Stewart Jackson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stewart Jackson on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what response she has made to the recent letter from the Chair of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire and Rescue Authority detailing improvements in that Authority’s pay and recruitment arrangements following Ministerial intervention; and if she will make a statement.

Mike Penning

Melanie Dawes, the Permanent Secretary and Accounting Officer for the Department for Communities and Local Government, replied to Sir Peter Brown the chairman of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority, on 30 December. That letter reiterated the Government’s position that all parts of the public sector should continue to demonstrate restraint in the pay and reward offered to senior staff, and should ensure that the way that their workforces are managed is truly in the interests of taxpayers.

While fire and rescue authorities are independent employers and it is for their leadership to make local decisions about the pay, reward and appointment of their staff, the Government has taken a number of steps to increase the transparency and accountability of these local decisions, not least through the Localism Act 2011 and its associated guidance.

These measures have helped create the conditions in which decisions on senior remuneration are rightfully subject to significantly greater scrutiny, ensuring the public have the information they need to hold councillors to account at the ballot box.