Archived decisions
APPENDIX 1
C
Councillor Mike Murphy
Chairman of East Sussex Fire Authority
Headquarters
20 Upperton Road
Eastbourne
East Sussex BN211EU
Telephone (0845) 130 8855
Fax (01323) 725574
Email: [email protected]
Mr Clive Norris
Director, Fire & Rescue Service Directorate
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Portland House, Stag Place
London SW1E 5LP
please ask for our ref your ref
CFO Prichard CFO/jl/letters/rmb/090506
Dear Mr Norris
REGIONAL CONTROL CENTRE PROJECT
At a meeting of the South East Regional Management Board held on 13 April 2005, members debated the continuing progress being made on the FiReControl Project and raised a number of issues on which we seek urgent clarification.
You will be aware that our Board has invested considerable energy and resources in seeking to support a Project, which we have yet to be fully convinced supports the delivery of a more effective Fire and Rescue Service that proves to be less costly to our local taxpayers. We, as locally accountable elected politicians are responsible for the delivery of our Fire and Rescue Services and we must balance this delivery of services against the cost to Council Tax payers.
Notwithstanding our genuine concerns, we have worked steadfastly and professionally on the Project and are committed towards the successful implementation of a Project that we are told provides greater resilience, achieves higher levels of interoperability with other Fire and Rescue Services and other Emergency Services, results in more effective service delivery in terms of call handling and mobilisation of fire appliances whilst being more cost effective thereby delivering savings to our local taxpayers.
It is now crucial that we see clear and compelling evidence that the expected benefits of FiReControl will be realised. As we seek to prepare our financial plans for the next 3-5 years, the impact of FiReControl and FireLink is likely to be significant. We have seen the Outline Business Case and now await the Full Business Case including full cost apportionment in order to build our future budget strategies.
Whilst we recognise that considerable resources have been provided to both FiReControl and FireLink from central government, it would be irresponsible if we did not let the Minister and other key stakeholders know of the local resourcing and funding impacts we now face.
Every Fire Authority in the south-east Region has committed significant resources to the Projects; internal capacity is a major issue not only in terms of staff, but also in funding. Access to additional finance streams through `New Burdens' whilst sound in principle, has not provided the support to meet our actual additional expenditure. As an illustration, in 2004/05 the South East Region submitted a `New Burdens' claim for expenditure of just under £400,000 and received `New Burdens' funding of only £58,000, a little over 15% of our actual submission. In the case of both Surrey and East Sussex, who individually as part of the overall total submitted bids of £43,000 and £34,000 respectively, they received no `New Burdens' funding. We urge the ODPM to look again at the access to `New Burdens' and to ensure that further financial support is made available to meet the realities of those additional costs having to be borne by Fire and Rescue Authorities.
Turning to service delivery, the Minister will know that our call handling and mobilising of fire appliances is highly professional with extremely effective outcomes. The time taken for our control staff to receive an emergency call and dispatch a fire appliance sets an incredibly high standard in any emergency call-handling environment. You can understand therefore why we as locally accountable politicians, do need reassurances that any proposed move to a Regional Control Centre, will not impact detrimentally on the service standards we already achieve. At the present time, we are unable to make comment on proposed standards for call handling and mobilisation at the RCC, and we would be grateful to receive such information in order to comment objectively and continue to lend our support to the project.
Recently commissioned work has focussed upon a strategic gap analysis. This is to determine those elements of work currently facilitated by our control room personnel that are deemed `out of scope' by the ODPM. Many of these key activities must be maintained to ensure operational viability and yet have not been considered as part of any reliable cost comparison.
In turning to the future financing proposals, we understand that a reduction in the overall number of control staff from the existing total in the 9 south-east control centres, to a lesser number in the proposed south-east RCC, will deliver year-on year revenue savings. What is not yet clear is the scope of work to be undertaken by the RCC, and what will be residual i.e. what will remain for Fire and Rescue Authorities to continue to undertake. This of course will have an impact on any potential savings, the more residual work, the less saving. Coupled to this are the annual leasing arrangements for the RCC accommodation; at present this is a fixed cost element within existing Fire Authority budgets; buildings are owned by the individual south-east Fire and Rescue Authorities and any move to the RCC is unlikely to result in additional capital receipts. Our concern is that the annual accommodation costs for the RCC will exceed our present out-goings, and we would be pleased to see the detail of this matter in order to feed into our future financial plans.
One final matter concerning Members is the current proposal for notification of the RCC location. We are informed that Lead Members/CFOs will be given one hours notice before the locations are announced on the ODPM website. Whilst recognising the sensitivity of this issue, we consider one hour is both unreasonable and insufficient to allow Fire and Rescue Authorities the necessary time to prepare for such a crucial and important announcement. We urge ODPM to re-consider and ask that one days notice is provide for Fire and Rescue Authorities with regard to the location announcement.
In closing, the south-east RMB reiterate their support for FiReControl, if it can be clearly demonstrated that the move towards an RCC improves the service we deliver to the public, supports our staff in their role, and is less costly to our local taxpayers. The discussions on this matter and the information published to date are insufficient for the business case to be firmly made. As responsible and accountable local politicians we must apply rigid scrutiny to what is the most significant project many of us have experienced in the Fire and Rescue Service. We look forward to your response and hope you are able to provide the clarifications and further information we seek. Without such clarification and information, the south-east RMB is duty bound to re-examine its risk assessment and in light of this may wish to revise its position.
Yours sincerely
Councillor M Murphy Councillor D Dewdney
Chairman Vice Chairman
South East Regional Management Board South East Regional Management Board
Enc
Chairman
South East Management Board
East Sussex Fire Authority
Headquarters
20 Upperton Road
Eastbourne
East Sussex BN21 1EU
Head of FSED
FRSD
16A Portland House
Direct Line: 7944 6060
Fax: 7944 2219
GTN No: 3533
Web Site: www.odpm.gov.uk
6 June 2005
REGIONAL CONTROL CENTRE PROJECT
Thank you for your letter of 9 May in which you copied to me your letter to Clive Norris and asked for clarification on certain points. I am very sorry not to have replied earlier.
You asked for evidence that the expected benefits of FiReControl will be realised. The Full Business Case is being built up from the Outline Business Case, modified as information is received from tender responses, and as FRAs further refine the figures they have supplied to us. Two separate groups have been set up to work on the costs and benefits. The FiReControl finance working party has been reconstituted to work on information relating to the business case, and each region has a representative on that group (the SE region representative is Chris Salt from West Sussex). The intention is to give Treasurers as much information as possible to enable them to plan their budgets for forthcoming years before the final case is agreed and published.
The Benefits working group has been set up to define the expected benefits and set out ways of ensuring that they are realised - it is of course for individual FRSs to realise the benefits. The benefits management strategy produced by the group has been shared with the Senior Operations Group, and the benefits realisation profile, which has been discussed in draft with individual FRSs, will be published in July. At that stage FRSs will see how the costs are likely to affect them and how the benefits will be realised.
For this first tranche of new burdens expenditure, the Office asked regions to submit bids in two categories: the costs of the regional project manager and of travel and subsistence. Several authorities in the SE region bid for their own project manager ie one each, rather than one authority bidding on behalf of the region for the project manager's costs; and they bid for other costs as well as travel and subsistence. There was therefore a big discrepancy between the bid and the allocation in the SE which did not occur in other regions. James Kemp here on 020 7944 5334 will be happy to discuss with individual authorities any aspects of their bids which still concern them.
The business change team leaders here have been discussing the forthcoming work packages for the project and the workload implications with individual regions. Once these packages are agreed by the Senior Operations Group, the existing allocations will be increased to reflect this additional work.
On service delivery, you will be aware that performance standards currently differ across the country and within regions. We have been out to consultation twice on the proposed performance standards, which reflect the practice and performance of the best. The work has been temporarily halted to enable convergence work to progress, and a workshop will be held in September to finalise the outstanding issues. There is no intention to set the standards below what the best already achieve.
Similarly, on out-of scope activities, more work is planned. If a function is required to maintain operational viability, it is not out of scope. If it is simply using spare capacity in the control room, it will be out of scope. The project will take into account the first set of activities, but the second type are not necessarily proper to the fire and rescue service. Some will be, some will not, and the work under way at the moment is defining what pertains to the work of the FRS and for which a provisional allowance has been made, and what will be for other users, eg other county departments, to account for. We will shortly be going out to FRAs with a questionnaire the objective of which is to ensure the accuracy of the information in the business case.
On the final issue you raise, the location announcements, there has been some misunderstanding of the "one hour's notice". Our intention has always been to provide at least two or three days' notice of the announcement to regions. I understand Lucy Carter, SE representative on the national team, has explained this at the SE project board meetings. The "one hour" referred only to our plan to wait this long after the Parliamentary announcement and notification of the regions before placing any information on the website or sending out press releases.
I understand your concerns, and it is not satisfactory, but it is an inevitable characteristic of a major complex project, that we cannot give as full information as we would like at this stage. Detail simply has to be worked out as the project develops. I hope this letter answers many of your questions, and that where it fails to do so, information which is to follow will set your minds at rest.
I am copying this also to Councillor Dewdney.
Marie Winckler
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Chairman of the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Authority Cllr M F Cartwright FCA Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Leigh Road Eastleigh Hampshire SO50 9SJ | |
MC/cem/CH/2005/RCCProject
19 August 200519 September 2003
Mr J Wilmot CBE QFSM
Chairman
Wiltshire and Swindon Fire Authority
Manor House
Potterne
Devizes
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Dear Mr Wilmot
REGIONAL CONTROL CENTRE PROJECT
As the Chairman of the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Authority and a member of the South East Regional Management Board, I write to raise with you our continuing concerns regarding the Regional Control Centre project.
I realise that the tragic terrorist attacks in London will have raised questions over the resilience of our existing control centres and as a result, there may be a growing expectation for Fire Authorities to progress this project as quickly as possible. However, as previously stated in numerous correspondence with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster, there are significant worries and also gaps in the business case which cause us problems in doing so.
Can I ask you to do all that you can to ensure that a full business case is progressed as quickly as possible, including a full breakdown of the costs and savings expected. You will appreciate that the Fire Authority will need this to manage financial and business risk locally and we are unable to do this without a detailed business case. We would also ask that a review of the timescales for implementation is carried out. The issue of unrealistic timescales is a growing concern, due to slippage of key milestones caused by the ODPM. These continued delays not only raise uncertainty, but also make future target dates increasingly unrealistic as well as undermining the credibility of the national project plan.
We note the announcement of the location for other Regional Control Centres and express our disappointment over the delays for the South East. This is yet another example of a key target not being achieved, which increases the uncertainty for our control staff. An early announcement of the South East location would not only help the control staff start to plan their futures, but also allow the South East Regional Control Centre project to progress in many areas.
We therefore request that you apply all the influence that you have to ensure these matters are addressed as quickly as possible.
Yours sincerely
Chairman
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Authority