Ministers are looking for private or voluntary sector bodies to take over the Fire Service College as public spending cuts have caused a slump in its revenue.
The college at
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, trains fire crews in all aspects of their
job and is also used by other emergency services and overseas firefighters.It sits on a 365-acre former military airfield, which the government believes a private buyer could make use of.
Fire minister Bob Neill said the college’s current position as a government-owned trading fund did not ‘provide the flexibility necessary for [it] to operate with sufficient commercial success’.
The government's preferred option is for a partnership with the private sector but ‘all options will be considered’, Neill said.
In a prospectus issued for interested partners, the government said: ‘Spare real estate at the Fire Service College could be utilised to house wider emergency services, responders or others; and/or the site could be used to enable rationalisation of the asset bases of potential partners which could lead to better prospects for profitability.
‘There is available capacity, either in terms of real estate or the utilisation levels of property (training rigs and support infrastructure) to support increased volumes of business.’
The college’s revenue was £18.5m in 2010/11, against £21.7m the previous year, with all clients except international bodies spending less. The domestic fire and rescue service market ‘was expected to be challenging for the next few years due to public sector budget constraints’, the prospectus said. But the college believed there was ‘significant potential in the international and private sector markets which is yet to be fully realised’.
Responding to the announcement, Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: ‘We’re totally opposed to the wholesale privatisation of firefighter training.
‘The Fire Service College has a vital role to play in ensuring top quality training and good standards across the service. That requires investment from government rather than trying to get a world class service on the cheap using half-baked ideas that have failed elsewhere.’
The Local Government Association has urged the government to get on with appointing a private sector partner for the college and not spend more time on consultations.
David Cartwright, chair of the LGA Fire Service College working group, said: ‘The college has suffered from under-investment for a very long time but can still play a key role at the heart of the UK’s fire service. However, the way it’s operating… is not financially sustainable.
‘The business acumen and extra investment a private partner would provide, coupled with strong leadership from experts in the fire sector, is exactly what it needs. Rather than consulting further, more momentum is now needed to resolve this problem and get the tendering process under way.’
