Agenda item

Phil Hales, NFCC Finance Coordination Committee Chair, will speak to this item.

The Chair introduced Phil Hales, Deputy Chief Fire Officer at West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service and Chair of the NFCC’s Finance Coordination Committee (FinCC), who set out the work the NFCC had been doing around fire finance.

Phil explained that the FinCC was established in an effort to ensure that technical expertise and advice on finance within the sector was joined up and to reflect the strategic plans of the NFCC. He noted that the NFCC represents the whole of the UK so the FinCC was available to provide advice and assistance to all devolved administrations, and would take into consideration the individual challenges they all faced.

The structure of the FinCC was outlined to members and they were told that the Chair of the Fire Finance Network was the Vice Chair of the Committee. Nine chief fire officers from different governance models also provide scrutiny and strategic advice for the Committee and the Home Office lead on fire policy also attends the meetings to ensure that their work is not done in isolation but that conversations were also had with key policy makers. A consultancy firm, Somerset Technical Team, which works with counties and shire district councils was also working on gathering data, the aim of which was to help provide a more professional response when working with the Home Office.

Phil discussed the FinCC’s key areas of work such as responding to the consultation on the Local Government Finance Settlement, considering a response to the Fair Funding Review and establishing a funding formula fit for a modern fire and rescue service. The Committee had also been looking into the recent changes brought in by the Local Government Finance Act and they were seeking a sector-wide view on dealing with its implications. The NFCC was keen to establish common positions of fire and rescue services and was trying to capture data on this. Phil also mentioned the NFCC funding mechanism and activities being carried out to ensure that where the NFCC was funding work, proper quality assurance checks were being undertaken. The FinCC was keen to ensure that recourses were focused as far as possible on underpinning the strategic priorities of the NFCC.

Following the presentation, members raised a few points:

·         There was a discussion about whether fire service funding should be based on risk or demand. Some members felt that there was not a binary choice but that it should be based on a combination of risk and demand, with consideration given to the change of the role and the inclusion of factors such as prevention work, work with other services, additional inspection requirements and the impact this had on resources. It was also noted that both risk and demand varies across the country, and rural areas, for example, had a different type of risk from urban areas. Other members felt more strongly that funding should come from identified risks because demand could only be measured in arrears and it was not possible to assess what the demand would be in the future. It was agreed that the phrase ‘based primarily on risk’ was acceptable.

·         Members spoke about Police and Crime Commissioners’ (PCCs) ability to increasing funding through council tax precepts but it was noted that police budgets are generally much larger than fire budgets so it could not necessarily work in the same way for fire authorities. Concerns were also raised about a cap on precepts and the potential for PCCs’ using this in their business cases to promote themselves as being able to raise the precept for fire services.

·         Leading on from this, members discussed the current rules prohibiting fire services from raising funding from precepts without a referendum. Members supported the LGA’s position that referendum requirements should be abolished for all local authorities. Members also highlighted the need for capital funding for some FRAs.

·         A conversation was had about the transformation fund and members were clear that it should not be funded by topslicing FRA budgets. Members wanted to see genuinely new money which had not been topsliced from other grants allocated to the service. Phil Hales agreed with this position and said there was work to do around data and the analysis of fire finance as it currently stands. He said that it would be crucial to put clear numbers in front of the Treasury when trying to influence them and that support from the FSMC would be useful.

Decision

Members noted the report.

Action

Officers to proceed as directed, taking members’ comments on funding into consideration.