The planned single national fire service for Scotland will inherit some ‘major challenges’, the Accounts Commission has warned today.
In an audit of the eight existing brigades ahead of the Scottish Government’s planned merger next year, the commission concluded a single service will ‘inherit many aspects of strong performance’, along with ‘scope for significant improvements’.
Despite some savings being made in recent years, the watchdog’s report has concluded that the cost of fire and rescue services in Scotland remains significantly higher than in the rest of the UK. Five of the Scottish services are among the six most expensive across Britain.
These higher costs cannot be explained by the context in which each operates, such as whether they cover a rural area, the commission concluded.
The report also found there is little agreement between forces on what it called ‘fundamental issues’, such as staff levels, shift patterns and how preventative work should be targeted. For example, although the services use integrated risk management planning to help target their work on areas of greatest risk, deployment of both fire stations and firefighters has changed little in the past decade.
There are also very few examples of support services, such as IT, human resources or procurement, being shared either between services or with other emergency teams like the police or ambulance.
Accounts Commission chair John Baillie said: ‘There are many strengths from around the country which can be incorporated into the new service. Equally, there are many challenging issues around performance, prevention and staffing which it will also inherit.
‘Strong leadership, both nationally and locally, will be needed to deal with the financial pressures facing the service. More attention needs to be paid to finding new ways of engaging effectively with communities and the workforce over service changes that will be needed in the longer term.’
Responding to the report, a Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Our services are already excellent. Fire deaths are at their lowest level for a decade. Single services will not change that – but they offer us a unique opportunity to do more.’
He added that the reforms would make the fire service more efficient and effective and ensure better access to services for all communities.
‘Every effort will be made to ensure the new single fire and rescue service incorporates best practice from existing services, while strengthening areas where improvements are required,’ the spokesman said.
