Minister calls for swift transformation of fire services
Fire authorities are going to have to swiftly transform their organisations and delivery of services in the aftermath of the Comprehensive Spending Review, the Minister for the Fire and Rescue Service has said.
Bob Neill listed a number of areas where services could find savings, including:
- flexible staffing arrangements
- improved sickness management
- pay restraint and recruitment freezes
- shared services/back office functions
- improved procurement
- sharing chief fire officers and other senior staff
- voluntary amalgamations.
Repeating Eric Pickles’ claim that the settlement is “fair though challenging”, the minister argued that the Fire and Rescue Service had been given some protection, but admitted there would be tough choices to make.
In a letter to all fire authority chairs and chiefs, he said: “Over the four-year period the reduction to formula grant, which makes up roughly 50% of the overall spend, will be 25%. Importantly this will be back-loaded so that fire and rescue authorities have the time to make the changes necessary to meet the reductions without impacting on the quality or breadth of services offered to their communities.”
The minister said that in the first year the formula grant reduction that will face fire and rescue authorities collectively will be in single figures (in percentage terms), with the larger proportion of the cuts falling to years three and four. Provisional figures for individual authorities will be outlined in December’s Local Government Settlement consultation.
Neill insisted that the DCLG had played its part by making radical reductions in reporting and inspection requirements. He stressed the government’s commitment to de-ring fence as much funding going to local authorities as possible – “with this in mind, we intend to move current specific fire grants into a specific grant from 2011/12 and will be discussing with fire and rescue services how we can move towards payment through Formula Grant as soon as practicable.”
The minister claimed that the settlement should be achievable largely through well-planned efficiency savings, but acknowledged that it was up to individual organisations to decide how this would be done.
Neill pointed to steps the government had taken to give authorities more flexibility, in particular allowing them to work on a collaborative basis in a way that works best locally; not enforcing national diversity targets for their workforces; and not telling them how to recruit and develop their staff.
