| CARe Newsletter |
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Issue Number: 2 |
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Date: Friday 28th January 2005 |
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PRESS WAKE UP TO GOVERNMENT’S MADCAP PLANS
Continued repercussions of FBU leak of deeply flawed business case
The repercussions of the FBU’s leaking of the deeply flawed business case behind the Government’s crazy plans to regionalise emergency fire control centres, continues to reverberate. News stories appeared in The Times, The Daily Mirror and throughout the regional press after the FBU published a leaked copy of the Government’s outline business case for the scheme.
The document written by the Government’s own civil servants said that there was a “high/very high” that their plans would result in “total project failure”. Apparently education standards are now so bad that the ODPM cannot find any reference to this in their own report.
Nor can they find the clear warning that frontline services may have to be cut with the additional problem of increasing council tax. The ODPM’s refusal to listen is one thing, its inability to read is much worse.
Under the guise of “commercial confidentiality” the Government were trying to hide the financial implications of their plans from fire authorities and the public. Even in the Government’s best case scenario the possible savings will be far below the 30 per cent Ministers still promise.
In fact the 30% figure only works with smoke and mirrors. As the report makes clear the savings will be no more than 5%. You can only get to the 30% figure if you ignore about £700 million of the costs.
The report warns that fire authorities may have to find an additional £107 million over 10 years because the project may cost more than anticipated. Most fire authorities are cash strapped, have little in the way of financial reserves and some are threatened with having their spending capped by the Government.
Much of the capital needed to build the proposed regional control centres, will be required in the first couple of years. Fire authorities will face the stark choice of either cutting frontline services (firefighters) or raising Council Tax.
After the FBU released the story Wyvill “Nick” Raynsford the local government minister, who is at the forefront of these plans, was forced to go onto local radio to defend the Government’s position. The usually supercilious Raynsford was confronted by a succession of furious chairs of local fire authorities. Apparently he found the truth hurt.
Make sure that your local MP knows what a financial and practical disaster regional fire control rooms will be. Write to them today.
The Raynsford letter
Following the press stories about the Government’s plans and Nick Raynsford’s humiliation on local radio stations, he decided to vent his anger by writing an extraordinary letter to the chairs of local fire authorities - leaked to the FBU - blaming them for leaking the Outline Business Case to the union.
Raynsford, said: “I was very disappointed that the draft Outline Business Case that was circulated in confidence to Fire and Rescue Authority chairs appears to have been leaked to the FBU and is now publicly available on their website.”
It could not have been any of the fire authority chairs who leaked the details in the document, as Raynsford wells knows. Their copies had the essential financial figures blanked out, due to “commercially confidentiality”.
Even the chairs of Regional Management Boards were only shown copies of the full document which were all hastily gathered up after their meeting. They had no copies to leak. Perhaps the ODPM itself needs a plumber.
To make the letter even more astonishing Raynsford then claims that the FBU lied about the document. He says: “The quote ‘very high risk’ does not appear at all in the document. The phrase ‘total project failure’ is extracted in isolation from a discussion of risks that all projects face.”
Not true. The Government’s Outline Business Case quite clearly says that there is a “high/very high risk” of “total project failure” in the table on page 52 of the report and in the explanatory text below it. And when they say “total project failure” it makes clear they mean catastrophic failure.
This dangerous project is ill-conceived and has been badly thought out and inadequately costed. It will mean that the public are going to have to pay more for a service which could cost them their lives.
Raynsford scared of debate
Following his continuing travails Raynsford is desperate to ensure that he is not further embarrassed on radio or TV. He is now refusing to debate the pros and cons of regional emergency fire control centres, with anyone from the FBU. He will only take part if the FBU puts their case first and then he has the opportunity to respond without being challenged.
Raynsford knows that his case is so weak, and FBU local reps so more convincing that he will be humiliated when he is challenged.
Political action
General secretary Andy Gilchrist, has written to all the members of two key Parliamentary committees demanding that they investigate Raynsford’s plans to regionalise emergency fire control centres.
All MPs on the highly powerful Public Accounts Committee have been contacted. This committee is charged with ensuring that Government services provide value for money. The chair of the committee, Edward Leigh, is discussing the issues with the National Audit Office.
The General Secretary has also written to all the MPs who sit on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s select committee. It is their job to tell ministers like Raynsford, when their policies are wrong.
The fire service has been failed by ministers, now MPs of all parties must ensure that these crazy plans do not become reality.
Councillors step up their opposition
Regional Management Boards are giving a resounding raspberry to the Outline Business Case. Such has been the response to the document (now the FBU has filled in all the useful bits denied to them by the ODPM) that the project has been put back between 3 and 6 months.
Already four regional management boards: East of England, South East, South West and Yorkshire and Humberside, have refused to endorse the Outline Business Case.
The East of England RMB were angry that the Government had refused to provide them with the proposed costing for the plans. They have asked the ODPM, how the FBU were able to acquire the information when it was deliberately denied to them.
The South West RMB are also opposed to the Government’s plans and are convinced regional fire control will be an abject failure. One councillor, Hazel Prior Sankey a Lib Dem from Somerset, said that councillors should not allow the creation of a public company (The Government’s preferred option) to build and run the new control centres. Councillors would become Director’s and if the project failed or the company went bust, the councillors could be personally liable.
The South East RMB, failed to endorse the Government’s proposals and are seeking further information and clarification from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Yorkshire and Humberside RMB unanimously expressed their “extreme disquiet” at the current plans for fire control modernisation. They said they did “not accept the Outline Business Case as currently presented, is achievable financially and practically” and called on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister “to withdraw the present proposals”.
For the ODPM it is a humiliating blow to be sent back to the drawing board. But it only happened because the union made public exactly how inept the proposals were and because Fire Authorities would not be run over with a garbage truck of a business case.
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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