Written evidence from the Chief Fire Officers Association
The Chief Fire Officers Association was very pleased to be able to give evidence to the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry on the 26th November. Following that session, and in recognition of the rather short amount of time there was for discussion, I wanted to bring some further points and information to the committee’s attention, which I hope will be beneficial in the drafting of their report.
There are three main areas which I believe to be of particular importance that were highlighted within the NAO’s reports, and I cover these in turn below.
The future impact of further austerity
CFOA wants to work with government towards a sustainable funding model for all fire and rescue services that produces benefit for communities. We recognise the government’s desire to drive efficiency and reform in public services and their aim of reducing the deficit.
We would argue, and the NAO report rightly recognises, that fire and rescue services have managed significant budget cuts – 22% in real terms – since 2010/11. The total amount saved is higher than many other parts of the public sector. This has been achieved in a number of ways;
Fire and Rescue Services are pursuing a number of innovative efficiency measures driven by local needs and opportunities, including collaboration with other public services, mergers and use of technology. All this while continuing to drive down fire deaths and injuries.
However, the NAO reports recognise that there are future risks associated with the drive for further efficiency and the inevitable reduction in frontline firefighters. Three quarters of fire service revenue spending is on staff and there are limits to how much can be saved from support services, procurement or technology. The NAO recognises that there are some early signs of low level stress, and these will only grow and spread if budgets are reduced significantly in future.
The Local Government Finance Settlement was only announced yesterday, and we are continuing to scrutinise the details. However, the headline figures show that central government funding to stand-alone fire and rescue services will fall in cash terms by over 22% in the next four years. As you can imagine we are still in the early stages of understanding the specifics of the settlement including the assumptions DCLG have used to offset the grant reductions with increased income from business rates and council tax.
As was made clear in my oral evidence to the committee, fire and rescue services across England will be affected differently depending upon their existing financial position, their specific level of cuts, decisions around council tax and issues such as local risks, size and workforce makeup. To be absolutely clear, if cuts continue to be significant in the next four years, the local resilience and operational capacity of some if not all fire and rescue services will be diminished. This in turn will have an impact upon national resilience, which is picked up in the next section.
With this also comes the risk that our fantastic prevention work – which is responsible for reducing the number of fire deaths and injuries so significantly – will be eroded. We believe that the government should take a more radical and results focused view on which organisations are best placed to contribute to the delivery of social outcomes. We should not limit our work because of artificial barriers between services or departments; added value in another sector is still added value. Thinking differently when commissioning services will present opportunities to use the skills, work ethic and trusted brand of the fire and rescue service more widely while addressing the issue of cross-sector benefits and funding.
We recognise that it is important to ensure that the fire and rescue service is the best placed to deliver this work however. The NAO states that there is a lack of evidence to assess whether firefighters are most appropriate to deliver this work. We strongly believe that our past experience in prevention and evaluation of efforts so far shows we can have a positive impact. The evidence base has grown and will continue to develop, services such as Cheshire and Greater Manchester have already undertaken academic evaluations that show that there is a significant return on investment. In Greater Manchester evaluation by the University of Salford of their Community Risk Intervention Team pilots has calculated a return of between £5 and £7.50 for every £1 spent by the service.
The Future of National Resilience
The recent events in Cumbria are a perfect example of how fantastically effective and well organised the Fire and Rescue Services’ response can be in times of national emergency. At the peak of the flooding, there were nine High Volume Pumps (HVP), 25 specialist fire service boat crews, 11 specialist tactical advisors and four enhanced logistical support (ELS) teams in place. All these were brought in from around the country quickly and effectively, and remained in place for a number of days, working seamlessly with other emergency services, and with the military and the voluntary sector organisations that provided support.
Of course, that list doesn’t include the many hundreds of firefighters and officers who also undertake rescues and pumping operations and in most cases support the specialist equipment and teams. Critically, very few of these assets, either the specialist teams or the ordinary fire crews that support them, are paid for centrally through National Resilience funding. Nearly all of the response to the Cumbrian floods will have been provided by services from their normal operating budget. Therefore, further significant reductions in funding, which will inevitably impact upon operational capacity, will be extension affect our ability to respond to incidents on a national scale. I do not take it lightly when I say that should deep cuts continue, four years from now we will not be able to mount as effective a response as that seen in Cumbria this year or in the South West of England during Winter 2014.
The central National Resilience funding that is in place is also important. It pays for the vital specialist equipment, such as HVPs, for some of the expert advice provided, and for the assurance and maintenance of these assets. It is critical that this work is properly funded and continues to be funded separately from other FRS work. The assurance framework for these assets, provided by CFOA National Resilience, is robust and effective, but does not provide assurance of the wider resources that are needed in times of crisis, as discussed above.
CFOA and our members also play a crucial role in co-ordinating National Resilience and providing specialist advice and expertise. The government needs to recognise that senior officers at a national level play a critical role in supporting national, local and regional responses to major emergencies through the National Coordinating Advisory Framework and National Strategic Advisory Team arrangements. These costs must also be provided for, and CFOA’s critical coordinating role needs to be properly recognised. It is also worth noting that the ongoing reduction in senior officer posts, another inevitable impact of continuing austerity, will also degrade this.
Peer review, assurance and sector-led improvement
CFOA recognise that the NAO has a number of concerns about the overall assurance arrangements for the fire and rescue service. However, we believe it is important to reiterate that Operational Assessment and Peer Challenge processes were designed by the sector, for the sector, to help the sector pursue continuous improvement. They were not designed as mechanisms to provide assurance to Government and should not be judged against that criterion. However, they both provide a useful source of information around performance and the way in which the tools have recently been strengthened reinforces this.
The LGA and CFOA commissioned an external evaluation of the Peer Challenge process and Operational Assessment toolkit from Cardiff University in 2013. The findings identified that the Operational Assessment was working well and helping to contribute to service improvement and that the Fire Peer Challenge was highly valued and provided independent challenge and well-informed feedback on how a service could improve. It was also identified as providing a valuable opportunity for officers and councillors from across the sector to both network and draw learning that would benefit themselves and their own organisations.
The evaluation identified eight recommendations to further improve the approach. In response in June 2014 LGA and CFOA established a joint working group made up of sector specialists from CFOA, LGA officers and councillors. As a result of this work, in March 2015 the newly revised Operational Assessment and fire peer challenge was launched. The new approach included an increased focus on leadership, governance, corporate capacity and financial planning & outcomes for communities. It also increased rigour by requiring all fire authorities to complete an Operational Assessment self-assessment prior to a Fire Peer Challenge and including a formal follow up visit from the peer team to help monitor progress.
The first of this new approach to Operational Assessment and Fire Peer Challenge has just been completed, with several more already confirmed for the coming months. We are confident that this revised approach will strengthen the Peer Challenge process, although we also recognise that the process should be kept under continuous review, and are keen to work with DCLG, the Chief Fire and Rescue Advisor and the LGA to further strengthen the process in future.
We have also recognised that there are steps that should be taken to improve the availability and comparability of data and benchmarks, both to inform sector-led improvement and for overall scrutiny and assurance. To that end CFOA is working closely with the LGA to create a focused and meaningful set of national benchmarks which we hope will be published early in the New Year.
Making the Difference Needed
CFOA believes that the UK fire and rescue service is a well run and highly effective service, although we recognise some of the challenges we face, not least from ongoing austerity. However, we also believe we can continue to be highly effective and indeed contribute much more widely if given the right freedoms and support. To this end we’ve created a four year strategy entitled “Making the Difference Needed”, which may be of interest to the committee.
President, Chief Fire Officers Association
18 December 2015