Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380-388)
19 NOVEMBER 2003
PROFESSOR SIR
GEORGE BAIN
AND MR
BOB EVANS
Q380 Christine Russell: I know the
FBU did not take part in your review, they refused to co-operate.
Professor Bain: They did not,
unfortunately.
Q381 Christine Russell: So you feel
that is their real fear, loss of jobs, rather than any kind of
inferiority complex, of being overshadowed by their colleagues
in the police or paramedics?
Professor Bain: Again I am just
expressing an opinion here, but I think so because it does not
follow that the people who would be running control rooms would
be the police. It is obviously up to others to decide how these
mergers would take place but it does not follow that the Police
or the Ambulance Service would end up running the control room,
at least it was not our intention.
Q382 Christine Russell: I do not
think this is an issue which you directly addressed in your review
but a number of witness have supported the idea of a single agency
for community safety. Have you got any views on that?
Professor Bain: I have not myself,
no.
Q383 Christine Russell: Could we
move on to pensions because, as you obviously know, many fire
authorities are already having to use probably 20% of their revenue
budget on paying the pensions of retired firefighters and I note
that in the summary of your review you say the firefighters' pension
service is inflexible, it does not accommodate a diverse workforce
or working patterns, as presently managed it encourages too many
staff to leave early on medical grounds, it is costly, etc. Are
there, therefore, perhaps a bit disappointed that the White Paper
did not really pay much attention to the pensions issue?
Professor Bain: I actually thought,
Ms Russell, that it did pay quite a lot of attention to it and
in fact I thought actually it had picked up all the points we
made. I am looking at pages 61-62 of the White Paper and on 62,
for example, it says it is going to broaden the definition of
the term "firefighter" to allow a wider range of people.
It is going to place an obligation on the fire authorities to
use independent medical assessment because at the moment firefighters
can retire without independent assessment. They are going to introduce
alternate arrangements for funding it and they are going to introduce
a new scheme more suited to the Service of the future. So I actually
thought they did pick up all the points that we had made.
Q384 Christine Russell: I think the
concern, particularly from some of the fire authorities, is that
there is just not sufficient clarity in what it actually says
in the White Paper will happen in the future and it is based on
the concern that if they are already having to use 20% of their
budget that could even grow in the future because of the influx
of firefighters in the 70s who are coming towards the end of their
working lives.
Professor Bain: I suppose one
would have to see how it eventually turns out. Whether there is
enough clarity in the White Paper I suppose is a matter of opinion,
but certainly a modern Fire Service is going to need a very different
pension system. In fact, I think the figure we were using was
25% of the existing budget of fire authorities, before anything
else happens, simply goes towards pension costs. Just as important,
I think, it forces people basically to retire at quite a young
age. If you joined at 18 you would be retiring before 50 and while
some people might find that attractive, given that we are all
living longer, etc—
Q385 Chairman: Does that not have
a useful effect? It seems that there is an awful lot of people
who have got fire qualifications who can go out and work in industry,
giving them advice?
Professor Bain: Well, it may,
but you might be arguing that it would be better to have them
perhaps doing other kinds of work like fire prevention and so
on and that the choice should be with the individual. The other
thing, of course, it does is to make it very difficult for women,
very difficult for those who do not start early or come in mid-career
because, as you know, I think it is after 20 years that the accrual
rate increases. So it is really meant for people—again the
one size fits all—who are going to join the Service at around
20 and stay for 30 years, although I think something like 43%
actually go out on ill-health retirement, which is a huge figure
and it used to be much higher, around 27½ years, which is
the actuarial most favourable point at which to go. So I think
it is absolutely critical both for economic reasons and career
reasons that the pension is revised.
Q386 Christine Russell: I am being
told that we are running out of time so could I ask you perhaps
the most controversial question to end with, which is do you believe
that the FBU's domination of the Fire Service is a real impediment
to change?
Professor Bain: I read the FBU's
evidence to this Committee, both its written evidence and its
oral evidence, and from what I could see the FBU is saying that
it agrees with most of the White Paper.
Q387 Christine Russell: Do you believe
them?
Professor Bain: Well, I always
will look at the results which come out. I have got to an age
where I really do not care too much any longer what people say,
I look at how they behave. So perhaps ask me this in a couple
of years.
Christine Russell: Thank you.
Q388 Mr Betts: On the control rooms,
during the dispute I went to the fire control room in Sheffield
and I had some sympathy with the arguments they were using about
it being a different process in terms of taking calls and responding
to them than the Police. I went to the Ambulance Service in South
Yorkshire and they were arguing for closer integration between
the Ambulance Service and parts of the Health Service and thought
that was their priority rather than having the same facilities
as the Fire Service and the Police. I talked to the Police commanders
in Sheffield and their complaint is that the control room now
covers such a large area that when people make calls they have
not got sufficient local knowledge to direct the police cars precisely
to the areas where they are needing to go. All these factors seem
to say to me that more integration and larger areas being covered
by control rooms are not necessarily going to deliver a more effective
service.
Professor Bain: Well, there has
been quite a bit of work done on this. First of all, there is
obviously a question of how large, etc., and I am not competent
to get into that, but I would point to a few things. First of
all, the Army seemed to find it worked pretty well during the
strike. They were handling in effect joint control rooms and they
would have had less knowledge as such than any of the individual
groups had—the Ambulance, the Police or the firefighters—and
it seemed to work pretty well during that. Secondly, as I understand
it, local knowledge, etc., is not all that important. It is not
the fact that somebody knows where Fox Lane is, down this corner
and around here, etc. This is all very much computerised with
very, very big systems and local knowledge is not a particularly
critical aspect of it. We also had, again as I am sure you know,
the Mott MacDonald Report in 2000, which actually did find that
larger control rooms covering a wider area were more efficient
and more effective. So I would be somewhat sceptical. I would
not suggest perhaps a single control room for the whole of the
United Kingdom, but certainly what we were suggesting in the report
is that there are too many small fire authorities which are not
cost-effective. Again, I think I am correct in saying that London
has a single control room and it seems to work pretty well here.
So there are two aspects to this. One is, are you going to have
a combination of fire control rooms? Then of course the second
aspect, are you going to have them combined with Police, Ambulance
and so on? I think perhaps the arguments are slightly different
depending on which combinations you are talking about.
Chairman: On that note, thank you very
much for your evidence. It is very helpful. Thank you very much
indeed.
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