NEMA said it was not involved in the lapels.
The amount, $2m, is about the same budgeted for Civil Defence Emergency Management training in NEMA’s 2022-23 non-departmental expenses, its briefing to its minister shows. This year it budgeted nothing for that.
Both it and DPMC are central to the government’s response to overhaul emergency management in the wake of ongoing damning inquiries into last year’s response to Cyclone Gabrielle and other storms.
The latest inquiry this week said NEMA was not up to the task.
It recommended to: “Legislate for and invest in [NEMA’s] primary function and purpose to hold system leadership for emergency readiness and response.”
The government told RNZ on Wednesday it was already moving to remake NEMA.
RNZ asked NEMA if it was proposing to cut roles, or if it had sought to establish if it could expect to expand or shrink in the near future, in response to the findings of the storm inquiries. It did not comment on that.
It and DPMC have suffered from high rates of staff quitting.
NEMA’s annual review said turnover peaked at 19 percent, though it told RNZ it was 17.3 percent and this had dropped to 15.9 percent. It had grown by about 100 hires since it was set up in 2019, to 154 staff.
The annual review said people were quitting to get better pay and progression.
In response, NEMA and DPMC last year made “targeted adjustments” to remuneration – raising pay. Now they are both cutting costs, but would not say if jobs would go.
The storms inquiry this week said NEMA “needs support to build its capacity and capability”.
The minister in charge of this, Mark Mitchell, said on Wednesday that spending to fix the system had to be done “in a measured and a well-planned way because obviously we’re in a position at the moment as a country where we’ve been living well beyond our means”.
DPMC for its part leads the post-Gabrielle work on regulations to boost the resilience of critical infrastructure like cellphone towers, in the face of natural disasters.
It told RNZ it would ensure the work went on “in a consistent and coordinated way”, adding the inquiry report reiterated the work was a priority.