14 January 2010
Fire and rescue services will be offered money to use buildings and technologies left behind by the aborted attempt to regionalise control centres.
A consultation, launched on January 13 by local government minister Bob Neill, stated that beyond this the government would support greater collaboration between fire and rescue authorities but would otherwise leave them to run services locally.
The Fire Control project was cancelled in December because of fears that contractor Cassidian would not deliver the main IT system on time.
This left nine completed regional control centres, procured from a private developer on 25-year leases, which would have been linked by Cassidian’s IT system.
Neill’s consultation paper notes: ‘The Department [for Communities and Local Government] must continue to underwrite the cost of the control centre leases.
‘This will reduce the overall amount of funding that will be available for fire and rescue authorities to improve their control services unless these buildings become part of the authorities’ plans or other uses can be found.’
The buildings were designed to be highly resilient and secure, able, for example, to function during power and water cuts, but were procured before the technologies to be used in them had been agreed.
‘Fire Control was an example of top-down policy where the people responsible for frontline delivery were not closely involved in decision-making,’ the paper noted.
It said the government would provide money to upgrade fire and rescue control systems to ‘try to get value from the investment in Fire Control’.
Leases on the unwanted buildings will be offered to fire and rescue authorities with ‘a significant ongoing contribution towards the rent’ from the government.
Clive Betts, chair of the communities and local government select
committee, which issued a critical report on Fire Control last
year, welcomed the consultation. But he said: ‘Following the discontinuation of the Fire Control project, many fire
and rescue authorities may not have the money available that they will need if
they are to ensure their existing local control rooms are fit for purpose.’
The consultation ends on April 8.
