Mr Jim Cunningham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Jim Cunningham on 2014-03-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of reductions in local government spending on the effectiveness of fire brigades.

Brandon Lewis

[Holding Reply: Monday 31 March 2014]

Fire and rescue authorities are best placed to assess and manage their services and do this through integrated risk management planning. Fire and rescue authorities now attend 46 per cent fewer incidents than ten years ago and they allocate their resources according to local risk.

There is still scope for fire and rescue authorities to make sensible savings, e.g. through reforms to flexible staffing and crewing arrangements, better procurement; shared services, collaboration with emergency services and other organisations on service delivery and estates, sickness management; sharing of senior staff, locally led mergers and operational collaborations, new fire-fighting technology, preventative approaches and working with local businesses.

In his independent review, Sir Ken Knight concluded that fire and rescue authorities need to transform themselves to reflect the entirely different era of risk and demand they now operate in.