Resilience and Modernisation

Well-laid plans are in place to respond to any major disruption or emergency, including a terrorist attack.  Substantial investment ensures that emergency services, government departments and agencies, and local authorities are prepared to respond effectively to any major incident. 

Building on decades of experience of preparing for such threats, the country continues to be resilient in the face of emerging emergency situations.  A multi-agency approach brings a wide range of experience and perspective to the task at hand.  The Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), police and ambulance services are all heavily involved. 

Fire and Rescue Service Modernisation 

The Government's overriding aim is to save lives and prevent unnecessary injury through the implementation of a more effective fire prevention plan, and by ensuring that the FRS is well well-prepared to respond. Improvements in efficiency will free up resources that can then be refocused on the reducing in the incidents of fire death and arson.

Background 

The events of 11 September 2001 led to a transformation in how the UK responds to a large scale emergency. A key part of the plan involves employing eighteen workstreams, identified by the Government and led by the Cabinet Office, with the aim to improve the ability of the UK to respond to and recover from any major natural or man made disaster.  

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) leads on building the Fire and Rescue Services capabilities, and strenthening resilience in the regions. A well equipped, trained and motivated Fire and Rescue Service, working in partnership with other key organisations, is essential to the success of developing strong resilience in the UK.  

The Fire and Rescue Service deals with a wide range of emergencies. The Fire and Rescue Services Act (2004) updated a raft of historic legislation to formalise and recognise its extensive skills. There is now a duty on the Fire and Rescue Service to respond to a range of non-fire emergencies and have the flexibility to extend their role as the service grows and develops. 

DCLG leads on three critical fire resilience programmes:

• New Dimension; providing equipment and training to tackle major incidents.
• Firelink; ensuring resilient radio interoperability within the fire and rescue services, and other emergency services.
• FiReControl; delivering a regional control co-ordination capability.  

The importance of the fire resilience programmes is reflected in the level of investment Government has committed to them.  New Dimension is a conspicuous success story: the programme is split into six interdependent projects that reflect the capabilities that are being built within the UK Fire and Rescue Service. 

Initially, the programme focused on building a mass decontamination capability. This meant developing, procuring and distributing mass decontamination equipment to fire and rescue authorities. As well as preparing and implementing training for firefighters to yse equipment effectively. Eighty Incident Response Units (IRUs) have been deployed, providing coverage across England and Wales. Now the programme has digressed, and has begun focusing on building urban search and rescue, high volume water pumping capabilities and co-ordinating incident command and control. 

Urban search and rescue equipment has already been used in emergency situations, such as during the Boscastle floods, and at the Stockline plastics factory explosion in Glasgow. 

High volume water pumping equipment was deployed during the Carlisle floods, working first to recover an electricity substation and restore power to essential services. The new pumping equipment can move 8,000 litres per minute from depths of up to 60 metres. 

These national capabilities are planned and managed between DCLG and the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA). This partnership approach is also supported by a broader group of stakeholders through the Fire Practitioners’ Forum. DCLG and CFOA work together to define the scope, challenges, resource requirements, risk assessments and planning assumptions for the programme.  

As well as building national resilience capabilities, the UK also engages with partners internationally. An example of such a partnership is when UK firefighters trained in the United States, sharing their experiences of building collapse, and participated in international exercises, such as Atlantic Blue in conjunction with the US and Canada. This work integrates with the UKs own experience of events, such as the fuel crisis and the foot and mouth epidemic, to deliver a portfolio of experience and expertise to aid the ongoing development of planning and response. 

Exercises are undertaken regionally and are managed by Regional Resilience Forums and Regional Resilience Teams, established in each of Englands the nine regions. These structures recognise the importance of local responders in providing an effective and well co-ordinated response capability. They act to bring together, in the planning stage, those organisations that will work on a local level as part of a multi-agency response to an emergency, to help set strategic direction for response and recovery. 

Separately, Regional Civil Contingencies Committees (RCCCs) may be convened in an emergency to improve the co-ordination of the response across a given region. An RCCC is a multi-agency group from across the region. It includes representitives from emergency services, local authorities, the Government Office (GO) and others as applicable. It takes a particular, but not exclusive, interest in 'consequence management' and the recovery phase after an incident. It can meet at one of three levels, depending on the circumstances of the incident:

• Level one – convened prior to an emergency when prior warning permits;
• Level two – convened in the event of a wide area disruptive challenge to the region/nation;
• Level three – convened only when Emergency Regulations are invoked under the Civil Contingencies Act.

The co-ordination of the Fire and Rescue Service response is key to ensuring that this sort of regional or national incident is responded to quickly and effectively. The Fire and Rescue Service currently operates 46 fire control rooms in England. Whilst these control rooms do a very good job, they were not designed to deal with major regional or national incidents. The FiReControl project is working to develop a dedicated, responsive and flexible solution to this issue by creating Regional Control Centres, as recommended in a report on ‘The Future of Fire and Rescue Service Control Rooms in England and Wales’. 

The project also enables the development of secure and resilient systems, with the capacity to deal with sudden surges in demand or the loss of one or more control rooms. From these centres it will also be possible to co-ordinate a national response to large scale disasters. 

Of course, co-ordination of effort on this scale would not be possible without the ability for fire and rescue authorities to co-ordinate activity across county boundaries. The Firelink project is an important investment providing a digital radio system which will play an important part in assuring the delivery of operational priorities. Firelink is working closely with the FiReControl project. 

The competition for the procurement of the Firelink system was introduced by ministers in May 2002 and is centrally funded by Government. The system will provide a much improved capability including better voice quality, multiple voice and data channels, the ability to communicate when in another FRS area, and improved security and resilience. 

While Firelink is being delivered, action has been taken to safeguard and enhance existing radio systems. 

Each of these programmes serves to help the Fire and Rescue Service develop its capability and responsiveness.  

In 2003, the White Paper ‘Our Fire and Rescue Service’ set out the vision for a modern Fire and Rescue Service. It placed a new emphasis on prevention of fire and other risks rather than simply responding where fires occur. It also says that where a fire does occur, it should be tackled safely and in the most efficient way possible. 

Following the White Paper, the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 updated the legislative framework for fire and rescue authorities. The Act created a new duty to promote fire safety; and provided flexibility for fire and rescue authorities to work with others in the community to deliver this duty. The Act also broadens the role of fire and rescue authorities to reflect their new role in national resilience. Importantly, the legislation gives statutory footing to the National Framework which sets out the Government’s priorities and objectives for the Fire and Rescue Service and what fire and rescue authorities should do to achieve them. The National Framework also sets out the support the Government will provide. 

The 2005/06 Fire and Rescue National Framework was published on 6 December 2004. It was given statutory force by means of an Order laid before Parliament. 

The modernisation of the Fire and Rescue Service is under way. In the 2004 Spending Review, a Public Service Agreement (PSA) target was set to: 

Reduce the number of accidental fire related deaths in the home by 20%, by 31 March 2010 and to achieve a 10% reduction in deliberate fires by 31 March 2010. 

This includes a floor target: 

That no local fire and rescue authority has a fatality rate, from accidental fires in the home, more than 1.25 times the national average by 2010.

The target reflects the Government's commitment to saving lives. The floor target in particular has been added to focus effort on reducing inequality in the impact of fire. Fire hits the poorest communities the hardest, with twice the rate of fires and deaths. 

Progress has already been made in implementing a number of changes which are reflected in the National Framework, including: 

• From April 2003, local Integrated Risk Management (IRMP) plans replaced the national standards of fire cover. All fire and rescue authorities are expected to produce an IRMP that is current in accordance with ODPM guidance. The introduction of IRMPs has given the senior Fire and Rescue Service managers what they have long sought - flexibility to make decisions about fire cover based on existing and potential risks to their communities, within a strategic framework set by locally elected members.
• The Fire and Rescue Service component of the DCLG efficiency target is to achieve savings of £105 million gross in 2007/8.
• Improvements in human resources arising from the pay and conditions agreement have led to the removal of the requirement for constant crewing and has removed the ban on overtime and freed restrictions on shift patterns.
• The Home Fire Risk Check initiative announced on 21 October 2004 provides £25m capital funding to fire and rescue authorities to install free smoke alarms in combination with tailored fire safety advice over the period to spring 2008. The initiative is targeted on 1.25m vulnerable households.
• The Arson Control Forum established in 2001 leads work on arson reduction. It advises on research into arson issues, sponsors local arson reduction initiatives and promotes best practice through guidance to fire and rescue authorities and other partners.  

All these programmes have been brought together under the DCLG’s Fire and Resilience Directorate.   DCLG also works in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Executive.  The Government is committed to ensuring the UK Fire and Rescue Service is equipped to respond to every type of emergency and contribute towards UK resilience.