This page contains information about the review, its objectives and scope, and the FAR Review Reference Group.
The FAR review was set up to assure the Transport Agency that the way funding assistance rates are set and applied is valid and appropriate given the modern regulatory environment. There had been an uneven level of understanding within the Transport Agency, approved organisations and the wider transport sector as to why the current FAR system is set up the way that it was, as well as what it was seeking to achieve. This has contributed to the current system being made up of a number of components seeking to achieve different objectives. It has also led to dissatisfaction within a number of local authorities with the funding assistance rates that apply to their organisation.
Find out more about the review's background published November 2012 [PDF, 1.5 MB]
The funding assistance rates review aims:
to determine the role(s) of FARs in achieving the purpose of the Land Transport Management Act 2003 and giving effect to the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS)
to review:
the approach the Transport Agency uses in setting FARs
the rates themselves.
To achieve this, we need to:
do this in time for any changes to funding assistance rates to be factored into the 2015–18 regional land transport plans and council long-term plans commencing 2015
develop a greater mutual understanding with approved organisations, the Ministry of Transport and other stakeholders as to what the role of funding assistance rates is and what they can, and should, seek to achieve.
Find out more about the review's objectives and scope [PDF, 163 KB]
We have set up a reference group to provide advice and test our thinking as the review progresses. The members are:
Geoff Dangerfield, CEO of the Transport Agency (Chair)
Andrew Besley, CEO Marlborough District Council
Phil McDermott, Adjunct Professor Regional and Urban Development, Auckland University of Technology
Andrew McKenzie, CFO Auckland Council
Don McLeod, CEO Matamata-Piako District Council
Jim Palmer, CEO Waimakariri District Council
Mark Simpson, CEO Whangarei District Council
The reference group members aren't required to be champions of the outcomes of the review but instead act as a 'sounding board' and provide advice. The responsibility for decision making on FAR policy will remain with the Transport Agency.
In early 2013 we consulted on the principles that should sit behind the FAR system and the different approaches the Transport Agency could take to setting FARs.
Read the submissions we received on the discussion document [PDF, 1.2 MB] (published June 2013), along with a summary of how those submissions were taken into account [PDF, 634 KB] (published August 2013) in developing the provisional FAR framework.
In December we released an options discussion document [PDF, 3.2 MB] for consultation which described options for:
setting the overall split of costs between approved organisations and the National Land Transport Fund (the overall NLTF co-investment rate)
determining which councils should have funding assistance rates that are higher than the overall NLTF co-investment rate, how much higher those rates should be and, consequently, how much lower other councils' rates would be
setting and applying funding assistance rates for emergency works
transitioning in any changes to individual approved organisation's funding assistance rates
determining NLTF investment eligibility and rates for Waitangi Trust and Department of Conservation carriageways.
The options discussion document contained information on the potential implications of the different options for each council.
