Coastquard Funding cuts.

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Coastguard's government funding has been slashed by more than $1 million, forcing the charity to go cap-in-hand to the public for more cash.

New chief executive Patrick Holmes says he sees the operation as the "fourth emergency service", but it is the only one almost entirely reliant on donations to survive.

The funding, provided by the Search and Rescue Council in a Service Level Agreement, was cut by $340,000 per year for three years.

The Coastguard will now receive $1.874m a year until the contract is renegotiated.

The decision was made jointly by the ministers of transport and finance on advice from the council late last year.

"Perversely, they've cut it because we were doing a good job," Holmes said.

Raising money could be difficult, because many New Zealanders did not realise Coastguard was a volunteer-based organisation.

"We have only about 30 paid staff in the whole country. The rest – more than 2400 people – are volunteers. A lot of New Zealanders also don't realise we are a charity," he said.

Holmes, as part of the Coastguard's awareness push beginning May 1, said the service couldn't stay on the water if it wasn't supported by the public.

"New Zealanders love to be out on the water, and we're the charity that save lives at sea," he said.

Costs for the organisation were extremely expensive.

A single boat costs around $1.5m. Each volunteer requires extensive practical training at a cost of $34.30 per week, both in the water and the air, to ensure they can respond to each call for help with speed and accuracy.

New Zealand Search and Rescue Council secretariat manager Duncan Ferner said it was able to fund only the part of Coastguard relevant to search and rescue.

"They do a lot of other very good work – preventative search and rescue and education work – but that's not Search and Rescue in a formal sense," he said.

The council worked separately with Coastguard on prevention.

Coastguard also received funding from lotteries grants and trust boards, Ferner said.

BY THE NUMBERS

2406 volunteers. 348,356 hours of volunteer time last year. 3337 calls for help each year – nine per day. 6996 people rescued last year – 19 per day. 50 lives deemed "saved" by Coastguard in SAR operations last year. 30 people died in SAR operations.

[MarkMT 68]

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