Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380-399)
MR DAVID
JAMIESON MP, PHIL
HOPE MP AND
FIONA MACTAGGART
MP
2 MARCH 2005
Q380 Chairman: Mr Hope, briefly on this?
Phil Hope: I just want to explain
that the Fire Service, and the Retained Fire Service in particular,
are not volunteers, they are a paid Service and they do their
duties paid part-time. In that sense, they are not volunteers
at all; they have chosen to do a paid part-time job and are released
by their employer to do it. On the particular incident you mention,
which I was aware of, Mrs Dunwoody, which did lead to the tragic
death of a fire-fighter under the retained duties system when
he was attempting a water rescue, that resulted in the Health
and Safety Executive prosecuting the Greater Manchester Fire and
Civil Defence Authority. That was unsuccessful but it has led
to a wider debate now between the Health and Safety Executive
and the Fire and Rescue Service about the different protocols,
because there are fire risk assessment procedures and the training
and equipment required.
Q381 Chairman: The point that was being
made to us, Minister, was a very simple one. It is that if you
want people to volunteer, and in this particular case certainly
it was a retained fire-fighter but the principle is exactly the
same, surely it would be a lot more sensible to sort out practical
problems like that?
Phil Hope: Yes, indeed. On that
particular incident, there was some national guidance then published,
which now other Fire and Rescue Services can use, called "Working
On or Near Water". I think, if there is anything positive
which can come out of a tragedy like that, certainly that is a
positive step forward. Importantly, on the wider question of the
retained system, we rely heavily on the retained system providing
for fire and rescue cover in this country. Some 60% of appliances
are manned using the retained system, 90% of the country is covered
through the retained system and, there is a problem, we have a
20% shortfall. What we would like to be seeing is in terms of
recruitment to that retained system. There was a report published
recently looking at the whole issue of how we can raise the capability
and the performance of the retained system and that covers questions
about the recognition, the retaining of the retained fire-fighters,
recruitment, in fact the whole culture of the Fire and Rescue
Service. I am sorry, I am drifting off it slightly, Mrs Dunwoody,
but it is a key area for us.
Q382 Clive Efford: Just on that point,
on the retained fire-fighters, are they not performing exactly
the same service as Auxiliary Coastguard staff? Should they not
be retained on the same basis?
Phil Hope: The Auxiliary Coastguard
staffing will be a matter for the DfT to reply to, if that is
okay, Mrs Dunwoody, because I do not know all the details. What
I do know is that the retained system does provide a huge amount
of cover, and indeed what we are trying to do is make sure that
is fully integrated between both the full-time fire-fighter and
the retained fire-fighter. This would include, for the coastal
Fire and Rescue authorities, through the Sea of Change project,
equipping and training fire-fighters, which might include full-time
or retained, to provide rescue at sea, and that is a project in
which I think 15 coastal Fire and Rescue authorities are engaging,
with funding from DfT to equip and train the fire-fighters.
Q383 Clive Efford: I will come back to
that, but on the point about the Auxiliary Coastguard staff?
Mr Jamieson: There are similarities
and differences between the two. I think it is true to say that
they are more like part-time workers, in terms of the retained
fire-fighters, who never know quite when their hours are going
to be expended, so they are in a slightly different position.
Whereas the auxiliary coastguards are voluntary; when they get
called out they get a call-out fee for three hours and they are
paid hourly after that. Generally, they are people who are in
full-time, other employment, or people who are not employed or
perhaps are retired, they are people upon whom we call in cases
when there is an emergency.
Q384 Clive Efford: What is the current
situation regarding dealing with offshore fires; do we have adequate
cover?
Mr Jamieson: We had concerns that
we got down to nine fire authorities providing the cover and we
were concerned that a number of authorities were pulling out of
the cover at sea. As Phil has just mentioned, there is a Sea of
Change project which my department has funded, which is for training
and for equipment. We have now 15 fire authorities around our
coast, which we think is adequate for tackling the issues of fire
at sea. In the longer term, we will have some issues to do with
how we are going to cope with the funding, but we are going to
discuss those between the two departments. I think there is adequate
cover now around the coast.
Q385 Clive Efford: How would you respond
to the criticism that the ODPM have not been sufficiently instrumental
in the changes?
Phil Hope: I think we have got
a good dialogue going on now between the departments to ensure
that we do have the project fully funded. We have got questions
about the longer term, which we are going to resolve between us,
and we want to ensure that the Fire and Rescue Service, along
with the Coastguard, do provide proper cover, as required, for
offshore fire-fighting and rescue at sea. I have heard that criticism.
We have acted and I think there is now a good relationship and
an effective project in place, the Sea of Change project, which
will deliver the outcomes that we want to see.
Q386 Clive Efford: You would say that
the Fire Service is satisfied with the current situation, now
that the ODPM have responded to their criticisms?
Phil Hope: There is resource available
from the DfT to assist coastal Fire and Rescue authorities to
equip and train fire-fighters to undertake this role, and that
is the important step which has been taken from the Sea of Change
project. As you know, there is in the draft Order, which has just
finished consultation, an inclusion of a duty upon a Fire and
Rescue authority to respond where the MCA request them to do so.
We need to look at the responses to that consultation, look at
the questions of funding and then respond accordingly.
Q387 Clive Efford: One of the criticisms
has been that the ODPM had not recognised that, as an island,
we do a lot of trade at sea, and therefore it is absolutely essential
that the ODPM are fully engaged. Can I give you an opportunity
to comment on that?
Phil Hope: I understand the criticism.
All I can say to you is that there is a good working relationship
between ourselves and the DfT, who have got the lead responsibility
for the coast and offshore services, and I think the new Sea of
Change project, with the 15 coastal Fire and Rescue authorities,
is providing the kind of assurance that I think those Fire Services
might have been wanting to hear.
Q388 Clive Efford: I am not sure you
are. I am going to push you a bit further. Are you saying that
the ODPM accept that they have a responsibility in this area?
Phil Hope: The lead responsibility
rests with the Department for Transport. They have been very helpful
in developing the Sea of Change project, with coastal Fire and
Rescue authorities. As a result of that and discussions we have
had about the way forward, I think we have now a very practical
working project which will demonstrate how we can deliver the
kinds of assurances which those in the Fire and Rescue Service
have sought.
Mr Jamieson: Can I add just one
line, to say that I think it is an omission that the ODPM is not
represented on the Strategic Group, and that is something I think
we are going to put right.
Q389 Chairman: Mind you, if you meet
only once a year, it is not going to be lonely, is it?
Phil Hope: Mrs Dunwoody, the operators
do have Chief Fire Officers Association on there and they meet
regularly but, I think it is true to say, that structure was set
up pre-2001.
Q390 Chairman: They probably send you
a copy of the minutes.
Phil Hope: That was when the transition
was made of the Fire and Rescue Service's responsibilities from
the Home Office to the ODPM, and consequently we do need to address
that.
Q391 Clive Efford: I want to go back
to a point made earlier on, because I may have missed something,
it is about the health and safety requirements relating to the
Fire Service and the incident which happened last year. The criticism
of the HSE is that they will not give any indication of what they
might require, or what they might want to see, in terms of procedure,
in relation to health and safety, and that turns it into a bit
of a guessing game?
Phil Hope: The difficulty is,
as you know, the Fire Service do a risk management assessment,
both overall in their integrated risk management planning and
specifically incident by incident, and they will be training and
equipping for what they expect to be, in their area, the kinds
of incidents they might have to deal with. The extra resources
that have gone in for dealing with, for instance, new dimension
type incidents, and so on, have helped equip them for those kinds
of issues. That is a different type of assessment, and the funding
for that from the HSE, the individual protocols that they develop
when they analyse a particular incident. What we have got to do
is try to bring these two together so that we do not have this
kind of difference and actually we can try to reconcile those
two things together. On the particular incident which triggered
a lot of this debate, the one in Manchester, yes, we have now
published this guidance. I think there is more work to be done
with the HSE and the Fire and Rescue Service to try to make sure
that these things are complementary to one another and not, as
it were, contradicting one another, so that fire-fighters can
be sure that when they are going into an incident they have been
properly equipped and trained to do the job safely.
Q392 Clive Efford: May I move on, just
briefly, to the issue of safety on beaches, that the RNLI are
now providing cover on some beaches. Is there any statutory responsibility
for any organisation to provide safety information or cover on
beaches?
Phil Hope: No, there is not. Local
authorities have no statutory requirement to supply lifeguards,
and it is at the discretion of the local authority, on the assessment
of their own needs in their own areas, that they will decide whether
or not to do that. I have to say, where the local authorities
are owners of the beach then they do provide them; that is what
happens on the ground. They do that kind of provision mainly in
close liaison with RNLI or whatever other group would be the appropriate
group to provide that kind of safety, but it is not a statutory
requirement.
Q393 Clive Efford: It has been suggested
to us that some local authorities are stepping back from taking
responsibility. Is there a need for guidance to make it clear
in this area?
Phil Hope: I am happy to look
at that, Mrs Dunwoody. The difficulty is, we have a strategy,
as you know, where local authorities undertake their own assessment
of their communities' needs and priorities. I would expect, through
their Local Strategic Partnership, through their Community Strategy,
through their own planning processes about needs and priorities,
if they do have a beach, if the beach is unsafe, that would be
a matter for the local authority to decide how to respond to that.
Indeed, under the various forms of inspection, the Comprehensive
Performance Assessment and other ways of holding authorities to
account, there are mechanisms where local authorities are expected
to look at their own communities' needs and respond accordingly.
If you are a coastal authority, I would expect that would be something
which they might take into account, but, I repeat, there is no
statutory requirement for them to do so.
Q394 Miss McIntosh: Mr Jamieson, are
we more dependent upon volunteers in Search and Rescue in this
country, coastal, maritime and mountain?
Mr Jamieson: More dependent than
they would be in other countries. There is a very wide range of
different models of Search and Rescue throughout the world and
they operate in all sorts of different ways. Some of the other
European countries have written them down for water, they have
a totally professional, almost semi-military organisation, I believe
in the United States as well. Many other countries run a system
which is rather like ours, which is partly the full-time, paid
professionals—I am being very cautious about the use of
this word "professional" now—but also people who
volunteer their services. It is interesting that many countries
with which we have had associations historically tend to have
a model rather like ours, and I think France tends to have a system
which is very centrally run, almost militaristic. That is for
them to decide. What we have to look at with our system is does
it work and is it saving lives, and really that is the judgment
we have to make.
Q395 Miss McIntosh: In their submission
to this Committee, NUMAST have suggested that the provision of
statutory recognition for voluntary work with the UK Search and
Rescue agencies should be actively considered. What would be the
implications of that for recruiting volunteers?
Mr Jamieson: I am not sure. That
has not been brought to my attention before. I am not quite sure
what that means. All the volunteers, certainly in the Coastguard,
are very much recognised for the work that they do, in some cases
they are paid for the work. They are highly trained and they have
to come up to the standards of those people who are working full-time,
professionally, just as the retained fire-fighters have to as
well. Anything which enhances their status, anything which assists
those people, and certainly enhances the recruitment, then certainly
we would look at that positively.
Q396 Miss McIntosh: Obviously, both at
sea and in mountainous regions, weather has quite an impact on
the potential for an accident or an incident, particularly weather
forecasting. We heard that the MCA do repeat, make available,
the Met weather forecasts. They would look favourably on having
a dedicated channel for sailors and sea-goers, but presumably
that would require extra financing. Is that something the department
would look favourably upon?
Mr Jamieson: Again, I have not
had that issue brought to me at an operational level, but if it
were needed operationally of course the MCA would address that.
Q397 Mrs Ellman: Has any guidance been
issued to local authorities about how they should work with voluntary
Search and Rescue organisations in emergency planning?
Phil Hope: We would not be aware
of any guidance on emergency planning. We are establishing a new
regional forum, a resilience forum, across the country, as part
of the Civil Contingencies Act. That forum will give an opportunity
for us to liaise, consult and engage with those voluntary Search
and Rescue organisations, to ensure that, in the regional assessment
of risk and in responding to incidents as and when they occur,
there is a structure by which we will have engaged, as it were,
with those organisations, before the event happens, to ensure
that we understand their needs and their assessment of the risks.
Q398 Mrs Ellman: We did have some evidence
that there was some inconsistency of approach, so would that deal
with it?
Phil Hope: Local authorities should
have regard to the views of the voluntary organisations in their
area according to the situation, because there is a difference
between what goes on in the mountainous areas and what goes on
around the coastline. That is now part of the new system which
is in place. You asked me whether we had issued specific guidance
on that. What we have done is created a new structure and a new
system in which those people should be operating. Technically,
that is guidance. I would need to write to the Committee to say
that, but certainly the new structure is in place and clearly
that is something which should be happening through the new structure.
Q399 Mrs Ellman: Should Mountain Rescue
in England and Wales get any statutory funding, as it does in
Scotland? Is that something which is being considered?
Fiona Mactaggart: The Scottish
funding is put through the Police Services in Scotland and actually
there are two police areas in England where Mountain Rescue organisations
do get funding, that is North Wales and Cumbria, via their Police
Service, mainly for their insurance costs. There is the capacity
for the police to do that in the same way for particular needs
which are identified in a particular area. Obviously, the need
in Scotland is greater because there are more mountain rescues
in Scotland.
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