Fire and Rescue Service

Wednesday, 29, Jun 2005 09:15

What is the Fire Service?

The Fire Service responds to fires and other emergencies, provides advice about fire safety and enforces fire safety laws, and helps plan and prepare for various emergencies, such as rail crashes.

The Government's proposals for reforming the Fire Service were published in June 2003 following a period of industrial strife and a major review of the Service's work.

The White Paper, 'Our Fire and Rescue Service', proposed radically changing the Service's role as set out in the Fire Services Act 1947 and renaming it as the Fire and Rescue Service.

At the time of the 2002 Bain review, the Fire Service was administered by 50 'Fire Authorities': 16 county councils, six joint Fire and Civil Defence Authorities set up under the Local Government Act 1985 in the former metropolitan authority areas; the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) in the area administered by the Greater London Authority; and 24 other combined authorities (in counties affected by the 1992 creation of unitary authorities) in England, three in Wales, eight in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland.

Fire Authorities are manned by councillors, in numbers reflecting the size of the authority and its political balance.

Background

It was not until the Fire Brigades Act of 1938 that all local authorities outside London were required to maintain fire services. During the Second World War, all fire brigades were combined to form the National Fire Service, but they reverted to local authority control under the Fire Services Act 1947, which appointed county councils as the Fire Authorities.

The local government reforms that took place between 1963 and 1998 saw responsibility for the Fire Service shift to and between various other upper-tier authorities.

Nonetheless, the 1947 Act remained the principal foundation of the Fire Service throughout this period, in spite of seven reviews between 1970 and Bain in 2002, which each stressed the need to overhaul fire prevention and fire fighting and change the culture of the Service.

The Act invests the Fire Service with a duty to put out fires, and to carry out emergency 'special services'. These include dealing with major transport incidents (road, rail and air); chemical, biological and radioactive exposures and spills; severe weather conditions like flooding and high winds; collapsed buildings; and the rescue of trapped people, including those stuck in lifts. It also requires the Service to carry out fire prevention work through inspections of certain types of building.

The 1947 Act also lays down arrangements that were geared primarily to the needs of the Second World War: it prescribes staffing levels; the location of firefighters, stations and appliances; and exactly how many appliances should attend a fire, and within what timeframe. Fire cover is determined strictly in accordance with how built up an area is.

Despite responsibility resting in the hands of local authorities, the Act set national standards that were frequently thought to be inappropriate to local needs.

Therefore, the 2003 White Paper proposed that each Fire Authority produce an Integrated Risk Management Plan, including targets and objectives for reducing risks, balancing prevention and intervention and determining response standards and resource allocation. It also sought to mandate authorities to concentrate more heavily on fire prevention, as studies showed that 50 per cent of all fire deaths occur before the fire brigade is even called.

The White Paper aims to give Fire Authorities greater freedom to allocate resources to local concerns, to be more proactive, to engage in dealing with environmental hazards (such as flooding), to work more closely with other bodies, and to play a key role in the domestic war against terrorism. Firefighters would have new powers, such as to engage in paramedical activities.

The White Paper generated much debate and the consultation period ended in March 2004.

Controversies

Despite a series of reviews preceding Bain, by 2003 many observers said that the Fire Service still needed reform because the findings of the reviews were never implemented in full.

However, the Bain review was not launched solely to restructure the Fire Service: it emerged in response to a year-long bitter industrial dispute between Fire Authorities and firefighters, represented by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

The union wanted substantial pay increases for firefighters, but the employers were only prepared to make offers in return for restructuring - which meant job cuts. The FBU would not accept the terms offered and strikes ensued, resulting in the Government deploying the Army fire engines, nick-named the 'Green Goddesses', on the streets. To end the dispute, the Government promised an independent review, headed by Sir George Bain. The FBU did not give its support. The Fire Services Act 2003 now gives the Secretary of State powers to impose conditions on employees and Fire Authorities in the event of future disputes.

The reforms proposed in the White Paper, by removing the staffing requirements of the 1947 Act, will almost certainly lead to job losses in the Fire Service, as shift patterns are reformed and stations relocated. In particular, the Paper calls for the replacement of the current 49 control rooms with nine regional ones. However, the Government argues that they will also open up new ranges of specialities to firefighters who it claims have to date been stuck in narrow career structures.

However, the move towards 'regionalisation' outlined in the White Paper - principally at the level of management, but also in terms of equipment procurement and maintenance - is also controversial, as have been all of the Government's proposals for regional administration. Opponents fear that regionalisation will reduce local autonomy, responsiveness and accountability.

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