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ITEM BV14

BEST VALUE COMMITTEE – 23 JUNE 2004

FIRE SERVICE COMMAND AND CONTROL ROOM

Report by Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer

Background

  1. As part of the modernisation agenda, the government commissioned Matt McDonald to review the needs of the modern Fire Service for providing control room facilities. As a result of their recommendations, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) have directed that fire control rooms will function for each region of the country. This is encompassed in the National Framework Document for the modernised Fire & Rescue Service.

  2. The project named ‘FiReControl’ claims that it will provide a first class incident and resource management service to the Fire & Rescue Service. It will do this by co-ordinating the provision of people, processes and technology to deliver the right service at the right time and in the right way. FiReControl will result in a more cost effective service, meeting local requirements at a regional level. It will improve resilience with effective fall back mechanisms and will provide better scope for integrated risk management planning. In addition, control rooms will provide a more effective work environment, balancing the changing business requirements with control room staff needs. Staff satisfaction will be promoted by providing high quality jobs and enhanced opportunities for career progression.

  3. Within Oxfordshire, we intend to work hard to ensure all these claims by ODPM are met.

  4. Following my last report on the 18 January 2004, several areas of the Regional Control project have become clearer. However there is still a lack of any significant detail from which a clear project plan can emerge.

    5. Communications Events

  5. Various communication events have been provided in recent months, including national and regional seminars. More recently a series of workshops for control staff have been run by the FiReControl project team. It is intended that further staff worksops will be conducted throughout the project. A web site has been made available which can be found at http://fire-control.org.uk/

    6. Timetable

  6. A project timetable has now been published which indicates that all controls will be available by late 2007. It is probable that the South East Regional Control will become operational in 2007, with more exact details being available as the project progresses.

    7. Location

  7. Earlier documentation indicated that Regional Management Boards would have a responsibility for identifying and agreeing the location of the Regional Control. The contract notice for the provision of one or more of eight construction sites and works for the establishment of Fire and Rescue Service Regional Control Centres in England have now been published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The closing date for registering interest was the 24 May 2004. It is anticipated that a long list(possibly 8 – 10 locations per region) will be available in late Summer 2004 with a final site being selected in Winter 2004/5. It is not yet clear what involvement the RMB will have in the final location decision.

    8.   Scope of Supply

  8. The scope is comprehensive covering the following:-

    • Resource Management

    • Call Handling

    • Resource Allocation to Incidents

    • Incident Management

    • Management of Large Scale Incidents

    • Fallback and recovery Mechanisms

    • Planning for Events and Civil Contingencies

    • Business Support issues

  1. The scope is currently being consulted upon at Fire Authority and Regional levels. It is more extensive than originally considered probable and will, if implemented in this format, result in major changes to the way in which this service is provided. Many aspects of the current activities of our existing control room apparently fall outside the proposed scope of supply e.g. non-emergency communications. Brigades are expected to provide their own means of communication whilst crews undertake Community Safety activities or other routine off-station work.

    2. Project Management

  2. National project management is being undertaken by the ODPM. Regional Project Management is being lead by CFO Martin Burrell of West Sussex. The Regional project remains the responsibility of the Regional Management Board.

    3. Implications for Oxfordshire’s Control Function

  3. The current imperatives for our control room are:-

    1. Ensuring the continuation of professional standards, high performance to the public and ongoing low costs are maintained

    2. Support and retention of staff whilst providing opportunities to broaden skills and consider potential redeployment opportunities

    3. Contributing to national and regional projects, whilst ensuring the interests of Oxfordshire are fully considered

    4. Planning for transitional arrangements, including the effects on other aspects of local service delivery, e.g. requirements of standardisation of systems and procedures

  4. Our current concerns, reflected in the consultation on the Provisional Scope definition are :-

    • Regional Control Rooms apparent responsibility for operational assets displacing the Fire & Rescue Authority’s legitimate responsibility for the direction of their employees and resources. Continuous improvement of service delivery, measured rigorously through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment process is a duty that falls on the FRA not the Regional Management Board.

    • Local accountability issues at the tactical level including several aspects that indicate RCR’s will have the sole authority over FRA resources. This is deemed inappropriate and in some cases ineffective. Involvement of a local decision maker is a requirement in these areas.

    • Constraints imposed by the Regional Control Room (RCR) scope resulting in a local residual resourcing issue. This is where certain elements of a function currently undertaken by a control room will still have to be provided for locally, which will have consequential financial implications in brigades

    • Extent of information required by RCR’s to be recorded within a Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRA) Integrated Risk Management Plan, currently many of these are knowledge and experience based by Control Staff and codifying them will represent a technical challenge.

    • "Back Office" ICT implications apparently mandating FRA’s to provide systems that can interact with the RCR. As yet there is liitle clarity of funding issues associated with such requirements.

    • Implication for County Council FRA’s - the single function approach of the proposed scope conflicts with the existing concept of integrated services in which control rooms undertake non FRS duties on behalf of the County Council e.g provision of a county contact officer.

Financial Issues

  1. It is as yet unknown what the financial implications of this project will be, although as a result of the scoping process it can be envisaged that there may be financial consequences of amending systems to align with national standards and the continued provision of processes that fall outside the scope of supply.

  2. Recent presentations have highlighted the main drivers for this project to centre on resilience issues as part of the wider New Dimensions programme with Fire & Rescue Control rooms forming part of the newly emerging "critical national infrastructure" designed to withstand major disruptive events such as large scale terrorist attack.. Financial benefits of this project appear to be receiving less prominence that in earlier presentations.

  3. Existing officers are already providing local project management for the implementation issues are growing and a specific appointment is intended in this area as soon as the regional project issues become clearer.

    4. Conclusion

  4. It is clear that this project, despite some slippage to the national timetable and outstanding uncertainties, remains a priority of the ODPM.

  5. The scope of supply has now clarified that the proposed solution is a comprehensive project moving a considerable number of processes that are currently undertaken locally to the regional level. This is expected to have consequential effects on current organisational processes.

  6. It appears also that certain functions may need to be retained within the county, but at this stage these functions have not been confirmed or option appraisal or costs established.

  7. A site location is likely to be selected in the Autumn and the implications for the county and our staff will be easier to assess at this time.

  8. In conclusion, it is now apparent that the Regional Fire Control project will now be enacted in a manner, which renders obsolete the recommendations of individual Fire authorities Best Value Reviews. Cllr John Farrow, representing Oxfordshire’s FRA on the Regional Management Board will be responsible for the management of this project via the regional project board. It will be appropriate to bring key decisions forward to the Executive, when required in the future.

    9. RECOMMENDATION

  9. Consequently it is RECOMMENDED that this written report is the last one to be presented to the Best Value Committee.

JOHN PARRY
Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer

Background papers: Fire Control – Provisional Scope definition

Contact Officer: Deputy Chief Fire Officer John Hurren Tel: 01865 855205

June 2003

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