A veiled attack on our emergency services?

The police, fire and ambulance services in Cumbria do, in fact, already work together frequently and, they say, both effectively and efficiently.

Take the recent floods in December, for example. Emergency services worked around the clock not only together but with other volunteer rescue crews, the armed forces, council employees and charities.

Cumbria County Council Stewart Young singled them out at a cabinet meeting in December saying: “People worked 24/7 to deal with this incident. Organisations have worked together, the police and fire teams have done a fantastic job and almost every volunteer organisation in the country has come forward to help.”

Though their collaboration is demonstrable, the Government announced last week that it intends to pass a law to make all three emergency services collaborate with one another “to improve efficiency or effectiveness”. It also announced that it is pressing ahead with measures to allow police and crime commissioners (PCCs) to take responsibility for their local fire and rescue authority.

Furthermore, PCCs who take this step will then be able to put in place a single “employer” in charge of hiring all fire and police personnel.

The post will be reserved for those who hold the rank of chief constable but rules will be changed to allow senior fire officers who have not previously served as a constable to apply.

The measures, which will only apply to England, will enable PCCs to take on the functions and duties of fire and rescue authorities in their area and potentially create a single employer for police and fire personnel “where a local case is made”.

In the model, a chief officer would be accountable to the PCC for both fire and policing. Beneath them, a senior fire officer would lead fire operations, while a deputy chief constable would be appointed to lead police activity.

Officials stressed that fire officers will have to complete assessments and meet standards set by the College of Policing before they are eligible to become chief officers. A law that prevents a member of a police force from being a firefighter will remain in force, while fire personnel will not be given the power of arrest.

Closer collaboration between blue-light services in the county is one of the elements of the so-called Cumbria Deal designed to give the area more control of its public services, which is already on the Government’s table.

Richard Rhodes Richard Rhodes, Cumbria’s PCC, says: “Clearly there’s a significant political steer from central government to try to save money by reducing back office and that sort of thing. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned provided we’re not going to go into the realms of compromising public safety.”

The government says if PCCs take on governance of fire and rescue services, it would allow them to make “valuable reforms and improve joint working with the police service”. Among the areas mentioned for reform is the integration of back office functions such as HR and IT.

The statutory duty on emergency services is broad, to allow for local discretion in how it is implemented. It is so that emergency services can decide themselves how best to collaborate for the benefit of their community.

However, concerns about the plans have already been raised by Mr Rhodes, Dave Burn, chairman of Cumbria Fire Brigades Union (FBU) branch, and Barry Doughty, Cumbria County Council’s cabinet member for fire and rescue, public safety and central support services.

Mr Rhodes says: “Given the strength of the government initiative, it’s something we have to look at. I think there are specific problems in any progress. The first problem is a lot of the buildings occupied by the fire service were built with PFI and I wouldn’t be interested in saddling the constabulary with a large PFI debt.

“The second issue – and I think we need to talk about this and get to grips with it – is the FBU exercises their right to go on strike. The police can’t do that, so if we have got a workforce which is in some ways unified under one person what happens if half a workforce does go on strike and that one person has to call on the other half to fill the gaps? I think that could be quite difficult.”

Dave Burn Firefighter Mr Burn says there are many details that are yet to be thrashed out but is concerned it is a veiled attack on emergency services.

He says: “It just seems like a ridiculous exercise, to be honest, because we already do this work together. What’s the driver behind it? It’s not about getting us to work better together because we already do that. It’s clearly about sharing functions and taking money out of the budgets. These are worrying times and we have seen no evidence to suggest we shouldn’t worry.”

The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives has stated it feels improving efficiency or effectiveness was not necessary. However, it said it would still embrace the opportunity to work closer together and share best practice.

One of the suggestions for where police and fire could work closer together is with a shared call centre. Mr Burn has reservations but said it would show that the fire call centre should never have been moved out of the county in the first place.

Until 2011, Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service had its own fire control room in Cockermouth, with a secondary facility in Penrith. The calls centre briefly moved to Cheshire until the North West Fire Control Centre in Warrington opened in May 2014.

This centre answers 999 fire calls from Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire. Mr Burn described the move as a “massive backward step to what we had”.

The move was supposed to improve efficiency and effectiveness by saving money with new technology. However, Mr Burn says the technology is not up to scratch and call handlers in Warrington have to battle against computers. This sometimes results in firefighters being given only vague addresses when called out to an emergency, which Mr Burns says does not fill them with confidence.

When plans to combine the police and fire call centre were raised before in 2011, the county council issued a statement saying a joint control room would not make practical or financial sense. The statement said: “It could offer neither the improved resilience of the north west control room nor the financial savings.”

When the latest plans for collaboration were announced, county councillor Mr Doughty raised concerns about the practicalities.

He said: “As Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service is part of the county council, who are in fact the fire authority, this [collaboration] may not be as simple as it is for a stand alone authority. That’s because all backroom staff are not working just on the fire and rescue services but are working for the benefit for the citizens of Cumbria and some backroom staff such as finance, HR, pensions and such have more than one function.”

He added that any collaboration would have to ensure that Cumbria is not short changed in any way.