Memorandum from Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service Fire and Rescue Authority (FIRE 29)

 

 

Executive Summary

 

· Cornwall Council became a Unitary Authority on 1st April 2009 with a new elected administration. The new administration wants the best service for its communities that the Fire and Rescue Authority (FRA) can provide. At the present time the FRA, which is all 123 elected Members, has yet to be convinced that the move to a Regional Centre is in the best interests of the communities of Cornwall. There is little political will to suggest that the FRA will sign up to the regionalisation model. There are a number of areas where greater detail and/or reassurance is needed for the FRA to alter this position (see paragraph 3).

 

· Over the years CLG has been made aware, by a variety of means, of political, financial and operational concerns of the FRA, but to date these have not been answered in sufficient detail to distil the lack of confidence the FRA has in the Project delivering against its ambition or for the FRA to be supportive of the principle of the FiReControl Project.

· The FRA needs clarity and assurance on a range of issues which we believe to be of fundamental importance if we are to consider committing to the Project

 

· CLG needs to recognise that there is a strong 'local' political dimension to the Project which seems to have been forgotten, especially around consultation.

 

· The FRA needs to be assured that it will bear no additional cost as a consequence of transfer FiReControl.

 

· The FRA will not be expected to sign any of the suite of agreements until the system has passed its User Acceptance Tests to reasonable satisfaction.

 

· Cutover to the RCC should not occur until both the FRA and the LACC are satisfied that each is fully prepared to operate the new service.

 

· The FRA will not (directly or indirectly) suffer a financial detriment as a result of any delay in cutting over to the RCC.

 

· The terms of any agreements will be without prejudice to the FRA's rights to claim Central Government funding now and in the future, including New Burdens funding.

 

· FRAs (through their Chief Fire Officers) will be able to continue to exercise effective control over the use of their resources on terms acceptable to them.

 

· The FRA is unconvinced that functioning of the system will allow the FRA to fully implement its IRMP policies.

 

· Confidence in the technical solution and on the ability to deliver within the timescales is not high, to this end we ask CLG to consider a Plan B (alternative options) which would be openly consulted upon.

 

· The FRA has real concerns over the escalating costs and affordability of the Project even though CLG has stated that the Project is now in a financial stable state.

 

· CLG seems to be unaware of the effect of the delay and lag in the Project on the recruitment and retention of staff and the consequent effect on the morale of staff that still see their futures as uncertain.

 

Introduction

 

1. The headline issue from the Business Case is that FiReControl will provide vastly enhanced capability to the FRS which will benefit the general public, fire fighters and control room staff at no additional cost to the FRA. The FRA does not currently have sufficient information to enable it to justify supporting that proposition. It needs reassurance about important Project issues, technical, political and economic before it can make an informed decision.

 

2. The FRA however does recognise that the Firelink Radio Project, with the introduction of the new wide area communications system and mobile data terminals on front line appliances, has had and will continue to have, a positive impact on improving public and fire-fighter safety.

 

Funding and contractual arrangements

 

3. The FRA is concerned that the Government will not abide by its commitment to the principle that no FRA should be in a financially worse position than it was prior to its move into the RCC by only agreeing to a three year proposal for additional 'resilience' payments. Once the new network is established, a significant number of FRAs are expected to make savings as a result of the implementation of FiReControl. The current position for Cornwall FRA is that an additional 'resilience' payment of £157k per annum is needed year on year. Whilst the Government has pledged to provide 'resilience' payments in the region of £8.2 million per annum to cover the increased costs for many of the regional control centres, these payments are only for three years. This raises concern over the prospect that the FRA may have to pick up an additional significant financial burden if the New Burdens payment is reduced, withdrawn or assimilated into the revenue support grant without addition to that grant. The FRA would have difficulty in servicing that additional financial demand when taking into account the significant pressures on its budget and the looming proposed cuts to public sector budget.

 

4. The FRA will not commit to contributing to the costs of funding the RCC or any other part of the Fire Control system until binding commitments have been received, either from all other South West FRAs, or from CLG (if not all other South West FRAs agree to participate) for the financing of the balance of the Regional costs throughout the lifetime of the Fire Control Service.

 

5. The Business Case assumes an investment of £100,000 per fire and rescue service in interfaces which are in addition to existing planned and funded investments. This is equivalent to interfacing eight back office systems at a cost of £12,500 each. It is further assumed that it will be possible for each fire and rescue service to implement three of these additional interfaces a year, i.e. investment in the new interfaces will occur over a three year period, starting six months before each fire and rescue service cuts over to the new Control arrangements. It is not clear if CLG is going to meet this cost and the other necessary associated costs to integrate legacy back office systems (new 'in-scope' and 'out of scope' activities) with the FiReControl solution. If CLG does not fund these activities then the FRA sees this as a net imposed unwanted new burden which is contrary to the CLG's previously stated commitment.

 

6. The FRA is expected to take a number of important decisions, for example, agreeing the contractual arrangements between LACCs and CLG. Fire Service Circular 73/2009, the formal consultation document on the proposed document, states that the agreements need to be simple, transparent and developed in partnership. The FRA agrees with this in principle, however, we are disappointed that once again a CLG document is short on detail and does not provide us with sufficient information on which to make an informed decision.

Dependencies

7. A number of critical dependencies can be identified within the FiReControl Project. As the Project moves into the delivery phase, there is increased focus on the successful delivery of early deliverables from the IT supplier that will enable fire and rescue services to progress work. Without receiving these products in a timely manner, fire and rescue services cannot progress the work required of them to deliver FiReControl. There are significant concerns over the ability of EADS and its suppliers in making progress on delivering and installing the new technology infrastructure. In fact much of the technology is becoming obsolete before it has been installed due to delays in the Project and progress in technology. The 10 month delay announced last year, the change of solution provider and rationalisation of the CLG Project Team further erodes the confidence that the new technology infrastructure will be in place to meet the cut over timetable. Are there any real and meaningful guarantees that there will be no further delays in the Project? A by product of any such delay would compromise our ability to not only retain and recruit staff but also to maintain our existing mobilisation system.

 

Considerations

 

8. Given that there are significant concerns over the affordability of the FiReControl Project and that there is still no assurance that the information technology will be up to the job, is there an option for building on existing structures, using joint procurement and improving joined up working between fire authorities?

 

9. The new administration in Scotland cancelled the plans for regionalisation in 2007 yet is still going ahead with the infrastructure improvements, IT and interoperability upgrades which raise the question as to whether regionalisation is needed if new technologies can be adopted to improve resilience. Has this model been explored in detail to establish if this is an option for moving forward bearing in mind the comments made in the previous paragraph?

 

Conclusion

 

10. The lack of detailed information and effective consultation on the FiReControl Project and a true partnership arrangement approach between CLG and the FRA has had a negative effect on the confidence that this is a joint arrangement which will provide a more effective service to the public through a resilient and supportive network

 

11. There are still concerns that clarity on the financial detail and ongoing financial commitment post cut over is needed before the FRA can make any informed decision on whether the Service will migrate to FiReControl.

 

12. The FRA will require assurance that Chief Fire Officers will still have direct

control over the deployment of their resources.

 

13. There needs to be a far more professional and open relationship between CLG and the FRA. The perception within the FRA is that the FRA is being driven to complying with the Project and asked to make decisions not withstanding the fact that it is in the dark on issues which are of fundamental importance.

 

January 2010