Fire and Rescue Service

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.

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.

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.

The Fire Services Act 1947 was subsequently repealed and replaced by the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.

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.

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 occured before the fire brigade was even called.

The White Paper aimed 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. The Fire and Rescue Services Act came into force in October of that year.

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 introduced in 2003 now gives the Secretary of State powers to impose conditions on employees and Fire Authorities in the event of future disputes.

The move towards 'regionalisation' outlined in the White Paper - principally at the level of management, but also in terms of equipment procurement and maintenance - was 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.

In July 2010 the Fire Minister announced that the forced regionalisation of fire services would be halted and more control handed back to local services. The move was part of the new Government's intention to give greater powers to communities and abolish regional government.

Statistics

Fatal and non-fatal casualties:
Between April 2009 and March 2010 there were 328 fatalities; five (one and a half per cent) more than in 2008-09. Accidental dwelling fires fatalities, which account for almost two thirds of all fire fatalities, were up by one from 209 in 2008-09 to 210 to 2009-10.
In 2009-10, the number of non-fatal casualties from fires fell by 8 per cent to 8,500 from 9,200 in 2008-09.

Fire Incident types:
In England the Fire and Rescue Services attended 527,000 fire and false alarm incidents in 2009-10 - a 6 per cent decrease on 2008-09.
Total fires fell by 3 per cent to 242,000.
Dwelling fires were unchanged at 39,000 and fires in other buildings were down by 1 per cent to 22,000. Road vehicle fires fell by 12 per cent to 32,000.

Attendances at false alarms decreased by 9 per cent to 285,000. Within this there was a 27 per cent fall (to 17,000) in malicious false alarms and a 7 per cent fall (to 193,000) in false alarms due to apparatus.

Fire and Rescue Services attended 143,000 non-fire incidents in 2009-10, down 8 per cent from 2008-09. The largest categories were as follows: road traffic collisions (24 per cent), lift release (14 per cent), effecting entry (11 per cent) and water removal (11 per cent).

Source: Communities and Local Government - August 2010.

Quotes

"We have fantastic Fire and Rescue Services in this country and it's time we stopped tying them up in red tape and gave them more freedom to serve their communities. We rely on our firefighters to keep us safe not waste resources on bureaucracy."

Fire Minister Bob Neill - July 2010