Civil Defence and Emergency Management NZQA Product Review

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Update – Civil Defence and Emergency Management NZQA Product Review

Toitū te Waiora would like to thank everyone who has volunteered their time to contribute to this review, and most recently, provided feedback on the proposed skill standards socialised on our website.

We have completed the revision of these skill standards based on the feedback and are now ready to submit them to NZQA for approval and listing.

This submission will also include expiring the unit standards that have been replaced with a new skill standards, and also expiring unit standards that are no longer being used or required.

Summary of Application to NZQA – Civil Defence Emergency Management Unit Standards to be Expired (D), or Replaced and Expired (C)

All category C and D unit standards in this set will be set to expire, with the last date of assessment on 31 December 2027.

Category D unit standards have not been used in the last five years. There is always an opportunity for redeveloping these as skill standards in the future if there is a need.

Category C unit standards are being replaced with skill standards. See Table 2 for further detail on replacement skill standards.

Unit standards with ‘Hold’ status in the Workplace Emergency Risk Management domain will be reviewed in 2026.

Rope Rescue unit standards and leadership standards used by the New Zealand Response Teams (with ‘To be updated’ status) will be replaced with skill standards in due course – consultation is currently underway.

Note: Although signalled as part of the CDEM review in initial communications, standards in the Emergency Communications and Workplace Fire and Emergency Response domains will be reviewed separately.

Key to review category
C	Major changes that necessitate the registration of a replacement standard with a new ID
D	Standard will expire and not be replaced

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The review so far.

Phase One of the review is nearing completion, which involved:

Consulting with the Civil Defence Emergency Management

Identifying key CDEM roles that require training,

Identifying the skills required for these roles, and
Creating skill standards aligned to these roles. These skill standards will replace the existing suite of unit standards.

View Table 1: Unit standards to be expired (D) or replaced and expired (C).

View Table 2: Newly developed skill standards and skill standards developed to replace category C unit standards.

Who we’ve collaborated with

We thank all the subject specialists from the following groups who gave up their valuable time to make sure that these skill standards will consistently meet the needs of a complex sector: