UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 872-iv

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 13 February 2006

MS JUDY FOSTER

MR PHIL WOOLAS MP and JIM FITZPATRICK MP

Evidence heard in Public Questions 393 - 475

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister:

Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee

on Monday 13 February 2006

Members present

Dr Phyllis Starkey, in the Chair

Mr Clive Betts

John Cummings

Martin Horwood

Mr Bill Olner

Dr John Pugh

Alison Seabeck

________________

Memorandum submitted by Unison

Examination of Witness

Witness: Ms Judy Foster, Union Convenor, Unison representative on the Practitioners Forum, gave evidence.

Chair: Good afternoon, Ms Foster. May I thank the representative of Unison for coming.

Q393 Mr Olner: Do you think that somehow the use of the terms "non-uniformed" and "support" staff creates real problems when we are talking about regional control centres? Would it be better for all of you if perhaps you were called "operational"?

Ms Foster: I think that there are difficulties with terminology in the context of any issue in the Fire Service, not just control rooms. The terminology that is current used, which is occasionally "non-uniformed" or "support" staff, has been found to be very divisive. In any context, we find that the current terminology being used is not really satisfactory.

Q394 Mr Olner: If you were making a plea to us for our recommendations, you would say that in the future there should be no such thing as "uniformed" and "support" staff; they should all be one?

Ms Foster: I think the move to a unified and a one-organisation culture would be very welcome, but the reality is that at the moment there are groups of staff on different conditions of service, and so some distinction is needed for bargaining purposes as conditions of service are at the moment. We are looking to alternative terminology. In fact, Unison, through its role on the National Practitioners' Forum, has managed to obtain the support of the other stakeholders in changing its terminology to that of Fire and Rescue Service staff, and that is to be taken through the NJC structures.

Q395 Mr Olner: Indeed, that is what Bain supported or suggested a while ago when he gave his report. Has there been any move whatsoever towards eliminating this distinction?

Ms Foster: No, not really. The Bain Report, as you may recall, did make recommendations for pay to be linked to reward, as it was for operational staff, but that has not happened for the group of staff that I represent. The link between development and reward is still very unclear and has not been developed in any significant way.

Q396 Mr Olner: Do you think as we look towards regional control centres, or whatever or any new operating working within the Fire and Rescue Service, this should be used as an opportunity perhaps to right those dissimilarities?

Ms Foster: That would be very welcome. I think we should at least review the possibility of aligning conditions of services between groups of staff. That would be very welcome.

Q397 Alison Seabeck: I come on to the equality practitioners. Could you clarify for me if equality practitioners are Fire and Rescue staff with other duties or is delivery of the diversity/equality agenda their full-time job?

Ms Foster: It varies from service to service. There are services with practitioners whose role is totally dedicated to ensuring that there is provision of equality across the service. There are others for whom equality is part of their portfolio. For example, they may be in human resources and equality is part of that particular role. They may be uniformed but they may be non-uniformed. They may be attached to human resources; they may be in a separate department. It varies across the service.

Q398 Alison Seabeck: There are a couple of questions arising from that. You talk about a high attrition rate of staff. Do you have any evidence that the attrition rate is higher in those where it is not their specific role but where it is an add-on and therefore an additional workload, if you like, or is there higher attrition across the piece? How would you define high attrition?

Ms Foster: Perhaps I can give you an example of high attrition. In my Unison role, I was invited as a guest researcher to do a strand of research for the FireWorks project. Part of that role was to pick up some research that had already been started 12 months previously and to re-visit that research. I re-contacted the equality practitioners who had originally been involved 12 months previously to update some of the information that had been given. I found that over half of those who had originally been in post were no longer in post.

Q399 Alison Seabeck: Had they been replaced?

Ms Foster: In most cases, yes, they had.

Q400 Alison Seabeck: What difficulties have you experienced in progressing the recommendations of these equality practitioners? I assume they are coming forward with recommendations and possibly feeding into your representative on the National Practitioners' Forum. How receptive are they?

Ms Foster: Unison's position in terms of practitioners is that some of them are our members, and clearly some of them have concerns about their experience at work and some of the work they do they find very challenging on occasions. Unison is not taking forward issues arising from equality practitioners per se. That is already part of the FireWorks project, which is coming through Anglia Polytechnic University that I believe has already submitted evidence separately.

Q401 Chair: Going back to the question Mr Olner was asking about the distinction between uniformed and non-uniformed staff? The ODPM targets for achieving diversity refer at the moment to the uniformed staff. Do you think if that was applied across the piece that that would lead to diversity increasing among the non-unformed staff but taking the pressure off the uniformed staff?

Ms Foster: Potentially, yes, and that could be a disadvantage because clearly there are areas within the workforce which are more diverse than others. Clearly the group of staff that I represent is a fairly diverse group. Most of our members within the Fire Service are women on low pay. We have a significant number of black and minority ethnic members as well concentrated within the groups of staff that I represent. To try to focus diversity on that group of staff might, in a way, let services off the hook in terms of where they do not have diversity at the moment but where they need it, which is on the uniformed operational side. What Unison's submission says is that diversity does not guarantee equality. We have a number of services where the non-uniformed/support side is diverse, but that does not guarantee them quality within the workforce.

Q402 John Cummings: You state in your evidence that the service has a long way to go before it can claim to have turned the corner on diversity and equality. Would you tell the committee where you believe the obstacles lie to progress or lack of progress?

Ms Foster: I have already mentioned one, and that is the fact that there are differences in conditions of service between groups of staff within the workforce. The group of staff that I represent, which is the most diverse within the workforce, obviously is experiencing worse conditions and lower rates of pay than the predominant workforce. That is certainly one issue that needs to be addressed. Another issue that equality practitioners and our members are faced with is the culture of the organisation, and the culture can vary from service to service in terms of how accommodating of diversity and of non-fire fighting staff a particular service may be. The actual culture can be an obstacle. The quality of leadership on diversity can vary as well. Certainly, a number of equality practitioners have shared with me information which gives an indication that there is a difference in commitment of leaders throughout the service on the particular issue of equality and diversity.

Q403 John Cummings: Recognising that the ODPM currently does not have its own diversity target, what do you believe is most needed to deliver the diversity and the equality agenda?

Ms Foster: I think what is most needed to deliver the agenda is, first, to have a discussion about what that culture and that diversity agenda will look like in the service. There is not one clear vision across the service of what equality will look like in the Fire Service. Services differ very much in their cultures and, for example, the extent to which they are militarised or de-militarised.

Q404 John Cummings: Many fire authorities have told the committee that it is difficult to achieve diversity because of recruitment cuts or freezes. How do you square this with achieving the aims and objectives that you are actively seeking in relation to diversity and equality? Do you think that the Fire and Rescue Service is really embracing the idea or are they putting up excuses why they ought not to move in that direction?

Ms Foster: My view, and I give my observation as a trade union representative but also as somebody who has been an equality practitioner for seven years, is that fire authorities will invest in diversity and it will be a priority, but, when other things happen and other important issues arise, it can slip down the list of priorities.

Q405 John Cummings: Will you please be quite specific? Am I on the right track, that there is an inbuilt thought, an inbuilt philosophy, within the Fire and Rescue Service against moving in that particular direction?

Ms Foster: My observation is that commitment varies from service to service. It would be unfair to say that there is no commitment across the whole service. The commitment varies from service to service.

Q406 Mr Betts: Regional control centres: obviously you have concerns because there are going to be job losses. Are you currently aware of the extent to which there will be job loses, how many and in which areas?

Ms Foster: We are not aware of that. We have very few, if any, members directly working in fire controls. We have members whose work is to support delivery of the service of fire controls. We are concerned about job losses and about the impact on workload. To a certain extent, we are satisfied that there has been mention of redeployments in respect of fire controls.

Q407 Mr Betts: Do you have any particularly concerns as a union about the setting up of regional control centres? Are your members not sufficiently involved with some of the key operations to have any particular concerns about it?

Ms Foster: On the latter point you have made, members' views are not sufficiently well-developed for me to give a consolidated view. Naturally, we are concerned about the impact on workload and would be reassured if redeployments were able to take place.

Q408 Mr Betts: One thing that has been flagged up is that the new regional control centres may not do all the functions that are currently done by control centres, and some of those may be moved into the rest of the service. Again, has that been flagged up with you? Presumably some of your members might be affected by that?

Ms Foster: That has not been flagged up with us.

Q409 Mr Betts: You have had no consultations about that at all?

Ms Foster: No.

Q410 Mr Betts: Are you aware of any of those functions that may affect your membership?

Ms Foster: I am not.

Q411 Dr Pugh: Comprehensive performance assessment: can I have your take on that in general and also to what extent Unison as a union is involved in the process of it in the Fire Service?

Ms Foster: First, I would like to say on behalf of Unison that we welcome the CPA process. We welcome a process that benchmarks the service against other organisations in the public sector and not just between one service and others. We welcome in particular the emphasis being on human resource management; we feel that is important. We were disappointed that diversity was an issue only raised at the eleventh hour and introduced as a line of inquiry fairly late on.

Q412 Dr Pugh: In your experience as a union, when the CPA process hits town, as it were, is there a prolonged examination of this area? Do they ask searching questions? Do they look into it or is it simply another tick box exercise?

Ms Foster: No, we have been engaged in the CPA process within Fire Service. We have found the audit team to be very receptive; they have been keen to speak to Unison; they have been keen to speak to our members delivering services; and they have taken on board comments we have made.

Q413 Dr Pugh: If when looking into the service they find that diversity is an issue within the service, in you experience, does that seem to affect the overall rating of the fire authority?

Ms Foster: No, it does not. One of our criticisms of the CPA process at the moment is that neither diversity nor human resources management is given sufficient weighting. Unison considers that no authority should get a "good" or "excellent" rating unless it has also performed well in diversity and people management.

Q414 Dr Pugh: Have you made representations to the people conducting the CPA process?

Ms Foster: We have.

Q415 Dr Pugh: Is it because assessing diversity is a rather complex process that it is somewhat glossed over and not gone into in sufficient depth? Is there an adequate way of assessing diversity on a comparative basis between one authority and another?

Ms Foster: In fairness to the Audit Commission's CPA process, this was a first attempt at assessing diversity within the Fire Service.

Q416 Dr Pugh: So the process could be improved and made more sophisticated?

Ms Foster: I think it could be improved, and Unison would welcome being part of any discussions that would bring about an improvement in the process.

Q417 Dr Pugh: Do you have any particular suggestions for improvement?

Ms Foster: We have a number of suggestions, one of which would be perhaps to dig further and to ask more detailed and searching questions about how staff experience diversity and the different groups of staff within the workforce, whether they be black and ethnic minority members, whether they be members who are gay or employees who are women. We would welcome more detailed discussion and a more detailed look across the workforce at the experience of existing staff.

Q418 Dr Pugh: You have given one example. The ethnic origin of someone can be immediately identifiable from looking at the employee records, can it not?

Ms Foster: Not necessarily, no.

Q419 Alison Seabeck: Linking in the presence of CPA to some of your earlier comments, clearly leadership is an important issue - leadership in terms of the quality of the organisation that the CPA is looking at but also leadership in terms of driving through the diversity agenda. Unison were not invited to work on the Bridging the Gap project.

Ms Foster: No.

Q420 Alison Seabeck: Do you know why that was?

Ms Foster: I have no idea. From the preface to the report, I got an indication that perhaps there was not time. I think that was the reason given.

Q421 Mr Olner: Unison as a union obviously is well skilled in dealing with comparing performance assessment figures and the other roles you play within local government. This is a brand-new thing that is being brought to the Fire and Rescue Service. Do you think it will be successful in replacing the current Fire Inspectorate procedure that goes on?

Ms Foster: Eventually, yes, I think so.

Q422 Mr Olner: How long is "eventually"?

Ms Foster: I would hope that by the next round of CPA assessments there will have been discussions and consultation with the various stakeholders and we will have a more robust process in place, which can more effectively assess authorities' performance in diversity and human resource management.

Q423 Mr Olner: What do you think in particular Unison will be able to bring to that table?
Ms Foster: As you rightly pointed out, Unison has members right across the public sector. We also have members in the private sector where, for example, services have been contracted out. We have extensive knowledge of what constitutes good practice and what constitutes not such good practice. We would be very happy to contribute to any review or look at the process as it stands.

Q424 Dr Pugh: In terms of the comparative of basis with other public services and maybe the private sector, you obviously will have some feeling for where the Fire Service stands on this particular issue. Where does it stand relative to the private sector and to other branches of the public sector?

Ms Foster: It is very difficult to respond to that because again the level of achievement in equality and diversity varies from service to service. It is not easy to compare the Fire Service as an entity with another entity. I can say that, for example, if you were to compare the Fires Service with the police, then the Police Service has made better progress than the Fire Service overall with some strands of diversity, possibly because of the scrutiny that the service is under because of the direct delivery of the service that it provides to the public.

Chair: Thank you very much indeed. That has been a most helpful contribution.

Memorandum submitted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Phil Woolas, a Member of the House, Minister for Local Government, and Jim Fitzpatrick, a Member of the House, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, gave evidence.

Q425 Chair: Thank you for coming. Can I start, Minister, and I leave it up to whoever of you wishes to respond to whichever question, with evidence that was given to us earlier by the Fire Brigades Union that highlighted cuts in investment to the Fire and Rescue Service and ask you whether you recognise that as an accurate reflection?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Certainly it would not give me reason to reflect that it is accurate. The investment that we have made in recent years in respect of the New Dimensions shows some clear examples and we paid: £188 million for equipment and crewing; we announced an investment to fund regional fire controls and Firelink projects; we made £25 million available for home fire safety checks for the 1.25 million most vulnerable households in the country through fitting smoke detectors or other systems to protect the most vulnerable in our community; we announced £11.4 million last month in revenue costs for additional fire safety activities in the community. All that would be contrary to any impression that may have been given that there is a lack of investment or lack of commitment. There is also the additional normal investment through the local government financial settlements of which the Fire Service benefited in similar fashion to the rest of local government with real term increases year-on-year since this administration of Labour was elected in 1997. In general terms, I think we have provided fair settlements and in specific payments, grants and projects, we have clearly put our money where our mouth is to back the modernisation of the service.

Q426 Chair: May I pick you up on one particular aspect, which is the £30 million as transitional arrangements which fire authorities are expected to pay back over two years? Are you confident that they will be able to pay that back without the service suffering?

Jim Fitzpatrick: We are as confident as we can be, and certainly were we not confident, then we would not have arrived at a conclusion that it was appropriate to seek repayment of that money. There was some natural lobbying from the Fire and Rescue authorities to defer payment once again, but we felt that as this was money that had been deferred previously, it was a fair conclusion to split the payment over two years to make it more fair and more tenable for fire authorities to pay back. This was money which Government had loaned the service as part of the modernisation programme, as part of the post-strike settlement, to ensure that it was able to equip itself with the tools to be able to make the progress that was expected in the 2004 Act as a result of the Bain Report, in the wake of the fire strike, and in respect of determining that there was a floor and certainty of finances over two years. We thought we were doing enough to protect fire authorities against that. The number of fire authorities that came to us as part of the normal process of appealing against the amount of grant that they were going to be given tends to reflect that we were not that far short because it was only a minority of fire authorities that actually took time to make submission or indeed to come in and speak to ministers, although there was a number, of which I am sure, Chair, you are familiar with at least one.

Q427 Chair: Indeed, I am. Can I turn to FireBuy? First, could you explain what exactly was funded by the £1.8 million in 2006-07 and 2007-08; and, secondly, do you know the total procurement costs for the Fire Service before and after the imposition of the FireBuy central procurement system? In other words, can you demonstrate any savings from central procurement?

Jim Fitzpatrick: The estimated spend on procurement of the Fire and Rescue authorities is around £300 million per annum. We do not have central figures. There is no requirement on authorities to submit figures, and so these are estimates for the Audit Commission by ourselves. What we have identified through the setting up of FireBuy, with the £1.8 million for the running costs to set up the arrangements, is that, given that this was something that started from scratch, it was a national procurement instruction we were putting in place, which has been welcomed by the suppliers to the Fire and Rescue Service. I had a meeting last week with FIReSA, which is the new trade body set up by the companies that supply everything to the fire authorities from fire engines through to ladder gantries and the rest of it. They now have 45 different companies in membership. They came in to articulate their support for FireBuy as an initiative. It has allowed them as companies (and these companies are as small as half a dozen employees right the way through to Kidde International which is an American transnational corporation) to be able to focus in on the requirements of the service without 15 or 20 companies all going off making prototypes on the same piece of kit. They can identify what is going to be required by the service, and only two or three companies will compete in the marketplace for a particular piece of equipment. They think this saves them time and money in research and development. The service believes this gives them a better deal because bulk buying means that savings can be made by buying things in greater numbers.

Q428 Chair: That is the point, Minister, that I was trying to get at. If you do not know the total procurement costs of the Fire Service before you institute the system, how will you know whether the Fire Service has actually benefited financially from the implementation of central procurement?

Jim Fitzpatrick: One simple example has been the purchasing of smoke detectors for the 1.25 to 1.5 million home fire safety checks we have been undertaking. I think the latest figure for the service is of something like 350,000 home visits and over 400,000 smoke detectors. The purchase of those detectors for the service across the country has enabled us to purchase them much cheaper than if 46 different fire brigades had purchased them for themselves. The savings for that particular project are identified as tens of thousands of pounds; the expectation is that every project worth more than £100,000 is going to produce savings of X. We have those figures to say that the services make these estimates without the national returns that we do not have. There are savings to be made within the estimates of national procurement spend.

Q429 Chair: You will be basing it on a project-by-project analysis of the estimated spend and then the actual spend?

Mr Woolas: The Gershon requirement for the Fire Service for 2007-08 is £105 million in cashable efficiency savings, all of which go back into the Fire Service. The procurement strategy for the fire authorities, as it is for local authorities, is a central part of that and the £1.8 million that you have referred to is a mechanism by which we can help them deliver efficiencies on procurement. It is not possible to say what those savings will be, but of course it is tautological that gross savings can only be made through the aggregate, if you like, of central purchasing. It is not quite central purchasing but I will use that phrase so it is understood. If there are procurement examples that do not meet efficiencies by doing it through that mechanism, then they will not do it.

Martin Horwood: My question is really the same. It seems to me like a leap of fantasy because you do not really know the national figures.

Q430 Mr Olner: Before coming to the questions I want to ask, following up the Chair's questions, I would be interested to know and to have on the record: how companies get on and off this preferred bidding list; how transparent is it; and where can people who want to look at these things learn what companies are listed?

Mr Woolas: One of the advantages of it, apart from the financial efficiency, is that it is more transparent. A company has been established. It is covered by European procurement regulations, as you would expect it to be. The rules of procurement apply as they do elsewhere. Of course members of the committee will be aware of the general debate about procurement procedures. Our goal overall is to ensure that procurement is part not just of the efficiency savings but of the general policy towards sustainable communities. This is not a straightjacket we are putting on; it is a mechanism, a device, a vehicle if you like, through which authorities can come together to make savings. The rules on transparency are covered as they are elsewhere in the public sector.

Q431 Mr Olner: I understand that. It is important to put this on the record. If I was a supplier, say, of firemen's helmets and I wanted to push my product to all the fire authorities, how would my company get on the list/ If I was found to be wanting, how you would you kick me off the list? We need to know this on procurement.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That was one of the reasons for FIReSA coming about. When we were trying to consult with suppliers, companies that supplied to fire authorities, there was concern that there was no formal arrangement for consultation. That was because there was no trade association that could represent the companies. The companies in the main are the bulk suppliers of all manner of equipment to the fire service. They have now banded together and formed FIReSA. They have created a framework; they now have an executive and a board and they come to meet with us. With regard to the figures that you asked about, the Audit Commission's estimates show an immediate saving of £5.5 million through a reduction in procurement overheads, so that 47 different brigades are not all going off and doing 47 different things, and more efficient procurement of commodities such as fuel, energy and clothing. On smoke detectors, there is a saving of 43 pence per smoke detector, and we purchase 1.25 million of those. You can extrapolate from that and feed that back into brigades. The European Union's official journal Threshold states that there should be a £135,000 threshold, that there would be a saving to each fire authority of approximately £5,000 and a saving of £0.25 million per contract issued by the service. In terms of bureaucracy, collaborative arrangements and research and development savings for the companies, as I mentioned, they came to me and said that instead of 17 companies each designing a ladder gantry, they will know that there is a ladder gantry out there, and two or three will offer to do it. That means that they can then target and focus their research and development budgets much more effectively, which means the service is better equipped because money is not being wasted.

Q432 Mr Olner: I move on to written and oral evidence we have had from the Chief Fire Officers' Association. They have highlighted the confusing governance structure for the Fire and Rescue Service. First, do you agree that there is some confusion out there and what do you intend to do to review these arrangements?

Jim Fitzpatrick: There is a lack of awareness about what the Government's arrangements for regional control centres are going to be because we are in the process of consulting on exactly how they should be formed. In that instance, it is not surprising there is some confusion because we are only consulting having identified that the best way forward from our point of view, having consulted other government departments - Treasury in particular - and the appropriate vehicle would be for a local government company structure to be formed. That is the template. Now it is a matter of how we identify the nature of the local government company structure in each region. That is what we are consulting on at the moment. The details of the Government's arrangements will become clear as we go through the consultation period and make an announcement in due course.

Q433 Mr Olner: Minister, could I ask whether you have considered the need to coordinate the changes to the Fire and Rescue Service with the Home Office's plans for the future restructuring of policing in England, and indeed the Department of Health's possible restructuring of the Ambulance Service?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I do not think there has been formal discussion but certainly the different arrangements taking place have been discussed informally by ministers. Of course the Fire and Rescue Service has its own distinct structure. We are constantly being asked whether or not it is the policy of ODPM to impose regionalisation on the service. We have clearly said that there is a degree of dilemma in that we have no wish to impose regional structures on the Fire and Rescue Service. However, in the Bain Report and in the examination of the modernisation of the service, it was clear that there were recommendations for collaborative arrangements by brigades, some on a regional basis, to ensure better efficiency and better use of resources. Generally that was along the lines of procurement; recruitment (some of the smaller brigades do not have the training facilities or do not train all year round); fire investigation and several others. The subject of regional control centres was clearly the most controversial of those. The resilience of a regional management board structure in the country demonstrated that we are talking about brigades collaborating at the appropriate level. We are not going to force through any imposition on regionalisation. We did not see that as necessary but we did see and do support and encourage collaborative and cooperative working by brigades where that is appropriate for the better running of the service.

Q434 Mr Olner: Given that the Government has said that is not good enough for the Police and it is not good enough for the Ambulance Service, why is it good enough for the Fire and Rescue Service? Is there any collaboration? Is there not something done on a formal basis?

Mr Woolas: The Government's policy as far as possible is to achieve coterminosity on geographical boundaries at upper tier, local authority level. Where there are exceptions to that, it is to pass three tests. The first is to ensure that there is strategic capacity. The police authorities that are discussing merger will fall under that category. The second is where one can see tangible value for money efficiency gains. The third, which I personally believe is the most important, is to deliver the neighbourhood service. If you look for example at the police, the coming together of authorities is subservient to ensuring that each neighbourhood policing unit has the ability to cover its neighbourhood without having to be pulled away in the event of a level 2 or level 3 crime. What is driving the Government's policy on reconfiguration is not, as is commonly commented upon, regionalisation, and indeed the arrangements that Jim has described in terms of the control centres can be covered under those three categories. The discussions between the various departments about how we can best achieve coterminosity are of course also driven by the local area agreement financing arrangements in the local strategic partnerships. The Department's White Paper, which will be published in June, for local authorities will be part of that process. In short, that means by summer it will all become clear!

Q435 Mr Olner: Hopefully, our report will be out before the summer. For the ordinary ratepayer or council tax payer, if there are to be benefits from looking at mergers of police forces as well as the co-working that has been done over a number of years, why are there not any similar sorts of benefits that can be gained by the Fire and Rescue Service?

Mr Woolas: There may be.

Q436 Mr Olner: If you are saying to the committee that there is going to be no further regionalisation of the Fire and Rescue Service, nothing is going to happen.

Mr Woolas: As we all know, there is a difference between regionalisation and forces coming together. There are arguments at county to county level that may see benefits at the strategic and efficiency level.

Q437 Mr Olner: You could have units smaller than regions if they agree to cooperate?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Discussions are going on between brigades to share services: human resource services and financial services. I mentioned others in terms of fire investigations. Discussions are going on about what services could be shared jointly because we do not necessarily need 47 across the piece. If it is efficient and if it can work to the benefit of the taxpayer and ensures that the service can be improved, then we are certainly encouraging that. Some of these discussions are going on in a number of brigades across the country.

Q438 Martin Horwood: I am sure if there were any Conservative members of this committee present, they would take you up on the regionalisation conspiracy, but they may have missed their moment! Minister, I would like to pick you up on your assertion that none of this is being forced through, even at the collaborative level. Certainly from the Gloucestershire's example of the tri-service centre, which I hope to come back to in detail later, this is opposed by the Fire and Rescue Service, by the fire and rescue authorities and by MPs of all political parties and public and political opinion of all political parties. To that extent, it is being forced through, is it not?

Jim Fitzpatrick: In terms of regional control centres, you accurately describe a degree of opposition to our proposals but we do believe that they are in the best interests of the service. Certainly in the area that you describe, the tri-service centre in Gloucester, that is not a joint centre - it is just three services sharing the same building; they are not sharing the same services - and they have a different way of working. It is an improvement on what went before. They think it is going to be detrimental to a certain extent. We do not agree with them.

Q439 Dr Pugh: We come now to the pounds, shillings and pence here. When we interviewed the civil servants, we discussed the cost of the reorganisation and the concept of "New Burdens". They said very categorically that "New Burdens" were going to be imposed by central government. This was delightful and magnanimous and we were all pleased to hear it. Then we told the local authorities that this was indeed the case. They were somewhat churlish in their response. They suggested there might be quite a debate about what were in fact "New Burdens". Would it not be a good idea now to define "New Burdens" and what they might be and maybe cost them a bit later?

Mr Woolas: I have never had a representation, and I do not think my predecessor did, from any local authority, fire authority, police authority or transport authority that said that there were net New Burdens that were not costing them extra. We have never had a cheque lack from them when the net New Burden has increased efficiencies. Let me be very clear what a net New Burden is, and I emphasise the word "net" in New Burden. In some instances, for understandable reasons, fire authorities and others have put forward gross New Burden figures, sometimes based on average costs rather than marginal costs, which of course paints a different picture altogether. The principle is that if a New Burden by way of government policy or regulation, including incidentally European regulation, results in an additional cost, we will meet that cost from central government. We have a dialogue with the Local Government Association to identify jointly what those costs are. That should not, as I am sure the committee is aware, be confused with an inflationary burden that comes upon a fire authority or other authority from the circumstances in which it operates.

Q440 Dr Pugh: You will appreciate that if there is not a perfectly transparent process, where the burdens either new net or gross are not spelt out, they would feel themselves vulnerable to a device often used by central government to say, "This is all taken account of in the general settlement". They may be able to point to additional costs which they feel central government is not bearing. Would it not be a good idea, whether net or gross, actually to flesh it out a bit more or agree with the local authorities exactly what is going on?

Mr Woolas: Through you, Chair, is that in relation to control centres or generally?

Q441 Dr Pugh: With regard to the regional control centres, yes.

Mr Woolas: As Jim was saying, that is at the moment being discussed and negotiated. Our policy is based on our very strongly held view, which is backed up by the financial advice that we have, that the strategy of the regional control centres is financially better than the upgrading and updating of the existing control centres. One point that is often lost from the debate is that our choice is not whether or not to have new regional centres. Our choice is either to upgrade the existing ones or form the new regional ones. That is where the financial comparison really kicks in. From all the evidence and advice we have on the new scheme, although obviously you will push us for specific figures which we are not able to give because the negotiations are in the process and tendering is going on, we are more than confident that that is the better financial option compared to the upgrading of the existing centres.

Q442 Dr Pugh: On specific figures, you are expecting to get a 30 per cent reduction in annual running costs, which will be good if it happens. If it does not happen, can you identify that it has not happened and will you then make financial adjustments for the fire authorities accordingly?

Jim Fitzpatrick: New Burdens is almost an ongoing negotiation. We have spent £2.1 million this year funding New Burdens that we believe have been encountered by local authorities on regional control projects. We have a bid in for a 20 per cent increase in staffing costs of the New Dimensions equipment from local authorities, which they say is a New Burden. We have not accepted that one yet. We are discussing it. It is almost a negotiation with local authorities because they will identify that which they think may be a New Burden; we will have to assess that for the taxpayer, whether it actually is a New Burden or it is something that they would have had to pay for whether they thought it appropriate or not. There will be some give and take in due course about this. In respect of the overall savings that have been identified, your assessment is correct: this is an estimate but it is an estimate of the numbers of staff that will be required in the new regional control centres compared to those which are in place at the moment; it compares the size of London to the other eight centres outside. We assess, and it is an assessment, that there will be a requirement for around 1,000 staff. At the moment there are 1384 full-time equivalents and therefore there will be a reduction in the numbers of staff. Given that the service costs generally are 85 per cent staff costs, then there will be a reduction in costs. As Phil Woolas has said, this is not driven by savings per se. The savings are almost incidental. This is driven by providing a service to the country which will be resilient, fit for purpose, and provide the most efficient mobilising arrangements for the Fire and Rescue Service that exist.

Q443 Dr Pugh: Finally, in order to give a little more certainty for local authorities, will the Fire Service in larger regions be expected to cross-subsidise regional control centres in smaller regions. Buckinghamshire have suggested that that may very well be the case.

Jim Fitzpatrick: The expectation is that the payment for the use of the centres will be based on the numbers of calls that are responded to by the different brigades. The detailed negotiations will be worked out through the governance arrangements and the regional management boards. The local government companies at local level will determine how the centres are going to be financed. After we have paid the initial costs of set up, the local authorities will then take on the running costs. The local authorities are paying at the moment for the communications and mobilising costs of the existing centres. They will pay for the same costs of the new centres. The exact arrangements as to how much each authority will have to bear will be a matter of negotiation between now and the actual operation of the system.

Q444 Dr Pugh: It would be fair to say that the local trading arrangements are not a necessary cross-subsidy?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I cannot imagine that there would necessarily be a cross-subsidy. My expectation is that because we are seeing an overall cost reduction, then there are overall savings to each authority. That will provide money for them to be able to spend on other fire-related activity.

Q445 Mr Betts: As we all know, there are one or two examples around in government of wonderfully designed computer systems that occasionally have not worked out quite as anticipated and the costs have risen significantly. Has Government given an undertaking that any such increase in costs will be borne by Government and not by fire authorities?

Jim Fitzpatrick: The only undertaking that we can give is that we will do everything we can to provide value for money for taxpayers. We are in negotiations with three separate bidders at the moment in respect of that which we expect to be able to put in place by 2008. If, for some reason, the tendering arrangements did not work out and were not providing value for money, then obviously we would have to re-visit the scheme. The expectation is that the overall business case, the overall costs that we have estimated and that we have published on other website, which I am sure the committee has seen, demonstrate that this is viable, that it does provide a better service and also savings. That is where we are now. We only started serious negotiations with the companies with whom we will be engaging that want to tender for the new service.

Q446 Mr Betts: What I think I hear you saying is that you assume, through these tendering arrangements, that there are going to be cost savings, and therefore you will go ahead with the project. If there are no savings, you will have to reconsider, but there is a scenario that the cost savings appear as result of the tendering negotiations. You set off down the road of implementing the project and extra costs then arise in due course. Will those extra costs be borne by central government, as it is essentially a central government driven project, or will any of those extra costs fall on the fire authorities?

Mr Woolas: Chair, if I can ask your indulgence, we are in the middle of those negotiations and discussions and that tendering process. We are trying to achieve best value for money for the taxpayer. We are confident in the technology. I hear what you say about the record not just of government IT projects but IT projects across commerce and public services and other projects. We can say to the committee that we are very confident in the technology, obviously, as to the way we are going. We will not go live with FiREControl until it has been thoroughly tested from end to end. Of course reliability will be part of the contract that we have.

Q447 Mr Betts: I do not think that quite answers the question. I am not trying to put you in a position where you have to compromise the commercial sensitivities of the negotiations you are currently having with potential suppliers. That is not the issue. Whatever comes out of those negotiations, you will obviously try to maximise savings to the taxpayers. Ultimately, if for any reason any extra costs arose, would Government be paying for those? What fire authorities are looking for is an assurance that if something happens further down the line, they would not have to pick up the bills. Many of them are still a bit concerned this is not really the right way to proceed.

Jim Fitzpatrick: We have said that we will be paying for the set-up costs. The initial outlay of money for regional control centres will be paid by central government. The fire authorities will only start making contributions when it comes to the running of the centre. In that instance, there should be a clear demarcation between what is being paid for, what is a New Burden and what local authorities will have to pay for. In that instance, we can give certainty that the local authorities will not pick up any costs, for example, if something went wrong and we decided to change the policy and ago somewhere else.

Q448 Mr Betts: That therefore must also include, to be fair to the fire authorities, any extra running costs which could result from the savings that you anticipate not materialising. It may not simply be an increase in up-front costs, but if things go wrong with the computer systems or new technology, as often happens, that can occur further down the line and running costs in the service can increase. Is Government accepting that it would have to pick up responsibility for that? Your civil servants told us last week that there would be no possibility of fire authorities in that circumstance having to pick up any extra costs. It was very clear.

Mr Woolas: Let me put it this way. As Jim has said and as our officials have said, the set-up costs will be met by us. When it is up and running, the running costs will be met by the fire authorities. Your question really is about running costs increasing as a direct consequence of failures or unanticipated increases as a result of the way in which it was set up. I would expect either that would be covered by the contract we have with the suppliers or we would have to enter into discussions with the fire authorities, because that problem of course exists at the moment with all the procurement of other facilities. I do not think we could say here that in all circumstances we could undertake to cover all costs because we would have to have discussion as to whether or not there was a direct consequence of a failure of the project.

Q449 Mr Betts: One of the difficulties is that we have not seen the business case, have we, for this. We are working a bit in the dark through all this. One of the criticisms we have heard repeatedly, not just from the FBU but from the Chief Fire Officer as well I think, is that they are still not quite sure what they are being asked to deal with because there is not a business case. Normally you would expect a business case to be prepared before Government made a commitment to go down a certain route.

Mr Woolas: We are in the process of finalising the business cases. We cannot produce those in detail until the final infrastructure costs are known. The strategic outline business cases are already publicly available. Phil Woolas has mentioned that they are on the website and are in the public domain. We have provided a summary of those to the committee. As has been said, the major operational costs are for staff. The figure, as Jim has said, is 85 per cent. You ask a fair question: how can we be confident of support from the authorities for the business case until it is finalised? Until we are confident of the business case, we will not sign the contracts. That is life. That is how you have to proceed in this business. The alternative would be to be reinvesting the existing control centres and the very same fair question that you have asked could be put in relation to those existing centres.

Chair: Minister, can I press you on the point about extra costs? There are two specific instances that have been brought to us where a delay in the implementation of FireLink has led to the authority incurring additional costs. One is in relation to Devon where they are having to bear additions costs on theO2 Airwave radio system because of the slippage on FireLink. There is another one but I am not sure which fire authority it is. It was a fire authority whose own equipment was becoming obsolete. Had FireLink been delivered on time it would have been okay, but because FireLink was late, they are having to renew the equipment. Would you pick up those extra costs or would you be expecting the fire authority to bear them? Alison Seabeck wants to amplify this.

Q450 Alison Seabeck: Your own official described problems of renewing and renovating their clapped out systems. There is no doubt, from the evidence, as the Chair has pointed out, that a number of people suggest they do have clapped out systems. If those systems conk out they will have to be repaired and probably at a significantly larger costs than might have been because they are renewing contracts that they did not think they would have to renew. On the back of that, I know my own force in Devon have real worries.

Mr Woolas: May I say three things? First, I think this rather proves that our policy is the best policy. You do not want to be in a position whereby a single fire authority does not have the resources to invest in its control centres and its equipment, which would jeopardise the public. Secondly, when we talk about New Burdens, we mean it. We have spent £2.1 million on New Burdens. Thirdly, we are covering the costs referred to and about which you have asked.

Q451 Alison Seabeck: To come back to regional control centres, how are they expected to coordinate fire authorities with potentially different conflicting policies and priorities? We heard evidence about the differences between integrated risk management plans and concerns that there was not clarity in terms of accountably. How would you answer those concerns?

Jim Fitzpatrick: In respect of the first question, mobilising arrangements, at the moment the mobilising arrangements for response to any 999 call is determined by the location and the origin of the call, which is based on address and postcode. Whatever the address and postcode, there is a pre-determined attendance worked out by the local authority as to how many fire engines to send to a particular address. The new mobilising centres will work in exactly the same position. If they are called out to 1 Parliament Square, if the London Fire Brigade decides that the attendance to 1 Parliament Square needs three fire engines, the operator pushes a button and three fire engines are mobilised to 1 Parliament Square. There is no difference. They will be mobilising five, six or seven brigades. They will have the input data from those brigades as to what the appropriate attendance is for each different address which is specified in that area.

Q452 Alison Seabeck: If there are significant differences between the different integrated risk management plans of the different fire brigades, who ultimately is going to take the decision about which one of those is paramount?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Every one will be different. There is a different attendance to Portcullis House and the Palace of Westminster and that is worked out by the chief fire officer recommending to the London Fire Emergency Planning Authority, "This is my overall game plan and my integrated risk management plan for London; this is where we should have fire stations; this is where we should have fire engines; this is where we should have staff. I will work out the mobilising arrangements and report to you on an annual basis." The chief fire officer, in conjunction with local authority councillors, determines the IRMP for their own area. There is no difference now to that which will happen under the original controls. The chief fire officer will determine, in conjunction with the officer corps et cetera, what the risk is and how many machines to send. That will be done automatically.

Q453 John Cummings: Would you tell the Committee which existing control room duties will be deployed elsewhere in the Fire and Rescue Service?

Jim Fitzpatrick: You mean which will be done by the local fire risk authority after the regional control? There are a number of different arrangements which have been worked out, on my understanding, by different authorities, everything from routine administrative duties, filing duties, first aid duties and the rest of it. The Fire and Rescue Authority will have to work out who will undertake these duties as and when control room staff are occupied to use their professional skills as control room operators and not as admin staff, because they are being paid 95 per cent of fire fighters' wages to be able to use the skills to handle people in distress. They are not being paid 95 per cent of fire fighters' wages to do routine clerking jobs.

Q454 John Cummings: Are you offering any guidance on this?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I would have thought that local authorities would be able to determine those duties which are being undertaken at the moment by existing staff and which ones will have to be undertaken by other existing staff in different departments or may have to be given over to other people.

Q455 John Cummings: Who will be the final arbitrator?

Jim Fitzpatrick: The final arbitrator will be the negotiations between the local authority employer determining what jobs have to be done. At the moment, many of our very well qualified, very professional control room staff are doing duties which are not, to be straightforward, answering 999 calls. They are doing other stuff. The new regional control centres will make greater use of their professional skills, handling 999 calls. At the moment, the busiest control room in the country is London which has a call per operator round about every half hour. The quietest control room in the country, I believe, is the Isle of Wight which has a call per operator on average about every two hours and 48 minutes. The new regional control centres will level that playing field in that each operator will be expected to handle about a call every half hour, which will be much more efficient use of their professional training and their professional skills because they will be doing that which they are good at, dealing with people in distress, calming them down, getting the important information and mobilising the nearest appliance to respond to that 999 call.

Q456 John Cummings: Are you saying that the redeployment of these functions constitutes part of the annual £20 million savings?

Mr Woolas: Another big advantage is that it increases our capacity as part of our resilience strategy.

Q457 John Cummings: Are you saying it is not part of the £20 million saving?

Mr Woolas: It is not driven by inefficiency.

Q458 John Cummings: What is driving it?

Mr Woolas: It is not driven by inefficiency in that regard.

Q459 John Cummings: In which regard is it being driven?

Mr Woolas: Partly, as we have explained I hope already, in relation to the fact that it is a more efficient option than the renewal of the status quo; partly in that it allows those staff reductions which have the impact of using the professional skills better and partly it increases the capacity in each region to cope with major situations. Thank goodness it has never happened but at the moment the capacity in some of our control centres is quite low and, in the event of a major incident, the regional control centres backed up by the resilience planning allow us to cope with a much greater volume of calls.

Q460 John Cummings: Would it be correct to say that you only circulated the questionnaire to determine what work was being carried out by fire control staff after your key decisions had been made?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I think it is very straightforward: because we anticipate that the control room staff will be undertaking control room duties. The principal decision is do we improve control mobilising arrangements by going to regional control centres or not. Yes, we do, so we will do that. What were the control room staff doing that will have to be undertaken by other staff as and when that happens? They are not going to be moving for another year or two years. We can look at this in second light because it is less of a priority. It is not going to happen tomorrow. It is going to happen down the line so we can afford to do it as a secondary activity. The important thing is what are the best arrangements for mobilisation and communications. We believe that regional control is the best way forward so let us get that on the road. How do we work it out? What are the governance arrangements? What are the negotiating arrangements? What are the staffing arrangements? These are very important, very detailed questions. We have not got to that stage yet. That is starting now.

Q461 John Cummings: You say it is an ongoing exercise and it is going to take a considerable time?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Yes.

Q462 Mr Olner: I take it you are circulating that questionnaire to all trade unions who are involved with control centres, because I distinctly got the view from UNISON earlier on when they were giving evidence that they had somehow been left out of the loop.

Jim Fitzpatrick: If they have, that is inappropriate because there are different trade unions representing control room staff in different parts of the country. All unions should be involved in those discussions. Yes, we will be circulating it to all.

Q463 Mr Olner: Could I move on to the evidence we heard from the FBU, particularly about the excellent work that they and all the fire fighters did in dealing with the Buncefield fire, one of the largest peacetime fires that we have had in the UK, certainly throughout Europe. They did a most remarkable job in bringing it under control without having regional fire centres so why do we need them?

Mr Woolas: Our view is that the resilience fora that have been put into place in this country as a result of the Civil Contingencies Act, which provides for a regional framework to meet that capacity point which has been operating in London for some time, operated very effectively in the instance of Buncefield, as shown by the initial evidence. The lessons learned are part of the ongoing process in the regional resilience fora which I am responsible for. The initial lessons show that that regional capacity was one of the reasons why we were able to mobilise the resources, including the new dimension pumping equipment, from across the region and indeed other regions. We would not have been able to do that as quickly and as effectively without that regional gold command structure.

Q464 Mr Olner: I accept that entirely. One of the fears I have in particular and I think the Committee might well have is that all the individual brigades build in resilience. I would suggest that we coped with Buncefield because of all the added on little bits of resilience. If we do not have all the little bits of resilience, are we going to have the resilience to deal with a major disaster at the end of the day?

Mr Woolas: We are very proud of the emergency services and the other non-999 services involved. We are also privately very proud of the resilience infrastructure that has been put into place in the last few years. Let me just give you some figures. On the 999 system in response to Buncefield, during the first hour after the incident, the Hertfordshire control room took 54 calls. The control rooms of neighbouring fire and rescue services took 152. There is no evidence to support the allegation that rerouting centres failed during the incident but we are looking into that. There is no doubt that the combination of the new dimension equipment and the regional resilience framework enabled us to get particularly the high volume pumping equipment - it is not the first occasion on which it has been used through the regional resilience forum - and it was one of the major reasons why they were able to address the fire quickly. That does not answer directly the point that you are making because of course it was done without the regional control centres being in place. One of our objectives - we have already established the first one in Yorkshire, the National Coordinating Centre - is to provide for regional resilience command and control through the regional centres as well. All of the evidence, we think, and all of the arguments are showing that pointing that increased capacity at regional level is the best way forward and Buncefield, we think, is an argument for that.

Q465 Martin Horwood: I am concerned within this process that some very important babies may be being thrown out with the bathwater. I have already told you the example that I am going to cite which is the triservice centre in Gloucestershire. The 2000 Mott Macdonald report into the future of fire service control room communications in England and Wales concluded that the pilot projects in Cleveland, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire should continue to be strongly supported and encouraged. The lessons learned from these pilots have already proved useful and have informed the study. More will be learned as these projects are implemented. They will provide an invaluable input to future control room strategy. Clearly things have changed since 2000 and the importance of resilience is now very high up the agenda and yet that model has been praised as recently as last year by the Audit Commission in its comprehensive performance assessments. Is there not a danger that you are abandoning something which could have enhanced emergency resilience and is still at an innovative stage by moving to these regional control centres which have less potential for local coordination in emergency situations?

Jim Fitzpatrick: What we are not saying is that there are not some very good control centres across the country. Therefore, there will be disappointment that some benefits and experiences will be lost. What we are saying is that the regional control centre framework that we are proposing will be better for the whole country. With the tricentre that exists in Gloucester, as I mentioned earlier, people get the impression that for some reason this is a coming together of the emergency control centres for fire, police and ambulance, which obviously as you would know, Mr Horwood, it is not. It is the three centres sharing a building with glass partitions between the three, where there is no common mobilising arrangement because there are different requirements on the different services in terms of turn-out times, in terms of attendance, in terms of all manner of different things. They do at least share the building so there is a coming together. We have been asked the question several times during the course of recent months, when are we going to be in a position to physically and technologically bring fire, ambulance and police emergency control rooms together. I think that is an ambition. It is an aim and it is a laudable one. If it could be technically feasible, it should be done but we are probably a generation or two off of that. At this point of time, we had been faced with the dilemma which is that following on from the first Mott Macdonald report and subsequent ones after 11 September, after the resilience requirements laid down by civil contingencies legislation and the rest, an examination of the regional control centres across the country demonstrated that many of them did not have the latest technology, let alone the arrangements that you are talking about for Gloucester. They were in buildings which were not fit for purpose and they were being underused. We have a template whereby we can have more professionalism because we will be giving staff exclusively control room duties to do, not the additional, separate duties they are employed in, because there is a recognition that there is not enough to keep them occupied fully by just answering emergency calls. We will be providing the latest equipment and the ability to make sure that we have backup in the event that there is any difficulty with any of the controls, through interoperability and the arrangements of inter-networking that we will be putting in place in due course.

Q466 Martin Horwood: I think you are wrong. For a start, there are economies to be achieved at local level as opposed to regional level in the triservice model. I am not just talking about Gloucester; I am talking about the model which was being pioneered only in three places, so I do not see how you can be properly assessing it at this stage in the process and undermining it now when you have not really seen it through. One of the advantages was the ability to achieve a common location for command and control with cross-agency working in an emergency situation. The fire service's opinion in their written evidence is that it has improved resilience and the ability to link up with national, regional infrastructures and that multi-agency command facilities offer maximum operational flexibility. Their opinion is very strongly that it improves resilience, not decreases it.

Mr Woolas: This is a very serious policy discussion and obviously we have had this discussion internally. The update Mott Macdonald report, The Future of Fire and Rescue Control Rooms in England and Wales, did recommend the nine centres as the best option in the post-9/11 period. The dilemma is this: it is clearly our goal that the 999 blue light services should be able to talk to each other and we should have a capacity to mobilise. In fact, there are some 54 agencies in the London Resilience Forum that we mobilise. We are developing computer technology communications for all of them to talk to each other in the different scenarios that they may face. Given that everybody will agree that it is desirable that you have a common communication and common command and control in these situations, you then face a dilemma. Do you join it up locally first or do you have the police, fire, ambulance, coastguard and liaison with military upon systems that work nationally before you then are able to join them together? Two things drive this policy. One is the availability of the technology. It is not possible at the moment to achieve that joining up between the services. It would be with huge expenditure. The development of technology we believe means that the fire control and the FireLink projects will provide the route for that joining up in the future. The second, big point is this: all of the advice that we get - this is not in any way a political point - is that you can only in this country have the capacity to deal with major incidents at a regional level. In my period, we have triggered that gold command, I think, on six occasions. Even in fairly small incidences, Glastonbury flooding was one example where there was a danger because of contamination caused by the flooding of the chemical toilets. We did use the Regional Resilience Forum to mobilise resources. In the Carlisle flooding, the Carlisle authorities did not have the capacity to deal with that scale and it was only because we had the regional resilience. This is inbuilt into our strategy. The capacity issue at regional level, we think, is the responsible thing to do but I do recognise that there is an alternative policy you could pursue. That was our logic.

Q467 Dr Pugh: Co-responding and cooperation between emergency services is obviously very good practice and the FBU have said that they would like to see it at national level. Could we have your take on that and also your take on what is the issue that dogs that? That is that, when a fire service turns up and does work which essentially is health service work or something an ambulance service would do, there is a cost incurred by the fire service which they may wish to recharge somewhere else. If there is not a standardised way of doing that, it obviously creates a certain amount of friction. A third possible aspect to this question is: is not any arrangement of co-working to some extent spoiled by the lack of coterminosity between various authorities? Three things: what is your approach? What is the view on the cost basis for it and how costs can be recharged? Coterminosity is the other issue.

Mr Woolas: I keep hearing this word "coterminosity". This is the sharing of geographical boundaries between different authorities. As I said before, our policy is to achieve coterminosity at local authority level wherever possible, consistent with the three criteria I set before. Our policy on this is that we obviously fully support the schemes and wish to see all of the fire and rescue authorities working in partnership with their local ambulance service NHS trust to introduce such schemes. We are in close, regular contact with the Department of Health through our own department, the ODPM, to consider what can be done to encourage the two emergency services to pursue co-responder schemes and the use of defibrillators by fire fighters. For information, a total of 221 automated external defibrillators have been provided to fire and rescue authorities under the second phase of the national programme. The Draft Fire and Rescue Framework 2006-2008 proposes that fire and rescue authorities should actively review the opportunities for improving community safety by implementing co-responder schemes in partnership with other agencies. Obviously, the financial arrangements across authorities can be a bar, organised where there is not coterminosity, but part of our local area agreement framework, which is done at the operative area, is intended to benefit exactly such cooperation.

Q468 Dr Pugh: Rather than have a national system you prefer local agreements which could lead to different regimes operating in different areas of the country?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Because there are different pressures in different localities. What we have in different parts of the country are some fire authorities operating first responder schemes, some co-responder schemes and some just carrying defibrillators for which they do not have an agreement or an arrangement. It is good to hear that the Fire Brigades Union is being supportive just as they are not being supportive on the new dimensions kit. They have not always been but they have had some genuine concerns and still have some concerns about health and safety issues.

Q469 Dr Pugh: To be fair to them, they said they would like to see national proposals on co-responding.

Jim Fitzpatrick: In Devon, for example, and in some of the retained areas, the provision of ambulance cover is much more sparse than it is in other parts of the country. When I was there recently, I met one crew who very proudly told me of their first responder scheme. They turned up at an incident and were called to a victim of a suspected heart attack. They said, "This was one of the best things we ever did." I said, "Did you save the person?" They said, "No, we lost him." I said, "How is that one of the best things?" They said, "Because of the grieving process that we were able to help with. We were there within three and a half minutes because we are the local village. We are neighbours. We are friends. We are family. We got there. That family will not be asking, 'What would have happened if a defibrillator had turned up?'" A defibrillator did turn up because Devon retained fire and rescue personnel were able to bring it and that family can get on with their lives knowing that everything that could have been done by the emergency services was done to try and help that person. From my point of view - and the Department is supportive of this; most fire and rescue authorities are - it is about what is the best template that fits different localities. They will all be different. In some instances, first responders are better. In some instances, co-responders are better, but every fire appliance in the UK - certainly in England and Wales - should be carrying a defibrillator. There is no reason for them not to be doing so.

Q470 Mr Olner: I am sure, Minister, your officials will have read the evidence that was given to the Committee last week by the FBU, particularly on co-responding. I certainly did not get the view that the FBU were in favour of seeing this at a national level. I felt it was just the opposite. At that meeting, there were 20 FBU members who had been expelled in Liverpool for trying to operate a co-responding unit. What action is the government trying to take to make sure that these very, very essential, life saving schemes get put into place? This is not the government or politicians dreaming it up; it has been researched and audited by a professional person and it saves lives. When is it going to be rolled out so that all of our constituents can get the benefit of that?

Jim Fitzpatrick: We are engaged with the Department of Health. I and Rob Warner wrote to the chair of the Local Government Association Fire Committee in December last year to try and make sure that we can move this forward because we do think it is a positive move. I cannot understand why any trade union was expelling people for using defibrillators. It does not make sense to me but that is a matter of internal discipline for the Fire Brigades Union. From our point of view, there should be arrangements in place. Fire fighters should be carrying defibrillators. We should be able to save people. The estimate so far in the past 12 months is that 18 lives have been saved by fire fighters using defibrillators. I take the point we did not respond to in terms of Dr Pugh's question. This is not about mobilising the fire service to deal with ambulance duties; this is about saving lives and if we can save lives surely that is what we all want to see.

Q471 Alison Seabeck: Clearly, there is a lot of research going on and sprinklers are getting cheaper by the day almost, I suspect. Your own PSA targets on fire prevention and sprinklers play a part in that. Building regulations are an important element as well but how much work are you doing in order to persuade DfES, about whom we had nothing but criticism in a previous session, to ensure that schools are built with sprinkler systems in?

Jim Fitzpatrick: In general terms in the first instance, the culture of the service, as the Committee knows, is moving into being much more fire safety orientated and much more a culture of fire prevention than it ever has been. From the service's point of view, this is unfinished business. This goes back to the 1960s and 1970s. This is the Holroyd Report, the Young Commission, the 1971 Fire Precautions Act. This is a culture that was supposed to be brought in 35 years ago but it has now been brought in much more effectively than it has been in the past 35 years. It is business that has been waiting to happen. Going back to the original exchange we were having about home fire safety checks, that is a very clear example of how the service is moving much more effectively to protecting the most vulnerable people in our community by the introduction of detectors to alert them to a fire. The ODPM has financed the research into low cost sprinkler systems in the UK. We have had a test rig at Lower Brissington in the Cotswolds for the best part of a year. We set a challenge to the industry to identify the ability to reduce the costs of an ordinary sprinkler system because a sprinkler system in the UK, roughly per house, was costing between £3,000 and £5,000. For a school, it is estimated at between £10,000 and £20,000. To be able to move the agenda forward on sprinklers, we identified that we needed a low cost sprinkler system. We scoured the world. The New Zealand system seemed to offer the best prospect of success. We have paid for the test rig and the research which has now come through and there is real evidence that we might be able to certify in some respects a domestic sprinkler system for about £500-£600 in due course. We are consulting at the moment on the building regulations. That is just finalised. We will be producing our report later on this year for domestic premises and for implementation in 2007. In respect of schools, we produced very robust correspondence to the Department for Education and Skills because schools are not a matter for us. They are in the process of producing Building Bulletin 100 which will be their new standard for schools in due course. I know that they are seriously looking at the question of sprinklers in schools because of the correspondence that we have sent them, because of the consultative submissions that they have had. There have been criticisms about no sprinklers in schools previously but at the moment they are consulting. This is an opportunity for them to revisit that. As with any government policy, there is a determination of cost benefit analysis whether or not it is desirable and, if it is desirable, how much it will cost and whether or not it is better to do that than to do something else. Sprinklers are not a complete panacea. They are not going to stop everybody from dying in fires but they will protect the most vulnerable and in a school situation they could be a very useful tool, but that is for the DfES to conclude.

Q472 Alison Seabeck: In relation to sprinklers, it is the problem in retrospectively fitting them to existing buildings. My understanding has always been that there are real difficulties in doing that. It is a long time since I have looked into these things but has the thinking on that moved on? Will it be possible to retrospectively fit them to schools or is that still a problem?

Jim Fitzpatrick: The easiest way to explain the technical difficulty is that if your house is being rewired it is easier to do it when you are undertaking major building works. If you decide that you want to rewire it because you think it is suitable, you have to rip up the floorboards, so it is a much more complex task and much more expensive. It cannot be cheaper, whatever the technical solution. The low cost sprinkler system that we have been examining will only be good for domestic premises, for buildings of one and two floors. We will have to incorporate major changes to the mains network possibly, the size of the supply pipe from the main to the house, to make sure that we have the pressure. Otherwise, we need to have an engineering solution to fit the pump within the house which will make it work, which puts another £100 onto the cost. You cannot have a low cost sprinkler system for a school. It has to be gold standard. It has to be British Standard certified and, in that instance, there is no cheap way of sprinkling in schools. My understanding is that it is between £10,000 and £20,000 and I might be entirely wrong but forgive me. That is off the top of my head.

Q473 Chair: Since your Department seems to have had little success in persuading the DfES to take the sprinkler issue seriously, why have you not imposed it on them through building regulations?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I am not sure that we have had little success in impressing upon them. We have corresponded with them. We think that they are taking the matter very seriously. I know that colleague ministers are looking at this. They are waiting for submissions at the end of the consultation period. The DfES are responsible for schools. They are responsible for the building programme, the refurbishment and building standards which is why BB100 is their baby and not ours. The building regulations that we are coming forward with in due course will not be in effect until April 2007 and mainly deal with domestic and care homes.

Chair: We are going to be following it up directly with the DfES anyway so maybe we might add to your success.

Q474 Mr Betts: On the filing project, we are aware that police services up and down the country have had major problems in south Yorkshire and other parts of the country as well with their communication systems and the technology, which has almost got to the point of losing public confidence in the police service's ability to respond. It has been that bad. You are now intending to use the same technology for filing. Does that not give you sleepless nights?

Jim Fitzpatrick: The police scheme is several years, to my understanding, I think up to five years old. The air wave scheme, I understand, that is in operation in Norfolk and in another brigade in East Anglia, as the Committee has already been told, works very well. We have built in technical specifications and penalty clauses in the event that there are any difficulties with the air wave system. We have not concluded the contract fully because we are still waiting for final sign-off but, because of the improvements in the system, because of the technical specification that we have laid down, learning from the mistakes that the police made because they were not working to the same technical specification and because of the clawback in penalty arrangements that we have written into our contract, we are not going to pick up the tab if it does go wrong. Because they are able to meet the new technical specifications, because of the improvements that have been made over recent years, we are confident that the air wave system will provide the wide area, digital, national radio network that the fire service in England and hopefully the rest of the country absolutely deserves.

John Cummings: Having gone through the experience in Durham where it has been absolutely appalling, yes, the equipment is several years old now but it was not when it was put in. We were told it was brand new, state of the art technology. I hope this Committee does not have recourse to call you back here to answer for the assurance that you have given us. It will be detailed in the minutes here so I hope that the people advising you are advising you correctly.

Q475 Chair: On that happy note, do you have anything you want to add?

Mr Woolas: We want to pay tribute to the Fire and Rescue Authority and our own staff who are putting this strategy into place. The test of our policy is in the number of fires and, in particular, the number of fire deaths. We do not publicise and promote because we do not want to be complacent, but the statistics show that the strategy is working with a reduction both in the number of fires and in the number of deaths and serious injuries over the years.

Chair: Indeed. A happier note to close on. Thank you both very much.