Agenda item

Dan Greaves, Director of Fire and Resilience at the Home Office, addressed the Fire Commission on the Government’s fire reform programme, the new Fire Minister’s priorities, and how the Home Office expected to work with the sector to take forward the reform agenda.

The following points were raised as part of the Director’s presentation:

·         In May 2016 the previous Home Secretary had set out a commitment to work with FRAs to reform the service in as radical and ambitious a way as had previously been developed with the police. This would be accomplished through strengthening of collaboration and accountability, alongside workforce reform. The new Home Secretary and Fire Minister were committed to delivering this reform agenda.

·         The new Fire Minister, Brandon Lewis, had prioritised efficiency and collaboration. Details had been published in the summer of what FRA’s spent on a basket of common goods. This exercise would be repeated in 2017. The Home Office wanted to work with FRAs to transform procurement  and this would be an early test of the sector’s ability to deliver change at pace.

·         There were some good examples of collaboration to build on, and the Police and Crime Bill, which was soon due to receive Royal Assent, included a high-level duty to collaborate. Collaboration with health services was important, and prevention pilots would form a useful evidence base to deliver better outcomes for communities.

·         The Government had offered four-year funding settlements in return for robust plans which set out ambitions for increased efficiencies. FRAS should receive greater planning certainty, with funding targeted on the basis of need and transformation. There had also been the consultation on removing fire funding from business rates, with responses being broadly supportive.

·         Under the transparency and accountability strand of the reform agenda work was ongoing with the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Chief Executives around developing business cases. The Fire Commission had previously expressed concern over Ministerial approval of business cases, and the Government had emphasised the importance of independent assessment where there was disagreement. The Fire Minister had invited the LGA to be represented on a working group on independent assessment.

·         An independent inspection regime for FRAs was a key pillar of the fire reform agenda and the support from FRAs was welcome. This would be designed to enhance security and transparency and improve performance and outcomes. The Government had commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to consider proposals, how quickly a service could be introduced and what it would cost. It was anticipated that the new inspection regime would be introduced in April 2017 to undertake piloting, scoping and benchmarking exercises, and would be fully operational in April 2018. A risk based and proportionate response would be taken, and inspection and the LGA/CFOA Peer Challenge could be complimentary.

·         Transparency would also be improved through increased public availability of information and data. Operational statistical data would be expanded, and more information on diversity and incident level data would be made publically available.

·         Workforce reforms included an ambition for the service to be more professional and diverse, and to review any national frameworks which were not fit for purpose. Details of reforms workforce reforms were included in the Thomas report, which was due to be published in the coming weeks.

·         CFOA had been asked to work on a professional framework for the fire service, including more work on professional development and an independent body to drive this, in a similar way to the College of Policing. The Home Office wanted to work with members on this area.

·         The Director explained that the Government was keen for the reform agenda to be undertaken in partnership with the sector, in consultation with Members as the political leadership of FRAs. FRAs were the employers, set the strategy and developed plans to drive transformation. FRAs had a responsibility to ensure that the service was as diverse and flexible as possible through institutional reform, and had to provide the leadership to drive the transformation of the service. The police sector had created a transformation board and the idea of bringing together the political and operational leadership in a fire context should be pursued. 

In the discussion which followed, Members raised the following points:

·         FRAs were committed to working with the Government on workforce reform, and welcomed the Minister’s desire to work with the sector.

·         In response to a question on legislation in the Police and Crime Bill for FRAs to collaborate with the other emergency services and the wider joint work with the health service, the Director said he had seen at first-hand the benefits of co-responding explained that the Government was currently gathering evidence about the value to the work..

·         Members highlighted that the Fire service was very professional and other services could learn from what it had achieved in planning and prevention, and how it operated in respect of knowledge, learning development, best practice and ethics. The sector should continue to look for savings through joint procurement, and would welcome the creation of an independent inspection regime.

·         It was acknowledged that the role of the 21^st century firefighter had changed, with the role including a greater amount of public safety and prevention work. It was suggested that recruitment processes should reflect this, possibly through greater recruitment of university graduates, which could also help to address concerns around diversity of the service.

·         In the South-West there were no co-terminous fire and police boundaries so they had established an emergency services forum to promote greater collaboration. The Director welcomed the initiative and added that the Home Office wanted to hear propositions including those for greater fire/fire collaboration.

·         Members noted the different needs of different FRAs such as those in rural areas and that this might impact on some elements of procurement.

·         In response to a question on joint working with ambulance trusts, the Director explained that it was for individual trusts to decide how they wanted to jointly work with their local FRA. Evidence from national pilots suggested that co-response was an important catalyst for change and how better outcomes could be delivered at a lower cost.

·         It was suggested that a national campaign about retained firefighters would assist the service, including in terms of diversity. The Director said there was a role for communications in all this and different areas had different needs, and there was already work on what could be done to encourage people from different backgrounds to become firefighters.

Decision

The Fire Commission noted the issues related to the Government’s fire reform agenda and thanked the Director of Fire and Resilience for his presentation.