Home office takes control of fire and rescue services

[kurnal]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35239020

The latest half baked and ill considered  government policy comes to fruition?

[wee brian]

Cant help thinking thats what everybody said when fire policy was taken out of the Home Office.

[Mike Buckley]

Is this a case of empire building or passing a hot potato?

[kurnal]

Cant help thinking thats what everybody said when fire policy was taken out of the Home Office.

But the difference this time is that the responsibility for the fire services is to be vested in the control of police and crime commissioners for whom almost nobody voted!   and this comes in in parallel with so called regional devolution under mayors still to be elected and boundaries still to be defined.  

As an examples the current proposals will split Derbyshire - and therefore the existing fire service - under 5 different regions, five differnt mayors mayors and therefore 5 different PCCs. 

No account has been taken of infrastructure - just look at the map - Ashbourne and Sudbury as part of the Derbyshire Dales district for example form part of the Sheffield city region including Rotherham and Barnsley but there are no half decent roads linking them and nothing in common in terms of industry, heritage , services or infrastructure.  Please look at the Sheffield SCR map this is dangerous madness. This scheme has already been approved by George Osborne, whilst other parts of Derbyshire are still being scrapped over. The proposals for regionalisation also cover higher education and public transport and again make no sense at all taking into account where the higher education provision is sited and how the public transport works.
http://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/about/overview/

[Golden]

Article from the Fire magazine here https://www.fire-magazine.com/cfoa-supports-shift-frs-dclg-to-home-office.aspx

To save you reading it the basic version can be summarised as take your trousers down, bend over and brace yourself!!

[wee brian]

The new Fire ect Minister is none other than an ex Fire fighter so

he will have experienced  thousands of fire situations and will understand the characteristics of fire in all its stages.
he will have witnessed and managed human behaviour in fire situations.
he will have experience in investigating the cause of fire.
he will have experienced at first hand the toxicity aspects of fire and smoke.
he will have an understanding of firefighting in high rise buildings and the importance of siting risers, shafts and ventilation and providing access for firefighting.
he will have experienced at first hand the effect of fire on the elements of construction and understand the protection afforded by walls, doors, ceilings, floors, shutters etc.
he will have witnessed the benefits and operation of fixed installations and sprinklers in a fire situation.

so there's no need to worry 

[Golden]

It appears the LGA have a different view to CFOA - no wonder its a mess - or is it just that the local councillors can see a key part of their little empire disappearing?

http://www.ifsecglobal.com/fire-chiefs-blast-government-plans-hand-control-firefighters-police/