UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 872-(iii)

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:

HOUSING, PLANNING, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS COMMITTEE

THE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE

Monday 6 February 2006

MR MATT WRACK, MS RUTH WINTERS, MS VAL SALMON and MR JACK FORD

MR TOM CARROLL, MR PHIL TOASE and MR STEVE McGUIRK

Evidence heard in Public Questions 263 - 392

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the ODPM:

Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee

on Monday 6 February 2006

Members present

Dr Phyllis Starkey, in the Chair

Mr Clive Betts

Lyn Brown

John Cummings

Mr Greg Hands

Martin Horwood

Anne Main

Mr Bill Olner

Alison Seabeck

________________

Memorandum submitted by The Fire Brigades Union

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Matt Wrack, General Secretary, Ms Ruth Winters, President, Ms Val Salmon, Executive Council Member, Control Staff National Committee, and Mr Jack Ford, Executive Council Member, Officers National Committee, gave evidence.

Q263 Chair: I welcome you to the Committee. It is entirely up to you which member of your team answers the various questions that we are going to ask and I will leave it to you to orchestrate it from your end. Every Member of the Committee has had your written evidence so there is absolutely no need to repeat matters which are within the written evidence although you may wish to draw attention to parts as appropriate. If I could start off with some questions about your attitude to the regional control centres, in your written evidence you have said that one of your concerns about FiReControl is that it is a "blueprint - without any public debate - for the beginnings of regional fire services". I know that you had your representatives in the evidence sessions so you will be aware that ODPM officials said very clearly that the Government did not have a regionalisation agenda. Does that allay your concerns on that matter?

Mr Wrack: No, it does not. We think that the regional project on controls is unsupported by other fire service examinations such as the Bain Review, the Government's own White Paper, and therefore our view is that the process is driven by an agenda around even wider regionalisation. We feel that that is in fact reflected in the concerns of a number of stakeholders within the Fire and Rescue Service. The statements from the ODPM have not allayed our fears.

Q264 Chair: Why exactly are you opposed to a regionalisation, if it were to occur?

Mr Wrack: We support the principle of locally-controlled with locally-accountable fire and rescue services. There are a number of models already within the UK Fire Service for how fire services operate in relation to local authorities. It is our view that if the Government was to consider a wider regionalisation of the fire service then there must be some wider regionalisation of local governance and there would have to be a wider debate around that before any regionalisation of the service itself was proceeded with.

Ms Winters: In terms of regionalisation, we also feel that this is one of the first steps of a core operational aspect of the fire service that regional control rooms is guided and pursued particularly by Westminster and the ODPM and that that would be the first time that other issues that we have certainly been supportive of in terms of regional assistance, in terms of regional purchasing, in terms of regional training, which we have certainly been part of and encouraged and been behind, but we feel that this would be a detrimental move in terms that it would be the first core element that is absolutely central to the operations of any fire and rescue service which is locally accountable and also deals with local risk and to deal with local risk properly you need to have local services.

Q265 Mr Hands: I am still unclear on your objection. Your objections seem to be because it is coming from the ODPM and because it will not coincide with local government boundaries. Are there any operational objections to having regional control centres?

Mr Wrack: Yes, there are a whole range of operational reasons why we have concerns. Primarily, if we look at the development since 2004 of local integrated risk management plans, they are based on plans developed within each individual fire and rescue service for the assessment of risk within the local fire and rescue service and then plans for how the local fire and rescue service would deal with those risks. The concern we have is how that interacts with a regional control centre. A regional control centre may have to deal with six, seven or more local fire authorities each with their own separate risk management plan. There is a major concern about how the regional control centre would therefore impact on the application of those local risk management plans.

Q266 Lyn Brown: If I remember your evidence correctly, did you not talk about the geographical difficulties you think will come from regionalism? You said, if I remember your evidence correctly, that London was different because it was more compact and it was smaller than the size of Devon. Could you expand upon that so we can understand it a little better?

Ms Winters: I am a fire control operator and have been for the past 21 years. The majority of staff who work in these fire control rooms are very tied into the ethos of delivery of local services. It is true to say that they call themselves a regional control centre. It is our view that it is a fire authority-controlled centre which deals with one fire authority in a small geographical size. The South West is two-thirds the size of London geographically. Not everything fits into the "one size fits all" and not everything fits into the scenario that would suit London. London has one police force to work with, one ambulance service to work with and I can assure you from experience of working in fire control rooms you need to be at the heart of any incident, be it a local, regional or national incident, and having been on duty at Lockerbie I know exactly what that is like.

Mr Wrack: If I could develop the point in relation to the issues I raised earlier around the integrated risk management plans, London has a single integrated risk management plan to deal with whereas the South West proposed regional control would be a number of integrated risk management plans to coordinate emergency responses and those policies may differ between each individual fire and rescue service. The regional control centre may have different mobilising procedures to operate for the different local fire authorities.

Q267 Alison Seabeck: Do you have a view on sub-regional partnerships? Clearly Devon and Somerset are looking at it. It seems to make a lot of sense from their point of view. It does not seem to me that it is necessarily a step towards any wider regionalisation.

Mr Wrack: We would be keen to engage with those authorities in a discussion around what is being proposed and our local officials will do so. There would be concerns that we would like to flag up - the ones that we have mentioned already in relation to whether separate integrated risk management plans would continue to operate in those cases, or whether there would be a wider integration of the service as a whole - but we are certainly open-minded about those sorts of discussions and we would engage with the people involved.

Ms Winters: One of the things that is key to us in terms of where we would move if that was a proposal and, that is right, we would look openly at that. We do not feel that that would not fit into our national resilience suggestion as an alternative if two authorities did merge. The other thing that we have to be very clear about in an operational sense is communications is key; lines of communications, lines of command and compatibility will be key and obviously the ultimate is fire ground safety.

Q268 Mr Olner: You have articulated your view in your written evidence about a reduction in frontline services but you also talk about the assumption that it will leads to increased costs. That is your view but it is not a view that is shared by the fire authorities or the Chief Fire Officers' Association. How is it that you remain unconvinced when others are?

Mr Wrack: The concerns that we raised have increasingly been reflected by a number of fire and rescue authorities. In some of the evidence that has been submitted in writing to you, you will find that a significant number of fire and rescue authorities have expressed a view to varying degrees that, while they may be supportive of the principle, they have a number of concerns. One of those concerns is in terms of cost and the possible cost implications for them as local fire and rescue authorities. Where we differ substantially with the ODPM relates primarily to the issue of what is called "out-of-scope" work. There is a whole range of work currently carried out by local emergency fire controls which has not been included in the proposals for FiReControl for the regionalised controls. That work will still have to be done. Estimates range between 30 per cent and 70 per cent of the work currently done by local fire controls. That work will have to carry on following any regionalisation and the question that arises is how will the costs for that be carried? It is, in reality, a cost of the fire control and therefore any savings that are claimed would have to take account of those additional costs.

Ms Winters: The other thing on costs which is extremely important is the fact that the costs of the FiReControl Project alone have soared already and there is no confidence on our behalf that these could not possibly soar in the future. Whether it is council tax payers or taxpayers in general, that is taxpayers' money that will be spent on it. Again, we think our solution on national resilience controls would be able to come at a more cost-effective aspect in that. We have also been party to in the past best value reviews. Every FiReControl was part of a best value review passed - a best value review in terms of efficiency and effectiveness - and we feel that that has been ignored basically by this project. In terms of FireLink, it does not even have an outline business case so nobody is actually sure what the cost of that is to anyone.

Q269 Mr Olner: Given the fact that you just said you are not utterly and totally opposed to it - reading into it in the Thatcher Room there is room for negotiation hopefully somewhere - how would you make sure that those concessions are made? How would you put forward those concessions so that the total plan is not obstructed? You said in principle that you agree but you do not agree with the detail. How would you ensure that some of the detail could be negotiated on?

Mr Wrack: We do not agree in principle with the current proposal on regional controls. We think that some of the issues that are addressed by the projects do need to be addressed, in particular the question of resilience. In terms of how we would address it, we have put forward a proposal. We are not simply saying no, no, no. We have put forward a proposal which we think is well-thought-out, it is based on the actual experience of the fire service and of the people who work within it, it is a relatively simple idea which many strong ideas are relatively straightforward, and we think it addresses many of the issues raised within the FiReControl project in a better way.

Ms Winters: The situation of regional control rooms proposed at the moment deal with regional and national resilience, not to the standard we would like to see done. The difference is our alternative proposal rather than opposition is that this would deal with marrying-up national resilience proposals and integrated risk management plans which is a keystone of the Government's modernisation agenda and that has been shown to be in the report that we put forward.

Q270 Mr Olner: What I am seeking to get, Chairman, is the feel of the thing. You have mentioned London which is a huge area with a larger population than Devon and Cornwall, but Devon and Cornwall are thinking about having an integrated system. I come from Warwickshire in the West Midlands. Would we be looking at something like West Midlands, Warwickshire, Staffordshire? What sort of strategic clump are you looking for that needs to provide the protection that the public need?

Mr Wrack: What we suggested in our resilience documents is that you could actually address the resilience issues raised by the ODPM using current local emergency fire controls. What we have suggested in there is that within each of the ODPM regions you would have one of those local emergency fire controls designated as a resilience control; that that resilience control would then be able to take responsibility for dealing with New Dimensions-type incidents within the region, and we suggest also that that plan could then be adopted by the jurisdictions - by Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - and you end up with an integrated UK-wide plan which addresses all of those New Dimensions and resilience-type issues.

Q271 Mr Olner: You mentioned in your written submissions that you are currently surveying the membership on the strength of their interest in the FiReControl issue. When will the results of that survey be made known?

Ms Winters: We have it and I think we have got it today. We do know that 96 per cent of those surveyed were against the regional control centres. The 96 per cent surveyed also said that they felt it would not improve the safety of either firefighters or the public.

Q272 Mr Olner: What percentage of the membership took part in that survey?

Ms Winters: It was a UGOV survey. It was 2,500.

Q273 Mr Olner: What is that as a percentage?

Ms Winters: It was a proper sample. UGOV surveys are recognised by all organisations. It is a representative survey.

Mr Wrack: If I may add something on the survey, it was significant in our view that the opposition to the regionalisation project increased the further up the rank structure people were; i.e. those in middle management positions had greater concerns than those further down the organisation.

Q274 Mr Olner: Did that surprise you?

Mr Wrack: No, it did not. It may surprise yourselves.

Mr Olner: Could I ask that that evidence be written so that it could be included?

Chair: Yes, certainly.

Q275 Mr Betts: There must be a suspicion around, must there not, that once again we have a significant proposal for reform in the fire service and, once again, the FBU comes out against it. Surprise, surprise, is that not par for the course some people would say?

Mr Wrack: I have heard all sorts of views expressed in some of the evidence about the Fire Brigades Union stance on reform. The Fire Brigades Union welcomes reform if it is genuine reform and if it genuinely takes the service forward. Our approach to the Control project highlights that we are not a trade union that is simply saying no, no, no in some sort of Luddite manner. We have looked at the issue, we have looked at it with people who have huge experience within the service in terms of dealing with these issues and we have come up with a proposal which we think here is better. If you look at other issues around the reform of the service, we are fully involved in a whole number of those projects. If you take New Dimensions, for example, we have some excellent working relations around the issue of New Dimensions. That does not mean that we do not have concerns on particular issues, as you would expect us to have. It is simply not the case that the Fire Brigades Union is obstructing those measures.

Ms Winters: I am sure that the Committee would not be held up with some of the propaganda that was unfortunately perpetuated in the pay dispute in terms of modernisation and I would hope that you would not take that on board. What we need to be clear about in modernising the fire service is getting rid of some myths. The Fire Brigades Union have had policy and have carried defibrillators since the early Nineties in the fire service prior to the pay dispute. We led on the Fire Safety Bill prior to the fire service dispute which rolled up to the regulatory reform orders and fire safety. We signed up to risk-based fire cover in the late Nineties, we signed up to IPDS training, all part of the modernisation agenda in the late Nineties. Community fire safety - we have set up a joint protocol with the Chief Fire Officers in the late Nineties, all prior to the pay dispute. It needs to be clear that collaborative working is something that we absolutely welcome and encourage development of, but to do it in a safe manner is not just opposition.

Q276 Chair: I am sure we will come back to the co-responder questions later on. Can I just put this question a different way round? The ODPM has put forward a proposal for regional control centres; you have put forward completely alternative proposals. If the ODPM persists with its proposals and your union refuses to cooperate, that would clearly put the implementation of those proposals at risk. What is needed to modify the ODPMs proposals to at least water down your opposition?

Mr Wrack: What we would be seeking is a genuine dialogue.

Q277 Chair: Specifically what amendments to what the ODPM is proposing would at least meet with your tacit support, if not enthusiasm?

Mr Wrack: What we would seek is the ODPM engaging in dialogue around some of our proposals. We do have different points of view on the issue of regionalisation of control itself.

Q278 Chair: It is not possible to have a hybrid proposal between yours and the ODPM; it is one or the other. What modifications of the ODPM proposals would you be prepared to consider?

Ms Winters: We would be prepared to consider the fact that we looked and have come up with some solution that deals with local planning and local safety which is not wiped out to merge and push forward a regional agenda. If there are other proposals put forward we would look at any proposal. To say that the Fire Brigades Union have not participated in looking at any other proposal concerning regional control is just not the case. This is a proposal and we must remember that it came from a Mott MacDonald report in 2000, prior September 11. It is based on call-handling centres based around a formula used in the RAC controls. We would look at any proposal put forward that had built-in safety that convinced us and gave us the confidence that we could deliver the same standard of service, safety of firefighters and safety of the public. The second Mott MacDonald report that came in - we have already had the two of them - came in prior to September 11 and another one came out after. Our power as a trade union representing members on the frontline in the fire service and an emergency service is to protect their safety and protect public safety.

Q279 Chair: We understand that.

Mr Ford: It is important to make the point here that it is not simply a question of the position that the Fire Brigades Union takes in terms of what puts the project at risk; there are plenty of factors that put the project at risk that are derived from the way it has been structured to the way it does not conform to accepted project management process. There still is not a business case for goodness sake. A business case comes at the start of the process.

Q280 Mr Hands: On the resilience controls, you have suggested a system of resilience controls which would designate resilience coordination duties to some existing control rooms. Have you discussed this idea with the ODPM and have you had dialogue about this?

Mr Wrack: We launched the document publicly last week and the document has gone to all key stakeholders within the fire service community. We are extremely keen to discuss it with them and some of those discussions are about to take place over the next few days.

Q281 Mr Hands: In terms of the location of the control centres, and I appreciate you are opposed to the regional control centres, you mentioned in your evidence there are various cases where they are close to nurseries, close to airports, et cetera. Is there any sort of general principle in your mind as to where a regional control centre, if you approved or agreed with one, should be located? What sort of location?

Mr Wrack: We would raise the issue of security of any such location. One thing we have highlighted is that if you compare some of the current local emergency fire controls and their locations, their security and so on, and compare those with the proposed regional sites, the existing sites are far more secure and if one of the things we are doing is protecting our fire controls against possible terrorist attack themselves, then there is actually a risk by the actual proposals in relation to location.

Q282 Mr Hands: Have you outlined some specific examples - I do not want you to go through them now - in objection to it?

Mr Wrack: Yes, we have engaged in that discussion both at national level and locally.

Ms Winters: One of the things in our resilience plan that needs to be borne in mind, we have identified sites at the moment, but if after discussion other sites are deemed more appropriate in terms of security then we would be happy to look at that. The key point in our document is that there should be one resilience control within each regional management board area still backed up with the safety of your local fire control still run by your fire and rescue authorities. It has to be made clear that local fire and rescue authorities are the only ones with statutory responsibilities for any part of the fire service; the regional set-up will not.

Mr Ford: The other point to note on your question is that a long way back in this process the ODPM put out certain criteria which would apply to prospective sites. Of the sites that have since been chosen, very few, if any, comply with that criteria.

Q283 Anne Main: You written evidence raises doubts that lessons have been learnt from the experience of the London bombings and the Buncefield fire. What are your concerns based on?

Mr Wrack: In terms of the London incident, we go back to the London Fire Authority's integrated risk management plan. One of the issues raised at the time by the Fire Brigades Union was that the plan, for example, to move fire appliances out of Central London in the event of a terrorist attack would mean that Central London was suffering from a reduced number of appliances and would therefore struggle to attend those incidents. We highlighted at the time that there would likely be traffic gridlock, for example, and there was some evidence of that happening on that day. Certainly there were press reports of firefighters having to run down the road to attend the incident and having to leave their appliance in the street. In terms of Buncefield, there are a number of lessons. The first one that directly relates to the regionalisation issues is that the local emergency fire control coped perfectly adequately with the Buncefield incident: large numbers of calls coming in, the emergency fire control coped; large numbers of calls being dealt with in other fire authorities, again the current system coped with that. In terms of a wider lesson in relation to Buncefield, what we would flag up is the need for joined-up thinking in relation to planning. One concern we had is that the local fire authority reported that it had not planned for an incident on that scale. We believe that in this day and age, with the possible threat of terrorist incidents, then we should precisely be planning for incidents on such a scale and the Fire and Rescue Service needs to be planning on that sort of level.

Ms Winters: In terms of Buncefield in particular the lesson is that the current control room there and the assistance from other local controls and fire authorities shows that they are resilient. That is not to say that some improvements could not be made because of course they could be, but they are resilient. They dealt with something in the region over a three-day period of 220 other calls apart from the call to Buncefield. It was the experience and knowledge of the local fire control that actually when they took the call it did not come into the oil depot, it came in as an explosion in Mason Road in the area. The first call did not specifically come in as the oil terminal. On the volume of calls alone, the experienced officer in charge of control immediately mobilised an extra six fire appliances at the time. The one thing we have to learn about that whole scenario is that the 999 centres - when you phone 999 you get through to the first level before they pass it to the Fire Brigade - could not cope and in some situations you were waiting half-an-hour to get through to the emergency service you wanted. Those centres have already been through the process that they are proposing that regional fire controls go through. One lesson we should be learning is that that is a dangerous process for us to go to. The other lesson to be learned from Buncefield is that the local IRMP which was put out before the incident happened - integrated risk management plan - it was proposing cuts in Hertfordshire at this very moment which have been put off temporarily until March. I believe they were actually approved by the Scrutiny Panel today which would mean that two of the retained stations who attended in the first 20 minutes of that incident are going to be closed and disappear. Possibly what also has to be learned is the fact that local IRMPs have to take in more than just the normal day-to-day things. They have to take in resilience accountability as well.

Q284 Anne Main: Has the FRS now got sufficient equipment? You mentioned about taking fire engines out of London when we had the bombs. Do you think the FRS staff has sufficient training to use the new equipment?

Mr Wrack: There have been a number of new appliances and pieces of equipment provided to the Fire and Rescue Service by the ODPM and we welcome that. We are not convinced that that is the end of the story. There is further equipment required. We know that the London Fire Brigade itself has recently called for additional incident response units for decontamination. The concerns we would flag up are relating to training. Yes, there has been a certain amount of training and of course that training needs to be ongoing. Related to the issue of training is the question of the long-term funding of training and the resources that have been provided - it is an old point - in the ODPM providing a new vehicle to the fire service for New Dimensions-type incidents and then leaving it there. They need to provide the funding for the additional staffing that would be needed and they need to provide the funding for the training which is going to be an ongoing requirement.

Q285 Alison Seabeck: Your written evidence focussed on prevention and effectively sidelines the intervention and rescue role of the service. Are you suggesting therefore that because you have been undertaking prevention work you have been unable, on occasion, to provide the appropriate rescue service?

Mr Wrack: What we are highlighting is a difference in emphasis. We support the broad approach and that involves preventative measures. We have always supported preventative measures and we have outlined our role in that over a number of years, joint protocols signed with the Chief Fire Officers' Association and so on. We have to look at what preventative measures actually do. Take the example of a smoke alarm: a smoke alarm does not put out a fire. What a smoke alarm does is alert the occupants of the premises and that allows the occupants of the premises to call the fire service and the fire service therefore to intervene to deal with the fire quickly and to save lives. That is the approach that needs to be adopted.

Q286 Alison Seabeck: That seems slightly contradictory. Do you expect the numbers of people rescued as a result of prevention measures to either increase or decrease, given that there is now a greater emphasis, actually physically rescued from fires as opposed to people walking out by themselves?

Mr Wrack: Our evidence suggests that there has been an increase in the number of people rescued. That directly links with the community fire safety strategies that fire services have been adopting. We have provided statistics in our written evidence for an increase in the number of rescues by firefighters over a ten-year period.

Q287 Chair: I thought we had had evidence that the number of fires had gone down; rescues from road traffic accidents have gone up greatly, but fires have gone down. I would be surprised if you can be rescuing more people from fewer fires.

Mr Wrack: Interestingly, and Ruth will provide the figures in a second, the statistics unfortunately are no longer published as a matter of course. We obtained the statistics by means of a parliamentary question but they clearly show a 42 per cent increase in the number of rescues carried out by firefighters over a ten-year period. At the same time fires have not declined which suggests, in our view, that what the community fire safety strategies are achieving is alerting people sooner to the fire, allowing the fire service to intervene and thereby allowing a greater number of rescues to take place.

Ms Winters: The statistics is on fires and that does not even count the ones from road traffic accidents.

Q288 Alison Seabeck: You expressed concern about the differentiation between preventable fire deaths and non-preventable fire deaths. Is it not important that we understand the nature of deaths in order to better prepare strategies to deal with, and work on, minimising the number of deaths? What is the problem there?

Mr Wrack: We are very keen that strategies are developed. The problem we have in terms of the use of the word "preventable" is that it is a purely subjective view. There is no guidance from the ODPM in relation to the use of the word "preventable". The ODPM refers to "accidental fires" and "non-accidental fires". What seems to have happened at local level is that a number of local fire and rescue services have adopted the use of preventable fire deaths and we have concerns about that because there are no guidelines as to when that term should or should not be used.

Q289 Alison Seabeck: The ten-year rescue statistics which you cite in your document seem to reveal that changes to the positioning of fire stations and the replacing of appliances, something which inevitably there has been opposition to over many years when people want to move appliances around, seems to have had a positive rather than a negative effect in terms of the number of people rescued and fires attended, and so on.

Mr Wrack: In terms of the movement of appliances that is something that takes place on a regular basis within each fire and rescue service. While the proposals may be examined in great detail by our local officials, we have no opposition to the movement of fire appliances and we have engaged in that process in many areas. Where we would have a problem obviously is in the reduction in the number of fire appliances and unfortunately that seems to be what is happening in a number of areas under the IRMP process.

Ms Winters: We really have to re-emphasise this that there has never been an opposition. We did, as I stated earlier, take part in many aspects of community fire safety. What we are not wanting is that frontline fire service, frontline intervention, should not be sidelined by community fire safety or any other preventative measures. They should be worked alongside each other. If we ever get to a stage in the fire service where there is evidence to show that we should have a reduced standard in terms of fire intervention, then we would reassess that. The one thing that those figures show in terms of the people rescued is that intervention is still one of the heights of the fire service's uses. There is nothing more clear than that in the rescued casualties put forward in that period we have told you about. What we do not want to see is that reduced which is what would appear to be getting done in areas where so many IRMPs are producing reports where jobs are going. In Hertfordshire, as I said before, there is minus 54 firefighters' posts and minus 54 firefighters' posts is something that we do not wish to see. Because we do not wish to see a reduction in intervention does not mean that we are not supportive of any community fire safety projects, any reduction in safety and of course we have been participating in that. One thing you see a lot in the evidence about the FBU being a barrier, if the FBU was such a barrier then fire and rescue authorities would not be getting a good rating in their Audit Commission reports because the Fire Brigades Union represents 84 per cent of the fire service.

Q290 Mr Betts: For members of the public the most important thing for them is that when they dial 999 how long does it take to get the fire engine there. That is what they are worried about. ODPM are saying to us these new control centres together with the FireLink including improved communication systems are going to deliver quicker response times; they are going to be much more effective and efficient and the fire engine will arrive there quicker and that is what the public wants. You are saying that is not true?

Ms Winters: What we first saying is that we are certainly not opposed to Firelink. We have never been opposed to FireLink. FireLink are a national radio system. I sat on one of the initial committees on that almost seven or eight years ago. We have never been opposed to it. We certainly had concerns on the health and safety aspects, but that does not mean we are opposed to a national radio strategy and we would support that. In terms of safety, of course we have great concerns about safety in that sense. What we are quite clear about is that FiReControl is dependent on FireLink, but FireLink is not dependent on fire control rooms. The current scenario in our national resilience scenario would see it work alongside, and along with, FireLink as a project.

Q291 Mr Betts: As a lay person, if you have a control centre now with a given number of staff there, there may be times when queues develop for those people to handle it. If you have more staff because they are all pooled together in one big room, the likelihood is, by the law of averages, that there will be fewer occasions when you get a queue develop because things will tend to even out across the regions. Is that not going to happen?

Ms Salmon: On the basis of that, how on earth do you get a faster response to a fire call answering the 999 system with less staff? That is what the proposal has been. There is nothing that is proposed within those technologies that is much different than we already use.

Q292 Mr Betts: If you had the same number of staff as now at regional centres everything would be okay?

Ms Winters: No.

Q293 Mr Betts: The answer I just had was that there was a problem with regional control centres because the calls would be answered more slowly because there would be fewer staff than there are now. If there are as many staff in the future in the regional control centres as there are now then you would not have a problem.

Ms Salmon: No, if I can complete the answer, that is one of the proposals that ODPM are clearly stating that the staff will be reduced. We are not saying that call answering times cannot be improved marginally, and we mean very marginally, but the point is balanced against an IRMP that is a local IRMP that is stretching the attendance time to eight or nine minutes, the slight reduction for regionalisation and the loss of a local service it does not balance out across.

Q294 Mr Betts: I have experience of this so I take the point about in some places some of the target response times have been increased but if they were not, everything else being equal, then there would not be a problem with regional control centres increasing times for response, would there?

Ms Winters: There is no evidence been given by anyone to say that regional control centres will reduce times. If you have a 46-lane motorway and you reduce it to nine and you still have the same volume of traffic going through, it will go through a bit slower.

Q295 Mr Betts: I would not take the analogy; I think it is a bit of a difficult one to follow.

Ms Winters: I will put it another way then. If you have fewer control rooms, even with the same amount of staff dealing with local IRMPs, there is no guarantee that you are going to increase attendance times at all.

Q296 Mr Betts: There may be an argument that you do get bottlenecks and they are more spread out in a bigger centre. Can I come back to one point: your argument therefore is simply that there is no evidence that response times will improve?

Ms Winters: The argument is that we have a system at the moment which is one of the highest performing public services in the public sector at the moment. We do not feel that regional fire control rooms, whether there is enough, and the proposal is not that there is going to be the same amount of staff in it for a start; that is not proposed.

Q297 Mr Betts: Can I take you on to one of the issues you mentioned you had no problems with and that is the FireLink Project. Some of us might be very wary indeed from what we have seen in the police authorities where a similar system for communications was introduced a few years ago how response times have actually gone out of the window because the system does not work and, despite recent improvements, still does not work properly. Have you been involved in any consultations about the nature of the system to be introduced with FireLink? Have you talked to your colleagues in the police about the problems they have had at all? Have you any information about that for us?

Mr Ford: The point about FireLink is that we did not say we had no problems with it at all. What we said was that we are broadly supportive of national radio replacement; indeed, we have been involved in the process for many years and from the outset we have flagged up that it did not go far enough because it only deals with main scheme radio replacement and tinkers around the edge of incident ground communications replacement. Rather than being non-supportive of it, we are indeed supportive of it but we have a great number of concerns about some elements within it, not least of all is the one about the technologies and there are some fairly huge unanswered questions about safety.

Mr Wrack: One of the issues which other people have flagged up in the evidence which concerns fire ground radio communications themselves; i.e. the ability of people on the ground at an incident to communicate with each other, which is not currently addressed within the project.

Q298 Mr Betts: This is merely about communications in the control centre rather than people on the ground?

Mr Wrack: No, between the people on the ground at an incident.

Q299 Mr Olner: Could I start to look into the area of joint working, particularly co-responder schemes, and to write on the record that the co-responder scheme is a joint mobilisation of ambulance and fire and rescue services to someone suffering a life-threatening event. We have had some significant evidence placed before us, both from the Devon Fire Authority and from Merseyside about the life-saving benefits of such schemes. Why do you continue to oppose them?

Mr Wrack: Our opposition again is not simply based on the Fire Brigades Union saying no to something.

Q300 Mr Olner: You have expelled 24 members up on Merseyside.

Mr Wrack: It is based on a number of particular concerns. Those concerns relate to issues around training, issues related to insurance matters, issues related to the impact on the fire service of attending ambulance calls when other fire service calls come in. I want to be absolutely clear - we have had no national approach on the issue of co-responding from our employers. We have made it quite clear - myself and Ruth have attended meetings recently with the national employers - that we are willing to discuss anything with our employers.

Q301 Mr Olner: If it should come to it, if there was a national approach and there was funding and training given, you would accept that?

Mr Wrack: We would have to look at the proposals in detail. If you take the question of training, for example, we have evidence from a large number of fire and rescue authorities where firefighters are not even able to keep up with their first-aid at work qualifications, yet we have fire authorities at the same time saying they want people to attend ambulance calls which should normally be attended by paramedics.

Q302 Mr Olner: It is a joint mobilisation.

Ms Winters: We have examples again from our experience of firefighters attending ambulance calls and waiting for 20 to 30 minutes for ambulances to turn up dealing with a whole range of incidents which were never part of the original protocol. Normally the co-responding scheme is aimed at dealing with victims of heart attacks and so on, but what actually happens on the ground is a whole number of category A ambulance calls - they can include people being drunk in the street, people under the influence of drugs, trauma, penetrating injuries to the head and trunk, obstetric haemorrhage - a whole range of incidents which firefighters simply have not got the training to deal with. Those are some of our very genuine concerns. We would be interested in seeing the evidence, rather than the claims of certain people, for the success that is claimed for co-responding schemes. On a final point I would like to reemphasise the point that Ruth made earlier which is that firefighters have carried defibrillators in a number of authorities for a number of years. To answer one of the points which I think is in one piece of written evidence, firefighters have always performed first-aid on members of the public when they have come across them at incidents.

Q303 Mr Olner: I accept that entirely but the scheme particularly up in Merseyside has been independently evaluated in a report given by Professor John Ashton, Director of Public Health in the North West, and he concluded that it was a success and that lives had been saved, and yet because the fire authority up in Merseyside wanted that to happen you expelled 24 of your members for participating in that. That to me seems to be a stonewall that says you do not want to know about it.

Mr Wrack: To clarify the point, those members have not been expelled from the Fire Brigades Union; we need to be absolutely clear on that. That process is not exhausted and there are appeals and there will be a process which I do not think it is correct to go into here. We have policies and we expect our members to abide by those policies. Our concerns on co-responding are felt widely by firefighters. Firefighters want to serve the public, want to assist the public in whatever way they can. However, what they are concerned about is being sent to incidents for which they do not have the training, they do not have the equipment and where they may be left for long periods of time without the assistance of an ambulance.

Ms Winters: Our policy is not just plucked out of the air. It is based on how our members feel and was debated as late as the last conference last May where we had a very large debate about it in a democratic fashion in terms of what they feel is best and what they feel is not best for themselves and for the public and their own safety. One thing that has to be put forward in terms of the ambulance trust, they used to have a target of reaching a first category incident within eight minutes on 90 per cent of occasions. That has now been reduced to meeting their category A targets within eight minutes on 75 per cent of occasions, so because the ambulance service have reduced their service we are also of the view that they are trying to use the Fire Brigade as a sticking-plaster for an under-funded ambulance service and nobody has given any response to us of what happens when you send a fire engine to a co-responding call and a fire call comes in.

Q304 Mr Olner: Does it not make sense to you that fire and rescue and ambulance should work together because you are both usually at the same place at the same time?

Mr Wrack: Yes.

Q305 Mr Olner: Why do you not move towards doing that when it has proved to be a success in other places?

Mr Wrack: We do work very closely with our colleagues in the ambulance service and we always have done. We have very good working relationships with our colleagues in the ambulance service. This is a different proposal. This is about mobilising firefighters to attend ambulance calls. Calls which should be attended by a fully-trained paramedic are being attended by people who simply do not have that level of training, nor do they have the equipment that would be necessary.

Ms Winters: If you had a fire in your property I do not think you would want an ambulance turning up with some water in the back and a small hose. You would want a fire engine.

Q306 Mr Olner: You would expect them both to do a good professional job, which you do.

Ms Winters: Yes, which we do.

Q307 Chair: Could I clarify something that you said earlier, Ms Winters, about defibrillators on fire appliances. The example you cited, were those defibrillators being carried for the benefit of the firefighters should they require them, or to be used on members of the public should your appliance turn up before an ambulance and the person be in need of a defibrillator?

Ms Winters: Obviously both. If you turned out to a fire incident, if you know how to use the defibrillator it would initially be for the safety of your own crew, but the nature of our service if you have turned up and there is somebody having a suspected heart attack and you were trained to deal with that equipment when you had turned out to a fire call and it happened there, then you certainly would not ignore the casualty. You would deal with it in the best way you could.

Q308 Chair: Am I now understanding that fire appliances have defibrillators on board in case the staff themselves require them, in which case there must be somebody on board who has been trained to use them, in which case what is the problem with them being trained to use them on members of the public?

Mr Wrack: You have misunderstood the issue. Firstly, not all fire authorities have introduced defibrillators; that is a matter for each individual fire authority. Some have and since the early 1990s a number of fire authorities have carried defibrillators and have provided training for firefighters in the use of those defibrillators. As we have explained, if we were to attend an incident, as we have done throughout the history of the service, we would provide first-aid and if our members were carrying a defibrillator that would include the use of that defibrillator on members of the public. That is somewhat different to co-responding schemes which mean specifically mobilising firefighters to what is a medical emergency call. That is the difference between the two.

Q309 Martin Horwood: I wanted to go back to response times, following on from Mr Betts' question. I am not sure that we quite got to the bottom of what your position was on something. Are you saying that, irrespective of the capacity issues on which there seem to be differing views, there is something inherent about a regional control centre which means that it will respond more slowly? That seems to be what you were implying at one stage.

Mr Wrack: There are a number of points. First of all, if there is, because of technological improvements, a possible reduction in the ability to handle a call, there is a contradiction between that and at the same time local fire authorities increasing attendance times as a matter of policy. We would have under the old system a number of calls which would be expected to be answered within five minutes, for example.

Q310 Martin Horwood: I thought you were making the point that technology is a separate issue as well that you could have the technology at any level.

Mr Wrack: Nobody has made a convincing case to us, and I do not believe they have made it in the evidence provided here, that the technology would reduce call-handling.

Q311 Martin Horwood: There is nothing else inherent in a fire control centre at regional level that makes it less able to respond?

Mr Wrack: There are other issues which we have highlighted; for example, the proposed regional control centre may have to deal with six different mobilisation policies and that in itself could cause additional delays.

Mr Ford: We should also not lose sight of the fact that many of the benefits that are being advertised in the regional control project are actually inherent in the FireLink Project.

Q312 Martin Horwood: You have made that point very clear. I was trying to get to the bottom of it.

Ms Winters: I cannot over-emphasise the difficulties that would be incumbent in a fire control room, no matter how many staff are in it, which may be dealing with five, six, seven different local IRMPs.

Q313 Chair: We have understood that point.

Ms Salmon: Some of the things that are cited as being a positive benefit to the regional controls - automatic call location to give you one example - is actually in place now and has been so for a substantial number of years. There is no time benefit to the things that they are claiming time benefits on. Automatic call location tells you where the caller is; it does not tell you where the incident is. Nothing can replace the operator's knowledge and experience in gaining the information that is required as to where the incident is and that is crucial.

Chair: Given the time constraints, I want to skip to the question on Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

Q314 Lyn Brown: You made reference to the CPA earlier in your evidence. Do you think that the CPA process covers the right performance measures to enable a thorough and robust assessment of fire authorities?

Mr Wrack: No, we think that currently the CPA ignores key areas of fire service performance, the ones that the public are interested in, which is, as a Committee Member mentioned earlier, when you dial 999 do the firefighters get there quickly and are they able to put out the fire quickly and are they able to save lives? Those are what the public are really interested in, the performance of the fire service, and we are concerned that the CPA does not address that. However, that in turn raises a further concern which is if you were to assess that what measures would you use to make such an assessment? One of the concerns that we have is the move away from national standards. Previously the fire service had national standards to operate to. Since the introduction of local integrated risk management plans there are no national standards. We are concerned that you could end up, and are increasingly ending up, with effectively a postcode lottery. We do not see why, if you have a fire in a tower block in Birmingham, you should get a different standard of response than if you have a fire in a tower block in London. Unfortunately, because of IRMP, at the present time that is perfectly possible.

Q315 Lyn Brown: What do you think the improvement or changes that we need to make to our fire services given, and I know it is a good figure, but 47 per cent were considered to be good and excellent; that means that 53 per cent did not get to good. What improvements do you think we need to make to that 53 per cent to move them up to good in the CPA?

Mr Wrack: We are concerned about what the CPA is measuring at the present time. We would seek that it looks at all aspects of the performance of the Fire and Rescue Service. Lots of these questions come down to the question of investment in the service. Unfortunately fire and rescue authorities are increasingly reporting that they are financially squeezed and under IRMP as a result of that they are making what amount to old-fashioned cuts. Sometimes what is called modernisation simply amounts to cuts. We need investment in the service and particularly investment in the people that are providing that service. That means training as well as equipment and so on.

Q316 Lyn Brown: Is there one thing that you think the CPA measures that it should not measure?

Mr Wrack: No, we do not have any particular concern initially.

Ms Winters: When you are measuring the modernisation agenda, which it does, fine, if you want to measure that, but you also have to measure operational preparedness as part of that otherwise there is no real meaning to the measurement in the first place. Also with the dissolution of the Central Fire Brigade Advisory Council in terms of national guidance coming out in all aspects of operations, fire safety and whatever, in the fire service, I do not think that has assisted and how the fire service inspectorate manages itself needs to be more rigorous as well to back that up.

Chair: Thank you very much.

Memorandum submitted by The Chief Fire Officers' Association

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Tom Carroll, President of CFOA and CFO Cambridgeshire FRS, Mr Phil Toase, Vice President of CFOA and CFO West Yorkshire FRS, and Mr Steve McGuirk, Vice President Elect of CFOA and CFO Cheshire FRS, gave evidence.

Chair: May I welcome you as well and make the same points I made with the previous panel that it is entirely up to you which one of you answers which questions; we leave you to decide.

Q317 Mr Betts: Regional control centres - looking at the evidence provided to us, it seems that you are fully in support of regional control centres, fully in support of the FireLink Project. You have some concerns about the costs and you are not really sure that the benefits have been proven. Normally I would expect senior officers in local government to first of all assess the costs of a project and then see whether the benefits are proven and then decide whether they support it rather than the other way round.

Mr Carroll: I think that is a very fair question. Firstly, yes, we do support the principle of both regional control rooms and FireLink and we have said that from the beginning. We can see the very definite benefits they can bring. We are also very keen to see the successful implementation, not just to talk about it being good, but to see it in action. We have outlined in our submission a number of concerns also which includes the fact that there is absence of a business case for us to qualify that situation and also that the financial figures have not been made fully available. It is not within our domain to calculate or qualify because it is an ODPM managed and run project.

Q318 Mr Betts: How can you support something when you do not know how much it is going to cost and presumably if that money is around it might be spent on something else, it would be even more beneficial, and there is not actually a business case because some of these benefits have not been proven either? How can you support something which is as vague as that?

Mr Carroll: We support the principle on the grounds of resilience and on the grounds that with the greater user of personnel we believe there will be the opportunity to perform and to provide a much better service.

Q319 Mr Betts: In what sense? Can you explain precisely what level of improvement of performance you expect to see?

Mr Carroll: First of all, a far better level of equipment, hopefully with that the greater use of technology, faster response times.

Q320 Mr Betts: You have sat down and looked at this objectively. Your members are there in all authorities. For members of the public, what better service precisely do you expect them to receive when these two improvements - the control centres and FireLink - are brought in?

Mr McGuirk: It is true to say depending upon the area in which you live depends upon the level of improvement that you will see. It is true to say that in a number of existing fire and rescue authorities the current technology and the control rooms are very much state-of-the-art and that is exactly what the control project is purporting to build upon, those state-of-the-art facilities, technology and the size of the room to be able to deal with the number of calls. It is also true to say, however, that a large number of fire authorities have much smaller rooms, and this point has already been made to the Committee that there will be occasions quite frequently where the numbers of calls overwhelm the numbers of call operators. So the capacity to handle a high volume of calls will be improved by the new control centres. In terms of the technology, it is also true to say that some of the technology in some control rooms is very much not state-of-the-art.

Q321 Mr Betts: If all the control rooms that are there now were brought up to state-of-the-art technology would that be an alternative solution?

Mr Carroll: It is an alternative solution.

Q322 Mr Betts: Would it work?

Mr Carroll: I presume it would. We would just have more controls and more equipment.

Q323 Mr Betts: Would it be more costly, or does nobody know?

Mr Toase: That is one of the key things is whether or not that would be as efficient and as effective.

Q324 Mr Betts: Nobody knows because there is not a business plan to model against. Has anyone looked at the different alternatives?

Mr Carroll: The two reports considered all of the viable alternatives a couple of years ago. It is true to say there was a contested debate at the time. All individual fire and rescue authorities took Best Value Reviews against those different options proposed and many did advocate staying as they were and making better use of control staff. Most ducked the reality about how they were going to afford to fund state-of-the-art technology.

Q325 Mr Betts: If we had three of your colleagues here today from other brigades throughout the country it might be that we would get completely different answers, would it?

Mr Toase: It is a fact that not every single member of the Chief Fire Officers' Association would support the project, but in any professional association, or indeed any political party, there are times when people have a different opinion on a particular issue, but the actual stance with regards to the support for the rationale behind regional control centres, the majority of our members are supportive of that.

Q326 Mr Betts: What about the actual control of these control centres? Who are they going to be accountable to if you have got different policies of working in each of the fire services who are being covered by these control centres?

Mr Toase: It is one of the areas where we are asking for greater clarity on some of the governance issues.

Q327 Mr Betts: We do not know is the answer?

Mr Toase: Some of the issues with regards to governance there is not complete clarity in that respect because there are differing opinions within regional management boards.

Mr Betts: We will come on to that point in a minute.

Q328 Anne Main: To take you back to something you have just said, which is you can see there are very definite benefits and depending on which area the level of benefit improvement will be variable and that the majority of your members would support that. Can I ask you (a) how you quantify the definite benefits that you have seen; (b) do you have some sort of table where the levels of improvement would be variable, or facts and figures to support that; and (c) do you survey your members to know how many of them would be supportive in the main of these proposals?

Mr McGuirk: Could you go back to (a)?

Q329 Anne Main: You said you could see very definite benefits in this proposal. How definite? Have you got some way of quantifying the definite benefits because we have had a different viewpoint from the FBU? You feel it is definite. I wondered how you quantify those definite benefits?

Mr McGuirk: The dilemma here is the use of the expression "business case" which brings with it some question of quantitative analysis. Our stance all along has been that we accept fully we have not yet seen the business case and, as we have set out in our submission, we have a large number of concerns yet to be answered about the quantitative dimension of the business case for the FiReControl Project. Our support is on the basis of resilience, but the scale of incidents that we can now anticipate and the technology and the wherewithal to support those incidents have changed since September 11. We have had evidence over the last couple of years to support that. While our proposition is that we are participating in the project, we are working with colleagues in the fire and rescue services to draw out the benefits that we know exist in the existing systems that are state-of-the-art - caller ID, et cetera - and we are prepared to sit down and keep an open mind about the financial and other benefits yet to be realised.

Q330 Anne Main: There are certain quantified benefits but not all benefits. Could you tell me how many of your members are supportive? Have you done any sort of survey? You said there would be some who would not be supportive. Have you got any percentages?

Mr Toase: We do not have any percentages of members, no.

Q331 Anne Main: You just feel that members would be supportive?

Mr Toase: No, we have done an extensive consultation through our various mechanisms within the Association through the members' sounding board and through the actual Board itself consulting members and we have produced a position statement vis-à-vis our position re the rationale for regional control centres.

Q332 Anne Main: Can I just take you back to the other one I asked, which is depending on an area's different level of benefit improvements have you got any table or figures that quantify how you have made that statement?

Mr McGuirk: In terms of a table of which authorities would benefit as opposed to which authorities which would not benefit?

Q333 Anne Main: You said some would benefit more than others.

Mr McGuirk: No, we have not done that because it is an ODPM project. We should be clear about the role of the Chief Fire Officers' Association. Within the project itself we provide the officers for a consultative body called the team masters' group where members of the Association work almost daily, certainly weekly, with colleagues in the ODPM project team to challenge, test and work through the problems as they arise. It is true to say that this project has never been attempted on this scale ever before to a degree where the Fire and Rescue Service is breaking new territory. In a professional sense we are working with colleagues to work through some of those issues. As each individual authority puts forward its proposition, its officers, the regional management boards, all that information about the benefits are fed through into the national project. As we stand at the minute there is a working group to develop a more quantitative and qualitative presentation of the benefits to support the wider Business Case. We are very comfortable about caller ID and all of those operational benefits from a number of colleague services around the country and we are working with them now.

Q334 Martin Horwood: I just want to pick you up on this statement that it depends on the geographical area as to what level of benefit you are going to get from this regionalisation. You seem to be implying that it is only those without state of the art facilities at the moment that will benefit most. I represent Gloucestershire, which has a brand new tri-service centre with technologically good kit, with good joint working, which is going to be abandoned by the Fire Service under these proposals. Are you saying there is not any benefit to us at all, that it will benefit the areas that have less good facilities?

Mr McGuirk: I do not know the details of turn-out times and response standards et cetera in your tripartite service but I appreciate it has got a very positive image. In terms of your operational benefits, the benefits are linked to the resilience obtained from working within the wider fire and rescue community and if your system goes into fallback, et cetera, you are part of that wider community. In terms of how quick the technology is, I really cannot comment. I would be surprised if the technology ----

Q335 Martin Horwood: It has been suggested to us in other areas that technology is not a fundamental point because the technology could be applied at local level, is that not right?

Mr McGuirk: Which technology?

Q336 Martin Horwood: The new fire technology.

Mr McGuirk: The technology solution is still in the process of going through a tender situation. At the minute there are the operational principles and the operational principles are not breaking such new ground as to use the new technology, the principles at the minute are to build upon the existing skills in this kind of technological field.

Q337 Martin Horwood: So what is the benefit to us of the regionalisation itself as opposed to the technology?

Mr McGuirk: I am not arguing for the benefits of regionalisation for yourselves, I am simply advising you of the benefits of the software system.

Martin Horwood: You are saying you support the proposals.

Chair: I think Mr McGuirk is saying he cannot comment on one particular fire authority, which is essentially what you are asking him to do.

Q338 Martin Horwood: Taking us as a proxy for those fire services where we do know there is technology in place, good joint working, in principle what is the benefit to us?

Mr McGuirk: In relation to the speed with which your technology can produce new incidents and mobilise, then for some Fire and Rescue Services the advantages to be gained from new technology are marginal, that is true to say. For the majority there are big advantages to be gained from the technology.

Q339 Chair: I think Mr Toase wanted to make one point.

Mr Toase: First of all, it is important to note that it was not the Chief Fire Officers' Association who said we should move away completely from the tri-service centre in Gloucestershire. I think it is important to make that point. It is worth looking back historically to when the Chief Fire Officers' Association came up with its support for the rationale of the regional control centres. When one looks back to the independent review of the Fire and Rescue Service, the Fire Service as it was then, by Sir George Bain we put certain submissions in to that process and what came out of that was the White Paper. The concept of regional control centres was embedded in that modernisation of the Fire and Rescue Service and the concept of that was something that the Chief Fire Officers' Association found we could positively support, the rationale was sound. Issues with regard to faster response times, greater technology, and I know the Fire Brigades Union made mention of caller identification, that now has advanced as I understand it with regard to mobile phones, et cetera, and the issue with regard to automatic vehicle location, for instance, means the technology will be able to pinpoint exactly where the nearest fire appliance is once a call is received. It is not necessarily the fire station, they will be able to tell you exactly where the nearest fire appliance is and mobilise on that criteria.

Q340 Martin Horwood: With respect, we keep on asking about regionalisation and you keep on telling us about technology. Surely the technology could be implemented at local level using models like Gloucestershire's tri-service centre as a way forward?

Mr Toase: I am sorry, perhaps I did not say what I wanted to say about the modernisation process. Part of this is about economies of scale and efficiency and that cannot be avoided.

Q341 John Cummings: In your evidence you highlighted, indeed quite scathingly, the role of the Fire Brigades Union, as you see it, as a barrier to the modernisation of the service. What will be the implications if the FBU and the Fire and Rescue Service more generally are not in support of the move to regional control centres?

Mr Carroll: Firstly, with regard to the Fire Brigades Union, I think I would want to qualify what we said by saying that we also acknowledge that the Fire Brigades Union over the years has a long and very, very proud tradition and has contributed quite positively to the fire safety and fire service agenda.

Q342 John Cummings: That is certainly not what your evidence says. Your evidence is very, very ----

Mr Carroll: What I would like to go on to say is that all too often we have seen some FBU officials who continue to resist change, usually preferring to preserve the status quo rather than embracing the opportunities to change that in our view would be better for the Fire and Rescue Service, better for the taxpayer and better for their own members.

Q343 John Cummings: So there are only certain leaders, not all leaders, to whom you were referring in your evidence?

Mr McGuirk: If we take it back, as my colleague mentioned, to the independent review of the Fire Service, in CFOA's submission to that review we accepted the reality, disappointingly, that management had lost the right to manage and to a degree, arguably, it was given away.

Q344 John Cummings: I remember that from the pits when the colliery manager used to say a manager had no right to manage.

Mr McGuirk: I cannot really comment on the pit.

Q345 John Cummings: I can.

Mr McGuirk: The corollary of the independent review evidence was that there needed to be a repositioning of people to make both professional and political decisions and an institutional framework put in train to do that repositioning. I think our proposition is that the reordering of who makes decisions is taking time to bed in and some colleagues in the trade union are struggling with that concept.

Q346 John Cummings: You also state your commitment to simplifying and communicating the message of change to the Fire and Rescue brigade staff. How are you communicating the benefits of the change to the regional control centres to FRS staff?

Mr McGuirk: The Chief Fire Officers' Association?

Q347 John Cummings: Yes. What are you doing to get your message over?

Mr McGuirk: I think it is fair to say, and I think this is where the confusion exists, it is not the Chief Fire Officers' Association's project. As we have said on a number of occasions, we are supportive of the principles of rationalisation and so on because we can see some operational benefits, but we have also seen some concerns and, therefore, our support is not unqualified. We do not see ourselves in the position of being absolute advocates and champions of the project that as yet has some unanswered questions. We are supportive and we have communicated the positive benefits to staff in our control centres but at this juncture it is not an absolutely unqualified championing of the project just yet. We are supportive of the ODPM communications mechanisms, the various newsletters, CDs, websites and so on that provide the vehicle for technical staff to give feedback which we will also respond to accordingly.

Chair: Lyn, can you just deal with the issue of the retained firefighters rather than diversity because we need to move on.

Q348 Lyn Brown: Okay. I am only going to deal with retained firefighters and not deal with diversity, which I really wanted to do. Can you tell me why there has been no real progress implementing the Bain report and subsequent reviews around the Retained Fire Service?

Mr Carroll: The retained review started in 2003. I know it was reported eventually in 2004 with over 50 recommendations. It has come through the Practitioners Forum and was accepted in principle. At the Practitioners Forum in January of this year a small group was set up to work to move the retained review on. It was not CFOA's responsibility but we were one of the stakeholders involved with it along with many others, including the Retained Firefighters Union. I think we recognised that in trying to attack the 51 points that were made in the initial report it was just too hefty to deal with. It is being moved forward and it is being acted on at present.

Q349 Lyn Brown: Forgive me, but it seems to me that you are representing the people who are managing this process and what you have spoken to me about has been process rather than actualities and there does not appear to have been a fundamental change caused by the ethos of the Bain review at all. We heard from the retained firefighters last week how they are still not involved by your members in basic consultations or discussions around the plans, et cetera. I just wondered why it has taken so long even for basic measures, like consultation, to become part of the process.

Mr Carroll: I would have to disagree with that point of view because I do not think that is the case. We have tried to be, and move to be, as inclusive as we possibly can which includes involving not just the Retained Firefighters Union but all the representative bodies, whether it be Unison, the Fire Brigades Union or the Retained Firefighters Union. I am disappointed that is how they feel.

Mr McGuirk: I think it is important to add that the Retained Firefighters Union does not represent all the retained firefighters in the Fire and Rescue Service. There are some areas around the alterations to the constitution of the NJC where individual fire authorities are moving between union recognition and consultation and negotiation with the Retained Firefighters Union. I think the position is that it is mixed at the moment. In terms of the retained firefighters themselves, I would agree that the actual detail of the retained view has not been moved forward as quickly as it might have been but there has been a massive reform agenda in the rest of the Fire Service, which we may well go into. I think if you do a bit more of a detailed survey and seek evidence from the brigade specifically on the retained firefighters' point you might get a slightly different picture.

Q350 Lyn Brown: I have to say we were given fairly clear specifics about non-involvement with the retained firefighters. Again, I make the point to you that it is your members who are responsible for the management of that. Given the time, I am not allowed to ask you why your chief officers have failed to implement a number of the issues around diversity but it does feel to me that there does seem to be a failure on the part of management in implementing change.

Mr Carroll: It is probably worthwhile adding that we are well aware that the Retained Firefighters Union were critical of ourselves in this retained review when they gave their evidence. I have got to say the reality is something different. The drive and the work that has been done in the retained review has come from members of the Chief Fire Officers' Association.

Q351 Mr Betts: On control centres it seemed to me you were saying largely we can put technology into all the existing centres but there are economies of scale to go with regional control centres which might make them more cost-efficient. You have also been critical of the current models of governance and funding of the Fire Service which you describe as duplication and poor economies of scale. Are you looking across the board for regionalisation and having regional fire authorities as well?

Mr Carroll: The comment we made within our submission was not about governance at a regional level, it was about governance of fire authorities as they exist at the moment and I believe also referred to the number of models. It is not something we have not said before, it was included in our submission to Bain and to the White Paper. It was referring to the fact that we want to see responsibility for the Fire and Rescue Service remaining embedded within the local community but there are advantages to be gained by looking at wider involvement of that community sitting alongside our elected members who we say we recognise do a very good job, but to look at attracting people from business and commerce alongside our politicians.

Q352 Mr Betts: So a model like the police authority?

Mr Carroll: A model similar to the police authority.

Q353 Mr Betts: So you are not about changing the boundaries in that sense?

Mr Carroll: Not in there, no.

Q354 Mr Betts: I come back to my previous point. If you have, as you will in some cases, county councils and a fire authority which is an amalgamation of county councils, or in metropolitan areas an amalgamation of district councils, then a regional control centre on top with presumably another tier of governance of some kind because someone has to be responsible, is that not further complicating the situation?

Mr Toase: What we are saying with regard to governance is that there are issues. You said yourself there are county councils, CFAs, metropolitan authorities, different types of metropolitan authorities even. The governance arrangements currently perhaps are worth looking at to see if there could be some consistent model arrived at that would better serve us all. The issue, as Mr Carroll has said, was in our submission to Bain in the past. We have long said that there is a real need for elected member involvement at local level but we have also said that perhaps the size of Fire and Rescue Services needs to be looked at. That does not necessarily mean that you immediately leap to regionalisation and nine Fire and Rescue Authorities throughout the country. What we are saying is that if we are to truly look at economies and efficiencies of the Fire and Rescue Service one has to consider whether the current 46 Fire and Rescue Services in the country is still appropriate.

Q355 Mr Betts: Just to come back to the point, who is going to run the regional control centres and to whom are they going to be accountable?

Mr McGuirk: In terms of their accountability, the statutory duties will remain with the local fire authority. The day-to-day management of the new facilities will be through a newly created entity, currently proposed to be some kind of local authority arms' length company.

Q356 Mr Betts: Which will be accountable to?

Mr McGuirk: One presumes at the moment, and this is one of the areas of concern that we want to work through in more detail, accountability will remain with no proposed changes in legislation with local fire and rescue authorities.

Q357 Mr Betts: All of them, collectively?

Mr McGuirk: As it stands at the minute individual fire and rescue authorities will retain responsibility for their statutory function.

Q358 Mr Betts: You will have several local fire authorities all collectively and individually accountable for this one control centre?

Mr Carroll: Through a board with representatives of those authorities.

Q359 Mr Betts: Is this laid down? Is this agreed?

Mr Carroll: It is not laid down. The consultation period on governance is not completed yet. There was a preferred model floated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and, quite honestly, having had the chat with you a moment ago, it would be better if there was just one model but it has not been decided yet exactly what that model will be.

Chair: I think this is something we will need to pursue.

Q360 Mr Hands: A very quick question on the CPA. Do you think the CPA process has covered the right performance measures and do you think it has placed too much of a burden on fire authorities?

Mr Carroll: Firstly, we welcome the CPA. We were disappointed with how the final report emerged because, despite the fact almost half were good or excellent, the report really homed in on a lot of negative areas. We had mentioned the fact that operational assurance had not been included in the CPA process but we are now glad to see there is a measure in place for that. Bearing in mind that we had just gone through two pay verification processes followed by CPA followed by the other inspections that we go through, there was a feeling of audit fatigue, for want of a better phrase, and obviously we would like to see inspection or audit rationalised.

Q361 Mr Hands: You say that you are keen to work with Her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate to develop an assessment process for operational service delivery. What will be the implications of the planned closure of HMFSI in 2007 for your hopes to develop a new assessment process?

Mr Toase: I am sorry, could you just repeat the last part?

Q362 Mr Hands: What will be the implications of the planned closure of HMFSI in 2007 for your hopes to develop a new assessment process?

Mr Toase: I think Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Fire Service has already put something in place where certain people have already been seconded to carry out work on operational assurance to look at the next stage of CPA as far as service delivery is concerned. Again, members of the Association are contributing significantly to those work sets.

Q363 Mr Hands: Are you satisfied that the arrangements that will replace the Inspectorate will adequately replace and improve the functions it used to perform?

Mr Toase: In all honestly, I think we are waiting for greater clarity in that respect with regard to the transitional arrangements.

Q364 Chair: What would you be requiring in the transitional arrangements which are not currently clear?

Mr Carroll: CFOA is working with the existing Inspectorate and members of the ODPM to discuss precisely that. We are in the process of putting a project team together so that we can discuss that and outline problems from whatever proposals are brought forward to try to ensure that we do not have a gap there. We are urging that happens earlier rather than later because 2007 is rushing at us at present.

Q365 Mr Betts: Everybody thinks joint working in principle between the various Emergency Services is a great idea but my understanding is in 2001 there was a report to the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, with 16 recommendations about improvements in joint working, most of which still remain not implemented. Why?

Mr McGuirk: Is that the Shared Ambitions report you are talking about?

Q366 Mr Betts: 2001. It was the report requested of the three Emergency Services associations.

Mr McGuirk: We had a fairly active 2003-04 and 2005 in terms of industrial action and the Fire Service ----

Q367 Mr Betts: So it is all the FBU's fault?

Mr McGuirk: No, I did not mention the FBU at all. We have had a fairly significant reform and reorganisation agenda and the reality is we are now coming back into looking at the manner in which we can work collaboratively with all of our partners, not just the Emergency Services. The partnership agenda has changed quite significantly since 2001. We are now broader, into local strategic partnerships, crime and disorder partnerships, there is a whole new package of partnership working of which working with the Emergency Services is just one element. Those have not gone away and in a number of areas they are going to be implemented and we have already discussed briefly in our evidence the correspondence schemes, for example, but there are other examples where there is joint working in youth initiatives and so on.

Q368 Mr Betts: You also refer to the fact that problems of lack of co-terminosity and difference in governance and funding structures are major problems. Does it still concern you that perhaps we are talking about major significant reforms of police structures now and reforms of structures in the Fire Service, particularly with this regional level of control centre, and we do not seem to be talking together about how those relate to each other.

Mr McGuirk: I think the nirvana of joined up government is a wonderful thing but probably beyond the realm of the Chief Fire Officers' Association to deliver. I think it is true to say that it is an enormously complex set of issues when different agencies are trying to work together on the ground and you have highlighted some of the problems in doing that.

Q369 Mr Betts: Given when we are talking about police reform one of the issues is how do you cope with major terrorist incidents as being a reason for amalgamations at regional level, do you not get talked to and consulted on those sorts of reforms bearing in mind the need to work collectively on some of these major issues? No is obviously the answer.

Mr McGuirk: We are one consultee out of many.

Anne Main: Just on that point, the police in Hertfordshire have expressed absolute fundamental disagreement with regional police forces. Does that colour your thinking at all?

Chair: I do not think that would be an appropriate argument to get into. Can we move on?

Q370 Alison Seabeck: Your written evidence suggests that fire prevention is only part of the story in terms of FRS activity in managing local risks. Can you elaborate, please?

Mr Toase: I am sorry, I did not hear that.

Q371 Alison Seabeck: Your written evidence sets out clearly that fire prevention is only part of the story of the Fire and Rescue Service's activities in terms of managing local risks. Could you elaborate, please?

Mr Toase: I think what we are saying there is that Integrated Risk Management Planning is exactly that, it is about operational intervention as well as the community safety interventions that we have in place. Those initiatives, as I am sure you are aware from the raft of evidence that has been submitted, particularly in the last four or five years, have really changed the face of service delivery in the Fire and Rescue Service. The statistics on reduction in deaths, reduction in injuries, reduction in the numbers of fires, reduction in arson, are all evidence that the strategies that have been employed are indeed working.

Q372 Alison Seabeck: What is the FRS's role in addressing, or trying to address, the high level of death and injury in relation to road traffic accidents? What do you think you are able to do?

Mr Toase: Again, as far as the community safety agenda is concerned, there are those who perhaps in the past have ignored that road safety aspect. The Chief Fire Officers' Association currently is very much moving this up the agenda. We have various working groups throughout the country which are being co-ordinated at present by a colleague of mine, Mr Doyle in Cleveland, and your deputy, Steve, in Cheshire, which is very much an inter-agency programme where we are working with the police, et cetera, and taking a roadshow around the country as to what the devastating effects of road traffic collisions are and working with target groups who evidence suggests are the ones who are young males who are involved in road traffic collisions.

Q373 Alison Seabeck: What proportion of the work that the FRS does is specific to road traffic accidents? Has there been a shift away from managing fire and fire risk towards road traffic accidents?

Mr McGuirk: I do not think there has been a shift. Prior to the reform we identified a position where we were responding to road traffic collisions as the Emergency Service in any event, it just was not on a statutory footing. I do not think the actual level of operational activity has changed fundamentally since the new legislation has come in but I think it is true to say that it is because the reform and the move towards partnership has held. As Phil was saying, in my own authority we now lead in a local Public Service Agreement for accident reduction where for the first time, I suppose, we have got the mutual respect of colleagues in the local authority and the police to recognise that fire can take a lead in what is really breaking new ground.

Q374 Alison Seabeck: We heard earlier evidence from the FBU around the issue of the definition of preventable and non-preventable deaths. Do you have any concerns about the breakdown of the definition? Is that a problem for you?

Mr McGuirk: No. I can see the implication that in some way or another individual authorities might seek to use the definition for some reason of statistical advantage or statistical disadvantage. The bottom line comes back to when you have a fire in your area you want to know what caused the fire death and is there anything you can do to prevent it and that is the focus of all Fire and Rescue Services rather than a kind of almost baseline definition. It is important to understand as a service, to get to root causes, to understand better what happened and perhaps there are some better definitions that we can take forward but I do not think it is in any way significant.

Q375 Alison Seabeck: Finally, very quickly, and it is hopping around a bit, can I ask about Public Service Agreement targets and your view that the FRS should be given greater financial freedom and support if those targets are reached. How far have you got in your discussions with the ODPM in this area? Have you had discussions with ODPM in this area?

Mr Carroll: We have had discussions, I could not say that they have gone very far. Yes, we have had discussions but we have not seen many freedoms emerging as a result of those.

Alison Seabeck: That is obviously an issue we need to pursue further.

Q376 Martin Horwood: Still on prevention, you mentioned the Integrated Risk Management Plans but neither here nor in your evidence are you very expansive on how well you think those are going. Do you want to give us an assessment?

Mr McGuirk: I think they are going very well indeed actually. It is true to say that it was new ground for the Fire and Rescue Service when we moved forward and it was a dramatic change from where we had been in the context of fire cover. It is probably true to say if you look back over the previous reviews you can definitely see a mature process of thinking as those were going on. The misunderstanding is that it is not cuts by the back door, it is about having to grapple with a new way of thinking where the understanding of the risk and how you deploy an emergency response to handle the risk may well be different from the different types of risk we had to deal with in the past but at the same time reducing that not just through community safety but through the new Fire Safety Enforcement and Regulatory Reform Order that hopefully will be on the statute books later on. It is a complete holistic package of prevention, detection and enforcement of legislation and an emergency response when all else fails. If you balance those three things together and look at the success that we have seen on our television screens over the last few years, I think it is going well.

Q377 Martin Horwood: Is that consistent across the country? How does it compare between fire authorities?

Mr Carroll: I would say the vast majority of people would say it is working very well. One of the issues that have been very beneficial was the setting up of the IRMP steering group so that the differences that could happen if everybody was left to their own resources were pulled back in together. I see that as an extremely important stakeholder group which irons out a lot of the concerns that were there initially when IRMPs were launched.

Mr McGuirk: If you look at the Audit Commission report, I do not think there was too much criticism of authorities being too cautious. I do not think there is much criticism of IRMPs, if anything the criticism was about the need to move to those more quickly with the changing agenda. I think that is a really good litmus test of a more objective view.

Q378 Martin Horwood: Do you think they have helped to embed the resilience agenda at all?

Mr McGuirk: I certainly think they have helped to embed the thinking about resilience. There is no doubt whatsoever at local level part of the thinking is featuring not just what happens at local level but how you fit into the regional and national agenda as well.

Q379 Martin Horwood: In that sense, do you the planning for major catastrophic incidents is joined up with this broader resilience and prevention agenda or not?

Mr Toase: I think that should be integral to the Integrated Risk Management Plan. The major disaster or catastrophic incident was something that we had to have in our planning scenarios in the past and it is my view that this should feature in Integrated Risk Management Plans.

Mr McGuirk: I think it is fair to say that it is part of the planning in the operational assurance work that is going on that capacity to cope with catastrophic incidents is part of the operational assurance work that is being developed now.

Q380 Martin Horwood: Is that an aspiration rather than a reality now in terms of IRMPs?

Mr Toase: It possibly is an aspiration rather than a reality around the country.

Mr McGuirk: I think it is fair to say the Buncefield incident as an example of a major incident was handled in a national context very well.

Q381 Chair: I am not sure if you were in the room when the FBU were giving all of their evidence. They cited response times being lengthened in some IRMPs. Do you want to comment on that?

Mr Toase: I honestly do not know where that figure has come from. It may have come from one particular Integrated Risk Management Plan and without knowing where that comment has come from it would be difficult to comment on that.

Mr McGuirk: I think the other problem is standards of fire cover have gone, so it is probably inappropriate to compare it with what there was before because we have moved into a completely different world of risk management planning. There is a before and after, it is a different approach to response times.

Mr Toase: This now enables us to manage our resources effectively so we can put them where they are needed most and when they are needed most.

Q382 Anne Main: Sprinklers in schools. You are strong advocates of the installation of sprinklers in all school buildings, so what are the obstacles to this measure?

Mr Carroll: Obstacles is really a misnomer about the value of installation against the value of intervention of the sprinkler systems themselves. There is also a lot of - I do not want to dismiss it - nonsense about the fact that they go off all the time, if one operates they all operate and the school books would be drenched. All of the time that is going on we know for a fact there is over £100 million worth of school that is going up in smoke every year.

Q383 Anne Main: Who is saying that misinformation?

Mr Carroll: In a nutshell it would be the DfES generally.

Q384 Anne Main: So the DfES is telling people who want to know about sprinkler systems in schools that generally speaking they are more trouble than they are worth?

Mr Carroll: That is where our main opposition lies.

Q385 Anne Main: Okay. You stated the need for 'legislative support' to ensure that all new school buildings have sprinkler systems. What exactly would be needed to override opinion, as you have just said, in legislation to ensure this would happen if you believe it is the right thing to happen?

Mr Carroll: From my point of view, seeing the requirement built into the Building Regulations for schools would be one method of achieving it. I have come from a sprinkler seminar across the way today and, unfortunately, what will probably bring it forward is when a number of children die in a school. That is how our legislation seems to have changed over the years.

Q386 Anne Main: Can I just follow that from schools to would you support sprinklers in each individual housing unit, for example, in all growth areas where there are lots of houses and you could get the costs down? Would you go that far?

Mr Carroll: I was hoping someone would ask that. Somebody is going to accuse me of writing lines for you. Absolutely. We are very much in favour of that. A lot of today's seminar across the road at the House of Commons was very much about that.

Q387 Anne Main: You did say, unfortunately, that DfES was less than helpful in this view on increasing sprinklers. Have you spoken to the ODPM and DfES on this particular issue?

Mr Carroll: Not at the same time.

Q388 Anne Main: So you have not got them both in a room together, you have spoken to them separately?

Mr Carroll: We have attempted to get both responsible people together and we have not succeeded yet but we will continue to work on that.

Q389 Anne Main: Why is that? Who is resisting?

Mr Carroll: It is mainly a matter of diaries.

Q390 Chair: It always is!

Mr Toase: Can I just add something to that. This is really a big issue for me personally. I gave a paper to the Fire Conference last November and I have done various ones since and circulated a DVD to all MPs throughout the country, which is being co-ordinated by the National Fire Sprinkler Network, which illustrates very graphically what can happen in school fires. The major concern to me, and Tom touched upon it, is that there is growing evidence of school fires starting during the school day. The last thing that the Chief Fire Officers' Association wants to see is fatalities in schools. If somebody was to ask me as a Chief Fire Officer potentially where is the nearest major fire tragedy, I would have to say it could be in a school.

Mr McGuirk: Could I add one very final quick point. Currently PFI credits do not encompass sprinkler systems and I think some simple steps like changing that would be very helpful.

Q391 Anne Main: You would like people to knock diaries together, so to speak, to make sure you can get these people in a room.

Mr Carroll: One other thing whilst we are on PFI credits. It becomes a double-whammy for those authorities who have PFI credits for school buildings because when they say that will not include sprinklers and the local authority have offered to install sprinklers from their own cash they have had their credits reduced by the equivalent amount, so it costs them twice and becomes an impossible situation.

Q392 Alison Seabeck: Can you confirm that the unit cost of sprinklers now is significantly less than it was, say, last year or the year before often cost is the reason that is given.

Mr Toase: It is something like three per cent of the total cost of building new build and about five per cent of major refurbishments.

Mr Carroll: With regard to domestic property, we are hoping that a system will emerge in the very near future which will be much less than £1,000 per property.

Chair: Thank you very much indeed.