Examination of Witnesses (Questions 229-239)
11 NOVEMBER 2003
SIR GRAHAM
MELDRUM CBE, MR
PETER MORPHEW,
MR ROBIN
CURRIE AND
MS MARIE
WINCKLER
Q229 Chairman: Can I welcome you
to the third session of our inquiry into the Fire Service and
ask you to identify yourselves for the record, please.
Ms Winckler: I am Marie Winckler,
Head of Fire Service Effectiveness Division at the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister.
Mr Currie: I am Robin Currie.
I am the Chief Executive of the Fire Service College.
Sir Graham Meldrum: Graham Meldrum,
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services.
Mr Morphew: Peter Morphew, Senior
Inspector of Fire Services.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Do any
of you want to say anything by way of introduction or are you
happy for us to go straight to questions? Straight to questions
then.
Q230 Mr Cummings: The Committee have
been told that some fire authorities appear to have a lot more
money available to them than others per head of population, but
the fatality rates do not always reflect the nature of the money
invested in such a service. Could you tell the Committee which,
in your view, are the good fire authorities and which are the
ones that need to improve?
Sir Graham Meldrum: Without going
through the whole list, I think the easiest way to say it is that
the fire risk relates very much to population so the dense, inner
city, highly populated areas are where the majority of fire deaths
occur. The areas which are staffed by full-time firefighters are
the areas which costs quite a considerable amount to run the Fire
Service. On the other side of that equation, of course, there
is the fact that they are related to rural risk where, where some
of the sparsity factors in themselves produce skewed results in
relation to the per head of population costs. There is no doubt
that if you look at the cost per head of population some of the
expensive fire services in that list relate either to those which
are very small fire brigades or, at the other end, the inner city
areas—such as the West Midlands, London—where the
need to have whole time fire fighters is paramount.
Q231 Mr Cummings: Should I assume
then that money does not reflect the rate of success?
Sir Graham Meldrum: I do not think
you can put it as simply as that.
Q232 Mr Cummings: Could you simplify
it for us?
Sir Graham Meldrum: I think the
areas which I mentioned—the sparsity factors or inner city
areas—the investment in relation per head of population
reflects the risks that those brigades cover.
Q233 Chairman: Are you saying it
is down to the geography?
Sir Graham Meldrum: Yes.
Q234 Chairman: My memory is that
if you look at the figures for Greater Manchester and for Merseyside,
Greater Manchester gets about a third less money than Merseyside.
They are roughly comparable areas and yet the actual performance
is about the same.
Sir Graham Meldrum: That reflects
the relative size of the brigades in terms of the amount of people
that they employ and the amount of risk that they cover within
that area, again on a geographical basis. Again, if you take inner
city areas such as Manchester or Merseyside then you can compare
the two of them, but in Manchester you have the Greater Manchester
area so there is a lot more than just Manchester itself to cover
which, again, causes a difference in the payments. It is difficult
to compare two areas like that.
Q235 Mr Cummings: Do you think the
White Paper marks a real change in the nature of the activities
carried out by the Fire Service? We have had submissions suggesting
that many of the proposals in the White Paper are not new. For
instance, the Fire Service has been conducting fire safety work
for many years, and this is not just on a statutory basis.
Sir Graham Meldrum: It is true
to say that a lot of things that are in the White Paper are issues
that have been around for quite a considerable time such as the
Fire Service's role in carrying out rescues, for instance. It
is also true to say that community fire safety has been done in
the brigade since back in the 1990's probably.
Q236 Mr Cummings: That is just one
example.
Sir Graham Meldrum: There are
others, but I think what the White Paper does is bring all these
things into focus; it put things in some sort of order and puts
the things that the Fire Service did—sometimes on an almost
good will type basis—as part of the Fire Service's duties
for the future.
Q237 Mr Cummings: So you totally
embrace the White Paper?
Sir Graham Meldrum: I certainly
do, yes.
Q238 Mr Cummings: Is that the same
with your colleagues?
Mr Morphew: It is for me.
Ms Winckler: Yes.
Q239 Chris Mole: The White Paper
clearly asks brigades and the Service to do things in an entirely
different way. Surely that implies to your agencies as well. Can
you tell us what you will be doing under the new arrangements
in the White Paper?
Sir Graham Meldrum: As far as
the Inspectorate is concerned it does change our role completely.
The Inspectorate in the past had teams of people carrying out
inspections of brigades. That happened in what I will term an
audit sense and value for money, and in the professional aspect
of the work being carried out within the fire services we inspected
What the White Paper does is to tease out that and to say that
the comprehensive performance assessments that are being carried
out in relation to local government should in the future be carried
out within the fire service—as they are within local government—by
the Audit Commission. That is part of what the Fire Service Inspectorate
picked up in 1984; we did not do that before. When the value for
money regime came in it was given to the Inspectorate to undertake
that work. We began to collect a lot of data, figures and do audit
work in fact. In the future the Fire Service Inspectorate would
return to becoming a very highly professional qualified body of
people who are there to advise the ministers and the secretary
of state on professional matters relating to the Fire Service.
The Fire Service Inspectorate would work with the Audit Commission
in relation to their work within Fire Services, and also with
the College in the development of leaders for the future of the
Service. A very close working relationship should be built with
the Fire Service to identify good practice where we see it and
ensure that is disseminated throughout the Fire Service and ministers
are made aware of best practice and how brigades are making progress
in delivering the White Paper.
| 
