07 December 2007
Urban fire authorities this week warned that national 'resilience capability' could be diminished unless ministers agree to freeze changes which would cut £30m from their budgets.
As Public Finance went to press, authorities were readying themselves for the provisional local government finance settlement, due to be announced on December 6.
Proposed changes to the grant distribution formula would translate into a real-terms funding cut of more than 5% for the fire and rescue authorities that serve England's major cities.
These seven authorities were hoping ministers would put the changes on hold until more detailed work could be done.
Gerard Murphy, director of finance at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, said metropolitan authorities contributed a significant amount of labour and equipment to help deal with national crises, such as the summer floods and last month's east coast storms.
Murphy told PF: 'Our concern is if we are pressed into making reductions in the workforce that may well have a knock-on effect to our ability to support those national arrangements, and no one wants to see that happen.'
The government wants to reform the distribution formula by using expenditure data as a proxy for need. Murphy said this unfairly penalised metropolitan authorities, where expenditure has fallen in line with efficiency targets.
In addition, government-commissioned research from consultancy Greenstreet Berman flagged up a direct link between social deprivation levels and fire risk, yet this was not built into the funding formula, he said.
Murphy added: 'The government has a piece of high-quality research which they've accepted and that should drive the needs side of the formula.
'All they're looking at is how much people have spent, and generally the metropolitan fire and rescue authorities have delivered a massive part of the £105m cashable efficiency target in the past three years, and yet they're being penalised.'
The seven metropolitan authorities – London, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire – serve almost 40% of the English population, but experience 48% of national deaths from fire and 49% of antisocial nuisance fires.
PFdec2007
