Examination of Witnesses (Questions
20-30)
21 OCTOBER 2003
MR BARRY
DIXON, MR
RUSS JAMES,
MR PETER
COOMBS, MR
CHARLES KERR,
MS VAL
SHAWCROSS AND
MR KEN
KNIGHT
Q20 Mr Cummings: So you are confident
that you will save more lives at no additional cost.
Mr Knight: Yes, I am confident—the
same as my colleague on the right—that we need to redirect
the resources that we have to the area of greatest need, that
is to save lives.
Mr James: From my perspective,
if we take on additional responsibilities other than what we are
doing now, that has to be properly funded.
Q21 Mr Cummings: In its widest interpretation
a rescue role could include anything from environmental disasters
to animal rescues. Do you have any concerns about the statutory
rescue role?
Mr Coombs: Certainly we would
have some concerns about the widening role because with responsibility
comes accountability. What I can also say is that where we are
asked to undertake a role there is no reason why we should not
properly undertake it.
Q22 Chairman: What about cats up
trees?
Mr Coombs: Let us just say that
in Kent there was a disproportionate number of injuries arising
from rescuing animals. Our answer was to get a specialist animal
rescue tender to actually undertake that work. We have done that;
it is successful; the public seem very content with that in Kent.
Ms Shawcross: We only get 700
animal rescues out of a hundred and 50 thousand calls year; it
is not an issue. I am more concerned about things like human beings
trapped in lifts of which we get about fifteen thousand a year.
I think one of the things that happens in the public sector is
that other public sector costs get dumped on the fire service
and if we properly engage with the prevention agenda—not
just on the fire issue but a whole range of physical risks—we
can get the councils and organisations that run those buildings
to deal with them.
Mr Dixon: We deal with 6,500 very
serious incidents a year. My concern is that there is not necessarily
a recognition of the environment that fire fighters have to work
in at different times of the day and night when all safety measures
have actually broken down. I believe there is a need for recognition
of the operational imperative by other agencies.
Q23 Chairman: Who pays for getting
people out of lifts? Should whoever owns the lift pay?
Mr Knight: We currently attend
those incidents with people stuck in the lift cage rather than
being physically trapped, and the statistics referred to earlier
were people just stuck in a lift. I think it is telling that during
the dispute last year these incidents were clearly not undertaken
by the alternative services provided by the military, they were
provided by the local authorities and by the lift companies. We
think it is an area of business that we have moved into but actually
we should not be picking up the cost for it.
Q24 Chairman: So you do not charge.
Ms Shawcross: We do not have the
power to charge. I think if we had the power to charge we would
try to use it from a policy point of view, not to raise money
but to use it as a mechanism to try to reduce the number of people
who go through the misery of being trapped in a lift.
Mr Dixon: We have a policy for
recovering costs wherever possible which I think is right firstly
to drive down unnecessary calls and ask people to go and seek
help from other agencies. Wherever we use certain of our equipment
on special service calls where there is no risk of fire and no
risk to life, we actually recover our costs then.
Mr James: Could I make a small
point on a different issue of the same question. The wider our
range of activity the wider the range and depth of the competencies
that our fire fighters require. You are expecting them to be trained
and experienced in a much wider range of issues, therefore there
is a problem in terms of capacity. Specialism is perhaps one answer
to that.
Q25 Mr Cummings: Do you see any potential
conflict between yourselves and the Health and Safety Executive?
Mr Dixon: I think there is a danger
of that. I think it refers to the point I made earlier about understanding
the type of environment the Service has to operate in when all
safety systems have broken down and it is a very, very difficult
environment and people have to make very difficult decisions in
respect of saving lives.
Q26 Mr Cummings: Is there a danger
in that that some brigades may feel unable to respond to unusual
rescue incidents?
Mr Dixon: I think the opportunity
exists at the present time for authorities to make a decision
whether they would or would not become involved in such work,
but there needs to be clarity on the Government's intentions.
Q27 Mr Cummings: Who would make that
decision?
Mr Dixon: At this present time
fire authorities. Our fire authority made that decision to continue
to respond to calls from members of the public at a whole range
of emergencies other than those involving fire.
Q28 Mr Cummings: Could another brigade
take a different attitude?
Mr Dixon: It could well. Given
the clarity—and we need the clarity—about what is
expected about where we will provide our service to rescue people
from whatever danger they may find themselves in needs clarity
and an understanding about whether it is power or a statutory
duty. Given that, then the resources and funding must follow to
support brigades in doing that work.
Mr Coombs: The experience will
be different because we deal with different inspectors from the
Health and Safety Executive. Certainly in Kent we have found that
where we have taken on a role and we have properly assessed that
role, we have undertaken it safely and resourced it accordingly.
We have just had our full inspection from the Health and Safety
Executive and they were very satisfied with what we are doing,
so I cannot say that I have found a problem with the Health and
Safety Executive, but we do have to accept in taking on more roles
that you cannot always find the money from inside; sometimes you
need resources to go along with it.
Mr Knight: Certainly I would not
wish to see a long list of special services or of rescues that
the fire authority may or may not do. I would prefer an approach
that talked about community well being. That would allow the authority
to make their judgment as to where they wished to place their
resources for the well-being of the community, which may include
or exclude some of those special services.
Q29 Chairman: So far as Health and
Safety is concerned, they are saying that fire officers should
be trained for a particular situation. It is human nature to try
to get involved in a rescue so you could have a situation where
a fire officer is told not to do something because they do not
have the training for it, and yet a member of the general public—actually
in the same situation—would have a go whether it is realistic
or not. Is that correct?
Mr Dixon: The difficulty that
the Service has is that fire fighters have to undertake a whole
range of different specialisms and the danger comes if the Health
and Safety Executive were to compare us under this council of
perfection with individuals that have only one role, for instance,
a life guard or cave rescue or anything else. It is about a generic
approach that the Service has to apply to make sure that we maintain
the safety of our fire fighters and meet public expectations when
called upon.
Q30 Chairman: You have not quite
answered the question about the general public as opposed to a
fire officer.
Mr James: The member of the general
public only has a duty of care insofar as he commits himself to
effect a rescue. We have statutory duties and if we get it wrong
we can be pilloried, and that has happened.
Chairman: Can I thank you very much for
your evidence. If there is anything you did not feel you had a
chance to say in enough detail, we would always be happy to receive
a note. Can we have the next set of witnesses, please?
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