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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Phil Hope): I congratulate the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) on securing this important debate on the future of the Fire Service College at Moreton-in-Marsh. I want to begin by doing exactly what he has just asked me to do, which is to reaffirm our support for the college and to acknowledge the huge importance of its role in the modernisation of the fire and rescue service. The Deputy Prime Minister has visited it, as have I and other Ministers on a number of occasions.
The hon. Gentleman's brief description of the fire ground did it little justice. It is a unique facility not just in this country but across the globe. He was right to say that our firefighters deserve the very best, and at the Fire Service College, that is exactly what they have. I appreciate that with an annual turnover of £20 million and a permanent staff of more than 200—the hon. Gentleman mentioned a figure of 262—the college is a major local employer and supporter of the local economy. Many of the staff and their families live in the immediate area, and I am pleased to say that the college has a good relationship with the Moreton-in-Marsh community. It opens itself up for many annual events and gives support to local charities. Membership of the modern, well equipped sports centre is also available to the local community. The college also has other more formal roles within the community. For example, it is the designated evacuation centre for Gloucestershire county council. The House and the fire service, along with the Moreton community, are bound to take an interest in what goes on at the college, and in its future.
In May 2002, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) announced the creation of a task group of fire and rescue service stakeholders to look into the future of the Fire Service College. As I announced to the House on 30 June last year, the task group concluded that there was a need for a central training facility for the fire and rescue service, to take forward work on vocational development through the integrated personal development system, on the civil contingency response arising from the events of 11 September, and on the modernisation agenda opened up by the Bain report. The task group also recommended that a national work force development strategy be drawn up to define the role of the college in relation to other training providers, and that there should be a long-term plan for improving the college's infrastructure and services.
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In accepting the recommendations of the Fire Service College task group, I also accepted the need to address the shortcomings set out in the task group's report, some of which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned tonight. As a trading fund since April 1992, the college has struggled to meet its financial targets. It has not been able to generate the income necessary to invest in the site, or to develop its training facilities to meet the needs of today's fire and rescue service. Nor has it been able to modernise its student accommodation to meet the standard now expected by stakeholders.
So where do we go from here? It is important that the college should be fit for purpose and able to deliver the key role that it has in modernisation of the fire and rescue service, as set out in the White Paper. This sets out a number of functions for the college as a centre of excellence. It should be a national centre for incident command training, based on a fire ground that is unique in the world in its size and scope. It should provide national specialist training in urban search and rescue and other new dimension techniques, working closely with the other emergency services. It should also provide drive and leadership for reform of the fire and rescue service through links with other services and fire industry institutions, and training and development for the most senior and specialist roles. It should lead the implementation of the integrated personal development system, and spearhead e-learning in partnership with the Scottish Fire Services College.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned investment. In my statement of 30 June, I confirmed that we would make £5 million available to the college for the upgrades necessary to meet health and safety and other legislative requirements, and to invest in its training facilities and student accommodation. I am pleased to say that that work is well under way, with training rigs on the fire ground being upgraded and a new accommodation block under construction. A further £2.5 million in new dimension funding has paid for a brand new urban search and rescue training facility. This is now in use, enabling the college to provide training to fire and rescue services in how to deal with collapsed buildings, for example. Those skills of the UK fire service search and rescue terms were recently used at the tragic factory explosion in Glasgow to very good effect.
We are also making good progress in bringing the college fire ground and facilities up to standard, but years of limited investment can only be made good over the longer term. It is therefore important that the college has a coherent and realistic corporate strategy in place that shows how it will benefit from our investment and how it will generate the income for future investment, which I know that the hon. Gentleman is keen to see.
When I visited the college earlier this month, I met the acting chief executive and college directors, and we discussed both their business plan for the current year and, importantly, the development of a corporate strategy for the next five years. The hon. Gentleman is right that that strategy will need to explore the options for partnerships with both the public and private sectors. He mentioned one specific project—the airfield support services project. He will know that the fire service college is a service provider for the consortiums bidding for firefighter training under the airfield support services project. Certainly, the college welcomes the possibility of joint working with the Ministry of
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Defence. It has made provision in its business plan to do so, but given that negotiations must continue, the college's planning remains flexible, depending on the outcomes of those discussions.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of the right management team. He is right about that. I share his view that having the right management team in place is essential to realise this clear vision for the college. The appointment of a new chief executive is a key component in drawing up and delivering the college's future strategy. The selection process for a new chief executive is being run in accordance with Civil Service Commission recruitment rules to ensure fair and open competition. The competition has attracted strong interest and a selection panel chaired by a commissioner is interviewing a strong shortlist of candidates. When that process of selection has been concluded, I will have an early meeting with the new chief executive and college senior managers to discuss the corporate strategy as it takes shape.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: This is a critical point. Can the Minister give us any idea, as there has been a long period of uncertainty, how long that process will take? That would be helpful to people working at the college.
Phil Hope: I am mindful of the point that the hon. Gentleman raises. Of course, the proper processes must be followed, and it is not for Ministers to intervene in that. It is right that we need to get on with this job, because of the uncertainty that there has been, and the sooner that we get a chief executive in place in the college, the better for the college and the whole senior management team. I fully understand that concern, and I will take back those comments.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned financial and performance targets. It is important for the college to meet its targets and to have a sound financial footing so that it can meet its obligations as a trading fund, as set in the Treasury Minute that he mentioned, laid before the House on 15 January. To remind the House, those obligations were to meet outgoings from its funded operations, and to achieve a surplus on ordinary activities of 4 per cent., expressed as a percentage of average capital employed. The college has not met those targets in the past two years, but he and I would recognise that in both years trading was significantly disrupted by the fire dispute, resulting in the cancellation of 22 weeks of courses. That is one of the realities.
In my recent discussions with college senior managers, we have been in full agreement that a return to at least break-even in 2004–05 is a priority, and that is reflected in the college's budget plan for the current year. The college has also made substantial progress in modernising its products and services, with the development of a more flexible, modular form of training within a new course prospectus that is fully compliant with the integrated personal development system. We are continuing to work together to strengthen the college's trading performance in this and future years.
I want to emphasise training. The take-up of new training by fire and rescue services is positive, and the coming on-stream of new urban search and rescue
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training facilities in particular has prompted strong interest. The college does not have a monopoly of training for the fire and rescue service, however, and it operates in a highly competitive market. As I said earlier, the task group recommended the drawing up of a national work force development strategy to define the college's role in relation to others. The strategy will build on areas in which the college is a strong performer, where it has an established reputation, and where training and development can most efficiently and effectively be delivered at national level.
However, there will remain a need for some training and development to be delivered at regional and local levels. It is likely that the college will have a part to play in supporting the fire and rescue authorities and the regional management boards in those local and regional responsibilities. We look forward to the possibility of its offering services such as outreach training, development programmes and quality assurance.
I believe that the college is best equipped to provide specialist and operational training, taking advantage of the unique fire ground facilities that have already been mentioned. We have invested in updating those facilities, and in the provision of new capabilities. Further development is planned, and we are exploring ways in which the site's potential for joint training with other emergency services might be realised. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that, and we are keen to pursue it.
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