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Fire service in the United Kingdom

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Fire service in the United Kingdom:A fire engine belonging to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service
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A fire engine belonging to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service

The fire service in the United Kingdom has undergone dramatic changes since the beginning of the 21st century, a process that has been propelled by a devolution of central government powers, new legislation and a change to operational procedures in the light of terrorism attacks and threats. Prior to the introduction of devolved parliaments and assemblies in the UK, the fire service had been the sole responsibility of the Home Office. [1] There are now many layers of governance including central, devolved and local government; fire brigades, fire and rescue services; and other executive agencies, including Her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate (HMFSI), HMFSI Scotland, and the Chief Fire Officers' Association, all with a degree of operational, legislative or administrative involvement with the fire service in the UK.


Contents

The need for modernisation

In 2002, Professor Sir George Bain was asked by the government to conduct a wide ranging review of the fire service in the UK. His report, The Independent Review of the Fire Service, led to rapid changes to fire and rescue services, and was the basis of what eventually became the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. Bain's terms of reference were described in September 2002 as follows:

"Having regard to the changing and developing role of the Fire Service in the United Kingdom, to inquire into and make recommendations on the future organisation and management of the Fire Service..." [2]

Included in many of the report's headings, and within the text was the word modernisation, but Bain's report was not popular with firefighters, and a long period of industrial action started in 2002 and continued until 2003 with a new pay and conditions package being put together.

One of the areas identified by Banin as being in need of modernising, was FRS approach to fire prevention and community fire safety. There is now more emphasis on fire prevention and providing public information coupled with encouraging businesses and individuals to take responsibility for providing a risk assessment of businesses - that will become law in October 2006. Additionally, changes to central government, local government, and geographical boundaries have had an impact on the fire service in the UK.

The fire service in the UK consists of local authority brigades - or Fire and Rescue Services, often shortened to FRSs; which come under the administrative control of metropolitan and shire, or county fire authorities, for example Essex County Fire and Rescue Service. The London is unique in having an extra layer of governance in the form of the Greater London Authority that is above the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.

Most statutory firefighting bodies consist of a fire authority, and brigade, the former reposnsible for political and administrative aspects of service provision. The latter, for delivering it. For example the LFEPA is the authority that runs the London Fire Brigade; Oxfordshire County Council is responsible for Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service. Local authorities in the UK have many other responsibilities as well as provision of a fire brigade.

Additionally, the armed forces, private fire brigades and airports all make their own firefighting provision. From 2008 onwards, a major project will be rolled out that will reduce the existing 46 fire service control rooms, to nine. It is known as FiReControl and will provide greater coordination between the emergency services.

Legislative framework

Legislation

Local authority fire services are established and granted their powers under fairly new legislation, that replaced acts of parliament dating back more than 50 years, but is still undergoing change. In 2002, there was a series of national fire strikes [3], [4], with much of the discontent caused by a report into the British fire service by Professor Sir George Bain. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the industrial action still on-going; it made radical proposals to how the fire service in the UK should be organised and managed.

Prof Bain's report ultiamtely led to a change in the law relating to firefighting in the UK, a rough timeline can be seen below:

There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. Its website outlines future changes, and specific projects:

"The aim of the Fire Modernisation Programme is to adopt modern work practices within the Fire & Rescue Service to become more efficient and effective, while strengthening the contingency and resilience of the Service to react to incidents."[10]

Select Committee

The fire service in the UK is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee. In June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report.

Committee report

The committee's brief is described on its website:

The Communities and Local Government Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for Communities and Local Government and its associated bodies.[11]

Government response

This document, and the subsequent government response[12] in September 2006, are important as they outlined progress on the FiReControl, efforts to address diversity and the planned closure of HMFSI in 2007 among many issues.

Both documents are interesting as they refer back to Professor Bain's report and the many recommendations it made and continue to put forward the notion that there is an on-going need to modernise FRSs. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office.

Fire service ministers

The fire service minister is the most senior politician whose brief directly includes fire and rescue issues, however the function is devolved to the other UK assmeblies and parliament. The fire service minister is not part of the Prime Minister's cabinet. The post is held by a junior minister, or Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State who reports to the secretary of state for Communities and Local Government, who takes ultimate responsibility for fire and rescue, but that is part of a much wider brief.

Previous ministers

UK fire service structure

Fire and rescue

Central/devolved government

The fire service has always been the ultimate responsibility of a government department, assisted by an executive agency called Her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate or HMFSI[13], its website describes its role thus:

"To achieve our vision by education and legislation, in an environment that encourages best practice, equality and diversity, health and safety and best value, and through inspection, to advance the development and continuous improvement of fire brigades."

Directly after the May 2001 general election, control of the fire service in the UK passed from the Home Office to the DTLR - or Department for Transport, Local Government and Regions. This dpeartment was then broken up creating the Office of the Deputy Prime Minsister - known as ODPM which took central government responsibility. The Home Office had historically been responsible for the department since 1938 World War II - the National Fire Service brought fire brigades under national control during war time, it was in turn under the auspices of the Civil Defence Service.

However, in May 2006, the ODPM was re-structured creating the Department for Communities and Local Government or DfCLG, and it became the central government department for fire authorities in England.[14] [15] This has created a layered governance of UK fire brigades and rescue services:

Regional government

Below national level, there are regional and local bodies whose role it is to establish a fire authority, implement the legislation from the tier above, while working alongside the relevant HMFSI and other interested bodies.

The next level beneath that of local authority, is a brigade which usually comes under the operational command of a high ranking senior officer. Traditionally Chief Fire Officers, or Fire Masters in Scotland have risen through the ranks from firefighter, although under modernisation plans brigades will eventually be able to offer direct entry, and fast track promotion as is already the case with the armed forces and the police. Chief Fire Officers 'speak' collectively in the UK via the CFOA - Chief Fire Offciers' Association.

CFOs do attend operational incidents. CFO Roy Wilsher took command at the Hertfordshire oil depot fire at Buncefield, and was part of the gold command team, a CFO would usually be in charge of a fire, or at least the most senior officer in attendance would be.

FRS or brigade level

Brigades are further sub-divided according to local practice as follows:

Resilience

The Cabinet Office is responsible for the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, known as the CSS,[22] it provides advice for individuals in case of a major disaster:

"The (web)site provides easily understandable guidance for the general public on how to prepare themselves, their families and their homes and businesses to cope during an emergency or disaster."

Any such emergency or disaster is likely to involve a UK FRS, and the generic term for such contingency plans has become known as resilience [23] The 'Preparing for emergencies website' gives specific government advice on fire safety, specific examples include the summer fire safety campaign, and schools' fire safety guide which are just two examples. [24]

Fire service funding

In the UK, a FRS generally provides its services for free, although there are some special services that can be charged for, and some additional services that can be paid for. The service is free to the end user in the case of an emergency.

Funding for the fire service comes from two principal sources. Taking one random example, Wolverhampton City Council, in England has published details of its budget and council tax for the financial year 2006 to 2007 in an online statement from its leader. [25]

Precept

The document above refers to a 4.8% increase in the fire precept; this is simply an amount of money collected by a local authority, from individuals, via their council tax which goes towards the cost of funding the FRS. The precept is paid to the fire authority that covers the council area - in this case it is the West Midlands Fire Authority. But a fire authority is generally bigger than a borough or small city council. Where there are several boroughs, as in the case of London, the precept collected from each borough will be paid to the fire authority.

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service mentioned specifically the precept in it budget settlement for 2006. [26] The FRS is clearly telling its service users how much they will have to pay towards running the fire service.

Grant settlement

The remainder of FRS funding comes from a central government grant settlement paid to each fire authority. Each FRS has to negotiate its own grant according to size and demands on its services.

Modernisation

Prof Bain's report highlighted many areas of proposed change that include working practises, shift hours and time spent on fire prevention duties. One of the proposals which is now well under way is the reduction of fire service control rooms.

FiReControl

At present, each of England's 46 fire and rescue services handles their own calls from the 999 system. The FiReControl project is building nine new purpose built control rooms known as Regional Control Centres or RCCs. The aim is to rationalise call handling, and aim for greater communication between the emergency services. There has been some suggestion that this could pave the way for regionalised fire and rescue services. [citation needed]

At present, calls from the 999 system - whether by mobile telephone or landline are answered by at BT operator, who feeds the call to fire, police or ambulance, or other emergency service. Staff who answer these calls also despatch the fire appliances (engines), maintain radio communications and provide detailed risk and geographical information.

These operators are employed by a FRS, they are known as Control Officers, or infomally Con Offs, and they wear a similar uniform to firefighters, and have a their own rank structure. The role of specialist fire officers and control officers overlaps where they jointly work in control or command centres.

UK fire and rescue services

England

Avon Fire and Rescue [2]
Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service [3]
Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service [4]
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service [5]
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service [6]
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service [7]
Cleveland Fire Brigade [8]
Cornwall County Fire Brigade [9]
County Durham & Darlington Fire & Rescue Service [10]
Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service [11]
Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service [12]
Devon Fire & Rescue Service [13]
Dorset Fire & Rescue Service [14]
East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service [15]
Essex County Fire & Rescue Service [16]
Gloucestershire Fire & Rescue Service [17]
Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service [18]
Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service [19]
Hereford and Worcester Fire & Rescue Service [20]
Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service [21]
Humberside Fire & Rescue Service [22]
Isle of Wight Fire & Rescue Service [23]
Kent Fire & Rescue Service [24]

Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service [25]
Leicestershire Fire & Rescue Service [26]
Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue Service [27]
London Fire Brigade [28] LFEPA|
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service [29]
Norfolk Fire & Rescue Service [30]
Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service [31]
Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service [32]
North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service [33]
Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service [34]
Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service [35]
Shropshire Fire & Rescue Service [36]
Somerset Fire & Rescue Service [37]
South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service [38]
Staffordshire Fire & Rescue Service [39]
Suffolk Fire & Rescue Service [40]
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service [41]
Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service [42]
Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service [43]
West Midlands Fire Service [44]
West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service [45]
West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service [46]
Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service [47]

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service [49]

Scotland

The Scottish brigades are still broadly based on the system of regions introduced in 1975. Fire authorities are now joint boards.

Brigade Council Areas (if different from brigade name)
Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Service [50] Clackmannanshire, Falkirk, Stirling
Dumfries and Galloway Fire Brigade
Fife Fire & Rescue Service
Grampian Fire Brigade Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray
Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service Highland, Orkney, Shetland, Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)
Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade East Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scottish Borders, West Lothian
Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Argyll and Bute, East Ayrshire,

East Dunbartonshire,East Renfrewshire,Glasgow,Inverclyde,North Ayrshire,North Lanarkshire,Renfrewshire,South Ayrshire,South Lanarkshire,West Dunbartonshire

Tayside Fire Brigade Angus, Dundee, Perth and Kinross

Wales

Brigade Principal areas covered
Mid and West Wales Fire Brigade Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire, Powys Swansea
North Wales Fire & Rescue Service Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Wrexham
South Wales Fire & Rescue Service Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Newport, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Torfaen, Vale of Glamorgan.

Wales saw a reduction in the number of fire brigades in 1996, from 8 (the number of former administrative counties) to 3, made up of groups of the new principal areas.

History

During the Second World War the many local authority fire brigades had been merged to form a single National Fire Service. After the war, in 1948, under the Fire Services Act 1947, fire was restored to local authority before, but to the county councils and county boroughs rather than the smaller areas that had previously existed.

The number of fire brigades was subsequently reduced again by mergers in 1974/1975 and in 1986.

In Scotland the brigades from 1948-1975 covered generally groups of counties and were Angus, Central, Fife, Glasgow, North Eastern, Perth and Kinross, South Eastern, South Western, Western.

References

  1. ^ National Archives, NDAD, Home Office, Accessed 25 Sep 2006
  2. ^ Independent Review of the Fire Service, online press release 20 Sep 2002, Independent review starts into pay and modernisation of the Fire Service, Accessed 25 Sep 2006
  3. ^ BBC News: countdown to fire strike 13 Nov 2002
  4. ^ BBC News: in pictures, Fire Strike in London 14 Nov 2002
  5. ^ The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, England & Wales
  6. ^ The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 England & Wales, Schedule 4
  7. ^ Fire & Rescue Services Act 2004, Pub: The Stationery Office, Crown copyright
  8. ^ Independent Review of the Fire Service, by Prof Sir George Bain, Pub: ODPM, 16 December 2002
  9. ^ Dept for Communities and Local Govt, Fire and resilience, 2006
  10. ^ LGA: Fire Service Modernisation
  11. ^ House of Commons Communities & Local Govt Committee Fire & Rescue Service, Fourth Report of Session 2005–06, Volume I: introduction
  12. ^ Government Response to the Communities & Local Government Committee’s Report on the Fire and Rescue Service, 29 September 2006, TSO
  13. ^ Dept for Communities and Local Govt, HMFSI
  14. ^ Dept for Communities and Local Govt
  15. ^ HM Government: Fire Gateway
  16. ^ HMFSI: Scottish Executive
  17. ^ Northern Ireland Assembly
  18. ^ Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
  19. ^ Welsh Assembly Government: Fire
  20. ^ LFEPA London Fire Brigade, Borough teams
  21. ^ LFEPA London Fire Brigade A to Z of fire stations
  22. ^ HM Government, Cabinet Office/CSS 'Preparing for Emergencies'
  23. ^ HM Government, Cabinet Office: UK Resilience
  24. ^ HM Government, 'Preparing for emergencies', Fire Safety
  25. ^ Wolverhampton City Council: Leader's statement - budget and council tax 2006/07 Released: Tuesday 21st February, 2006
  26. ^ West Yorshire Fire and Rescue Service: Online press release, 17 Feb 2006, Four pence a week rise in fire precept

See also

Fire services around the world

France · Germany · Hong Kong · Singapore · Macao · New Zealand · United Kingdom

Categories


Articles with unsourced statements | Fire brigades of the United Kingdom | Fire | London Government

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