the project Portal page or contact icpa@fireandemergency.nz