By Mark Smulian
15 September 2010
Few fire and rescue services could deploy sophisticated equipment for responding to natural disasters or terrorist incidents at all times, the Audit Commission has found.
A report published today by the spending watchdog says less than one-third of the 46 fire services could guarantee to have equipment for emergencies such as urban search and rescue, building collapses and chemical decontamination available even when services are stretched.
The commission looked at the services’ business continuity planning in the event of strikes, major disasters, epidemics and other factors that would disrupt normal working.
It found some services had failed to check whether there were sufficient capacity and skills available to carry out emergency plans. Each service must have such a plan because they can no longer rely on the military to fill gaps.
All had satisfactory plans, but the commission said that if a major disruption affected several fire service areas, especially over a long time, it ‘would severely test continuity plans in making both staff and equipment available’.
Commission chair Michael O’Higgins said: ‘Our overriding finding was that England’s fire services are becoming more resilient, and have satisfactory business continuity plans in place.’
The commission’s concern was that ‘public safety may be at risk if major disruption occurs across several fire and rescue authorities and lasts for a long time’, he added.
‘In these circumstances we also discovered that specialist equipment designed to deal with the aftermath of terror attacks or major natural disasters is less likely to be deployable because of demands on firefighter resources.’
The commission said plans for meeting staff shortages included ‘resilience contracts’ with employees who agree to always make themselves available, contracts with private firms to supply staff for emergency cover and use of part-time firefighters.
