Memorandum submitted by Cllr André
Gonzalez de Savage, Portfolio Holder with Responsibility for Northamptonshire
Fire and Rescue Service (FIRE 33)
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service has
a control room workforce that is totally dedicated to protecting
our community and doing this in a professional and competent manner.
They are a credit to the Service, our community and themselves.
The Fire and Rescue Authority is very proud of them and their
efforts to support the community under what, at times, are very
trying circumstances.
The Government, through Ministers, has created
a climate within which it is clear that they intend to implement
their view of how Fire and Rescue Service control rooms should
be organised and function in the future. This has been reinforced
by the Minister requesting a commitment from political leaders
to do all in their power to work together to implement the Regional
Control Centre project. This environmental situation has existed
for several years and it is very clear to Fire and Rescue Authorities
that the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 gives the Minister
the ability to enforce central government's will upon local government.
Government has taken responsibility for organising and implementing
the infrastructure of the target operating model and has been
forced to delay the project.
Within this climate, Northamptonshire Fire and
Rescue Authority has taken a pragmatic and practical view towards
the future and that has been a two pronged strategy. Firstly to
work with the project, as we have no alternative within the political
climate explained above, in order to get the best system we can
to protect our community. The other strategy has been one of prudence
with public and local tax payers' money. This has led to an investment
strategy of maintaining the current mobilising system in functional
state, but not making investments in new advances unless they
are vital. This situation has existed for many years, due to the
long and delayed gestation period of the RCC project.
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service's legacy
mobilising system, whilst functional, is in urgent need of replacement
due to its age and functionality. The system is holding back the
level of service that I would wish our Fire and Rescue Service
to provide in protecting our community and employees.
I hold the view that the RCC project will provide
a better and more resilient mobilising system and so enable us
to provide a better service to our community and our employees
than we do at the moment which, given the above, will not be difficult
to achieve. The local community's view is, overwhelmingly, that
they want their Fire and Rescue Service control room to remain
local and within the county. As a locally, democratically elected
leader, I support this view.
I think that, whilst real and imminent, the
probability and effects of terrorism have been over exaggerated.
Our Fire and Rescue Service is already one of the best in the
western or developed world and has proved this at incidents such
as Buncefield, the flooding in recent years and the current response
to the disaster in Haiti. The Service has proved that it has the
will and ability to work together in order to meet the effects
of such a catastrophic incident. I consider that the RCC project
over-engineers a response to this threat in order to meet political
ends.
In terms of finance, I accept that Government
has committed considerable resources to this project but I feel
this could have been better spent in supporting us to deliver
a system that met the resilience needs of the country, whilst
equally meeting the public's wish for a local location for its
control room. I am also not entirely clear of what the true cost
of the RCC project will be on the authority, given the amount
of out of scope activity that will have to be reassigned.
Overall, I object to the unwarranted imposition
of a central government solution upon local government but, more
importantly, the imposition of a system that flies in the face
of public opinion.
I hold the view that government should extricate
itself from this project and support local authorities to deliver
a solution that meets local need and facilitates greater collaboration
between all emergency services to these, thankfully very rare,
national disasters, as well as meeting the public's views on how
its Fire and Rescue Service should deliver its control room function.
February 2010
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