More ill conceived meddling by our politicians

[kurnal]

the government seem hell bent on causing total chaos to the UK fire and rescue services and the implications for my area are particularly worrying. The current proposals for elected mayors will see the county service split at least 3 ways with no regard for geography or infrastructure and PCCs taking responsibility for areas completely alien to them. For example it is proposed that the rural Derbyshire Dales will join the Sheffield SCR and the mayor will cover a huge urban conurbation area including Sheffield, Barnsley and Rotherham as well as Derbyshire dales as far south as Ashbourne and Sudbury, cutting a crazy North South swathe across Derbyshire and totally isolating High Peak council from the rest of its county. One only has to look at a road map to see what half baked madness this is.

http://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk

See also this earlier news story over fire service reorganisation in Manchester

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/13378018.Fire_authority_to_be_abolished_as_Chancellor_s_Greater_Manchester_devolution_deal__goes_further_/

Things are taking a further turn for the worse with today's announcement by Theresa May confirming the proposed role of PCCs in managing both services. In the mean time millions are currently  being spent on a new combined hq for the police and fire services in Derbyshire that will be irrelevant overnight as the services are split asunder by Osbourne and May.
Joined up thinking? More likel half baked and ill conceived change for the sake of it because they can.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35138665

[AnthonyB]

It seems several brigades are considering cutting pumps drastically and replacing with Targeted Response Vehicles too and whilst they have a place some proposals are slashing 'full size' engines by half and replacing with TRV's

If headed up by PCC's who have little real knowledge of policing let alone fire fighting, who knows where it will end up?

Trust the UK to do things different regardless as to whether it works or not - the traditional merger that works reasonably (other than NYC) in the rest of the world is Fire/EMS, not Fire/Police (although historically it has been done in the UK a long time ago, Sheffield used to have a combined fire and police force, the old station now containing the National Emergency Services Museum.

[Messy]

Forget the PCCs running the fire service, many of these meddling politicians seem to nothing about policing, let alone the fire service. The whole PCC initiative has been a massive cock up and they should be scrapped - and certainly not be allowed to mess up the fire service as well!

Who can forget the embarrassing Channel 4 documentary on Kent's pathetic PCC Anne Barnes?

And the 'Youth Commissioner' who couldn't spell her own name??

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/05/kent-pcc-ann-barnes-police-crime-commissioner-channel-4-documentary

[Dinnertime Dave]

Unfortunately PCC are so out of touch. The PCC in my area is quite vocal on how he will save the fire service ?10m on their back office functions. My Ex brigade only spend ?3m on all of its non operational functions. He needs to look at his police force who need to save ?42m over the next 5 years.

Or perhaps he is............

[Tom Sutton]

It looks like we are going back http://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/Historical/firePolice1836-1941.htm and this applied to many other councils aswell, until the 1947 act.

[SamFIRT]

"When faced with a runaway horse step to one side....." Surrey PCC on the today program in discussion with Matt Wrack. In other words... the government are going to do this come hell or high water and there is nothing you can do about it; so you should get on board.    There is democracy for you.   

[Mr. P]

[There is democracy for you.]
Is that like them date things stuck on a multi pronged cocktail stick, everyone is supposed to buy at Xmas?
Always opened, never really liked, and most say 'what did we get those for?', before throwing away!

Nice little business earner coming - making plaques to go on walls to show which fire insurance company you are paid into!!!

[Messy]

I wonder if there is some other covert agenda in relation to moving management for the fire service to PCCs. The Govt have been very vocal about curbing fire service strikes, and would have some support in doing so across the UK public I reckon. Therefore, if the move to PCC control was joined by a move to making firefighters Crown servants - similar to Police Officers - then the right to strike would be snuffed in an instant.

I am not sure how this would fit in selling off chunks of the fire service to PLCs, but I just cannot see many benefits that justify enlarging  Home Office responsibility just a couple of years after splitting the Border Agency from HO control as the HO was too large. So I wonder if there's something else happening here?

I also wonder if CPIG would move to Ho control too? - especially as they are recently moved to the Home Office Building in SW1

[kurnal]

Yet more senseless meddling by inept and ill informed ministers. Who is running things at the moment? So many politicians making contradictory statements?

Emergency services 'should share control rooms'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35405880
We all know that contrary to Pennings statement that police, fire and ambulance controls work in completely different ways for operational reasons and those who have tried to fix what is not broken in the past have had their fingers badly burned. Prescott anybody? Furthermore Penning goes on to state that the boundaries are often  the same -which they are patently not when comparing ambulance trusts to the other services- and at the same time Osbourne has already approved a number of regionalisation schemes that tear up boundaries for his own political reasons without regard for infrastructure or socio economics. Meanwhile May has already announced that PCCs will take over responsibility for the fire services but Penning is still only considering it. Have we ever previously suffered a government in such meddling and bumbling dissarray?

[Mike Buckley]

Remember the new Minister for Fire is actually a former firefighter!

'They've got to leave their brains outside and vote exactly how their leaders tell them to' Gilbert and Sullivan Iolanthe

[Messy]

Recipe of the Day:.... Penning PFI Broth:

Take an efficient and motivated fire and rescue service. After destroying any morale, slowly stir it in to a police service. (poorly performing police services give the best results)
Add one spineless commissioner (police or fire, which ever is available and cheapest)
Place the mixed emergency services together under the Home Office and leave to marinade/rot.
Adjust seasoning by taking fire resources and adding them to the police pot where necessary (never the other way around)
Place a former firefighter minister (with fragrant promises of a peerage and a seat on G4S's board) to oversee cooking (the books)
Cook until totally ruined before selling the whole dogs dinner to the lowest bidder

Enjoy..............

(more details here: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016 ... laboration )

[wee brian]

Efficient fire service?? which one is that then?

[Mike Buckley]

Efficient fire service?HuhHuh? which one is that then?

Wrong tense it should be 'which one was that then?' The government has been working on this for years.

[wee brian]

The Government is 1 year old yet.

[Mike Buckley]

By the government I was refering to the organ grinders (the civil service) not the monkeys (Dave & cronies).