Police and Fire Shared Services

Debate between Kevin Foster and Royston Smith

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) for securing this important debate. I also pay tribute to our blue-light services for everything they do to keep us all safe every day of the week. I was the chairman of Hampshire fire and rescue service for five or six years; in fact, I was a member of the authority for about 15 years. I was perhaps the only chairman who was interviewed by Sir Ken Knight when he did his review.

Austerity—this situation in which the country faces significant financial challenges—brings not only challenges but opportunities for our services, if people are prepared to take them. As a result of my leadership, that of the former chief fire officer, John Bonney, and that of his former deputy, Dave Curry, who is the current chief fire officer, Hampshire fire and rescue service has become one of the best, if not the best, fire and rescue services in the country. Of course, I would say that, because I was the chairman, but I think most people would acknowledge that it is right up there in the top 10, if not the best.

The service has tried to innovate its way out of the financial challenge it faces. If other fire and rescue services and police services did the same, we would not be having this debate about mandatory mergers. I think that that is a step too far and is completely unnecessary.

We talked about merging back-office functions; Hampshire has set up a business, as it were, called H3, which merges all the back-office functions of the police, the Hampshire fire and rescue service, and the county council, so when it comes to bringing in another public sector body, we are not necessarily talking about the police and fire; it could be the police and anything, or fire and anything. H3 merges IT, human resources and the back-office functions that the individual organisations involved would otherwise have, and it can bring more in. Other local authorities are looking to bring in their back-office functions. There is a philosophical argument about whether to privatise back-office functions. Some people feel a lot more comfortable about outsourcing those functions to an organisation that is publicly owned and run. Hampshire has already done that, and it was not rocket science.

[Kevin Foster]

If the arrangement were not mandatory but voluntary, what role does my hon. Friend envisage the Local Government Association, and in particular the national fire services management committee, of which I used to be a member, would play in encouraging such co-operation?

[Royston Smith]

It can have a role, precisely because that is a forum in which chairmen and others could meet and share best practice. I do not think that has been done, even now. People know what Hampshire is doing, and it is not just about H3 and back office. We have merged 18 or 19 premises with police—and I mean premises, not people; that is fundamental. We try to keep as many people as possible operating on the frontline. We will merge our headquarters into a police and fire headquarters, using the Government’s transformation fund. That will put police and fire in the same building, where they can work collaboratively on, for example, marketing and communications. Just putting them in the same building will save the police the cost of another building and will bring money into Hampshire fire and rescue service. Hampshire is in effect commissioned to run the Isle of Wight fire and rescue service; we are partnered with that service. I pay tribute to its former chief fire officer, Steve Apter, who in effect negotiated himself out of his job so that the saving could be made and so that Hampshire could effectively run the Isle of Wight’s fire services.

There are relatively minor savings in merging such things as governance, and it comes with a risk, as the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) suggested. That is not to say that fire and rescue authorities should not be leaner, and perhaps smaller. Hampshire fire and rescue has 25 members; a county brigade has one member. Of course, there are obvious savings to be made. In all likelihood the police and crime commissioner would spend at least half of what it costs to run a fire and rescue authority in running it himself, and that would mean less of a saving.

Mergers of all three services make no sense. One police and crime commissioner said it was ridiculous to send three vehicles to a road traffic collision, but of course it is ridiculous not to. The fire and rescue service may be needed to cut a casualty from a car; an ambulance may be needed to evacuate the casualty; and the police will be needed to ensure that traffic can continue to run. That could not be done with one vehicle; it would be physically impossible.

I do not think any place in the developed world has a merged police and fire service, but ambulance and fire services have been merged in many places, and that works well. Hampshire now provides a medical co-response to thousands of calls a year. That could be improved and increased. However, there is no operational reason for police and fire to merge. There is synergy in the merging of ambulance and fire, as I have said, and if savings in blue-light services are wanted, I think that is where the resources should be put. What the three services have in common is the fact that they all operate with blue lights; beyond that, much of what they do is entirely different, so we should be cautious before talking about mandatory mergers.