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Issue Number: 1 |
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Date: Wednesday 8th December 2004 |
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GOVERNMENT PLANS START TO UNRAVEL
Deputy Prime Minister tries to gag debate
Government plans to regionalise Emergency Fire Controls are beginning to unravel. Despite the attempts of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to gag debate, through excessive secrecy, the public are starting to realise their plans are both expensive and dangerous. Regional TV and local papers have been carrying stories about the Government’s nonsensical plans and now MPs and councillors are getting the message and joining our campaign.
The ODPM is running scared and apparently find it difficult to put a minister up for the local and regional media to quiz them on the plans. Despite claiming the centres will only go ahead if there is a clear business case that the centres will save money, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister now claims that the detailed figures can’t be produced because of “commercial confidentiality”.
The private companies bidding for these contracts don’t want us and the taxpayers to know just how much they will make out of it. Nor how precarious the savings claims are.
South West leads the way
One region in particular is leading the opposition to Government plans. The Government wants to use the South West Region, where there are fewer Labour MPs, as guinea pigs in regionalising Emergency Fire Controls.
Last month, Gloucestershire County Council unanimously voted to oppose the Government’s plans. To get councillors from the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats to agree on anything is rare indeed and shows the craziness of trying to regionalise Emergency Fire Controls. The FBU’s Gloucestershire Control branch has further upped the stakes by voting to boycott all ODPM seminars and workshops.
And Gloucestershire is not alone.
The South West Regional Management Board, sceptical of ODPM claims, has demanded an independent ‘all cards on the table’ review of the plans.
Other regional management boards are set to follow. Nick Raynsford has written to the South West refusing an independent review, preferring instead to trust the independence of the ODPM team set up to push the plans through.
Councillors back the FBU
It is not just the FBU which thinks the Governments plans are crazy, so do councillors from throughout the country. In the furthest reaches of the North West region, Cumbria’s fire authority has voted to oppose the creation of a regional emergency control centre.
Councillor Jack Richardson the Cabinet member for Community Safety on Cumbria County Council, said: “There is no guarantee that regional control rooms would be any more resilient or effective than those that are locally based. So, if it isn't broken, why fix it?” Cumbria have been joined by two counties in the proposed South East region. Hampshire and Oxford fire authorities, have both rejected the concept of regional emergency control centres.
They have been joined by West Sussex County Council. David Dewdney, West Sussex’s cabinet member for community services, said: “The proposed solitary control room would serve an area 12 times the size of London, covering 8 million people from Oxfordshire to Kent and from south London to the Isle of Wight. We are concerned this will weaken the operational capability of a life-saving service, making it remote from the people it is supposed to protect.”
In the South West Dorset Fire Authority are also opposing the Government’s plans.
We have made a good start but we need to keep on lobbying and ensure that all fire authorities and county councils reject these plans.
Media wakes up to FBU concerns
Local newspapers and TV up and down the country have woken up to the dangers of the Government’s madcap scheme. Here are just a couple of examples.
The Teeside Evening Gazette, has reported on plans to introduce a Regional Emergency Fire Control centre in the North East which has been earmarked as one of the first schemes to go ahead.
They quote Steve Watson, secretary of the Cleveland Branch of the FBU as saying: "We think it is seriously flawed. The cost is unspecified. The bill will be picked up by the Cleveland council taxpayers. A regional centre could mean a serious lack of local knowledge”.
The FBU’s region 9 has also been active, with General Secretary Andy Gilchrist helping them launch their opposition to an East of England regional control room.
Speaking to BBC Norfolk, Regional control representative of the FBU, Shelley Blewett, said: "Local emergency fire control rooms in each brigade are cost-effective, and are the fastest way of responding to an emergency call. Your local emergency fire control staff are highly professional and have local knowledge of place names, geography, risks and specialist skills that save lives."
The message will be spread to more regions.
Campaigns unite politicians
Liberal Democrat and Tory MPs in England have been very keen to listen to the FBU. Throughout the country they have been supporting our campaign to oppose regional Emergency Control centres. To be fair some Labour MPs and councillors have also stuck their necks above the parapet and are backing our campaign.
Make sure your MP knows why the regionalisation plans are madness and will put lives at risk. We need to ensure that ignorance is no defence.
Hits and myths
The ODPM has tried to set the record straight about the number of control centres being proposed in New York. The FBU pointed out that New York was looking at five control centres instead of one.
Assuming this was a dastardly piece of disinformation spread by the FBU the ODPM claim it is not true. In fact we pulled the information about New York from the Mott MacDonald report which was heartily endorsed by ODPM in full and without exception.
Page 93 of the report mentions “a new proposal is currently being considered” in New York, which involved “5 new premises situated within the 5 existing fire boroughs.”
A single combined control room project was mooted and rejected in the mid 1990s. “This project was soon abandoned however,” according to Mott MacDonald, “as a result of financial and technical issues, as well as concerns over resilience and security.” Presumably the same type of resilience, security, financial and technical concerns the FBU and others have about the current ODPM proposals.
Strange but true
ODPM Minister “Nick” Raynsford, who is avidly pushing the regional plans, has radically changed his mind, and his name, in the past. He has dropped his first name and adopted “Nick” instead. He’s not Nick Raynsford at all. He is in fact Wyvill Raynsford. Let’s hope abandoning Wyvill isn’t the only good idea he’s had.
For more on the FBU’s Campaign Against the Regionalisation of Emergency Fire Controls (CARe) visit www.controlcare.org.uk. Subscribe and receive regular updates direct into your inbox. |
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