Lease costs for South East Regional Control Centre announced
July 23, 2010 by admin
Filed under Campaigns, FiReControl - Regionalisation of Emergency Fire Controls, News, News - Local
Lease costs for South East Regional Control Centre (SERCC) have been announced.
The figures show that the South East Regional Emergency Fire Control has a 25 year lease costing £46 million.
Breaking this down per annum is an annual cost of £1.84m.
Dividing this figure down further to County level (for the nine counties for the RCC: Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Berkshire) means the cost per annum to the local tax payer will be £204,445.
Additional figures that would have to be added to the above annual costs for the Regional Fire Control Centre (based in Fareham) would be £396,825 per annum (£44,091 for the Isle of Wight) for facilities management services (provided by VT Flagship), Firelink (radio contract costs – unknown) and staffing costs (unknown).
All of these additional charges would be levied to Isle of Wight council tax payers to the Fire Authority of the Isle of Wight Council.
The IT solutions (provided by EADS) costs are £200 million. Whilst ongoing consultants have cost £52 since the Regional Fire Control Centre (FiReControl project as it is known) inception in 2004.
Additional costs include the project management at the Department for Communities and Local Government (formerly Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – the then John Prescott), along with the South East Regional Management Board for FiReControl.
The project is five years behind schedule and massively over budget.
The nine Regional Fire Control Centre buildings lie empty costing £40,000 per day in rent (source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/7533673/Will-this-waste-of-our-money-never-stop.html).
Projected savings have not materialised. The Isle of Wight Fire Control Centre was originally due to move to the South East Regional Control Centre (in Fareham) in 2007, but is now due to move in 2012, with rumours of further delays to the project. Isle of Wight Fire Control staff have seen their jobs under threat for the past six years.
The FiReControl project is currently subject to the spending review being carried out the the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition.
The Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition has promised to provide services at a local level.
Source: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2010-07-22a.9947.h&s=firecontrol#g9947.r0
Government funding of the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFAO) announced: FiReControl
July 23, 2010 by admin
Filed under FiReControl - Regionalisation of Emergency Fire Controls, News, News - Local, News - National
Government funding of the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFAO) have been announced.
In a parliamentary written question and answer the funding provided by the Government to the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFAO) have been announced a follows:
From 2005 to 2010/11 (YTD) funding for the FiReControl project to CFAO has totalled £1.3m.
Source: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2010-07-15b.7917.h
Regionalisation of Emergency Fire Controls – Letter to Prime Minister David Cameron
May 18, 2010 by admin
Filed under Campaigns, FiReControl - Regionalisation of Emergency Fire Controls, Members Circulars, News, News - Local, News - National
CIRCULAR: 2010HOC0336MW
14 May 2010
TO: ALL MEMBERS
Dear Brother / Sister
REGIONALISATION OF EMERGENCY FIRE CONTROLS – LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER
Members will be aware from our long running lobbying and campaigning that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have both expressed very clear opposition to the Regionalisation of Fire Controls in England. The two parties now form the new Government.
Attached is a letter to the Prime Minister seeking a commitment from the Government to honour the pledges made on this issue prior to the election; the text of the letter also appears below.
Yours fraternally
MATT WRACK
GENERAL SECRETARY
Download the letter to the Prime Minister as a PDF
Text of letter to the Prime Minister:
14 May 2010
The Rt Hon David Cameron MP Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service 10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AADear Prime Minister
FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE – REGIONALISATION OF EMERGENCY FIRE CONTROLS
I am writing in regard to the new Government’s stance on the CLG FiReControl Project (Regionlisation of Emergency Fire Controls).
In the light of comments made before and during the election by Conservative spokepersons, firefighters will be watching closely the steps taken by the new Government. You may recall that you were asked by a Firefighter (Graham Donaldson) in Yorkshire on 24 April about the Fire Service. You said:
“One thing we would do to try and stop waste is the Regionalisation of Fire Service, the so-called ‘Fire Control Scheme; it was going to cost £100 million, it’s now costing £420 million. We will want to stop that in its tracks.”
We also noted comments on FiReControl in Conservative policy green paper, Control Shift: returning power to Local Communities (February 2010), which stated:
“We will… abandon plans to regionlise Fire Control (while providing new measures to enhance resilience in the case of a national emergency).” It added: “A Conservative government will follow the Scottish example and ditch this botched project, where such regional centres have not yet gone live. We will, instead, upgrade a small number of existing fire control centres to enable them to act as national ’super centres’ in the extreme case of a national emergency.” (p.27, p.31)
We are also aware of Liberal Democrat opposition to Regional Controls. In March this year, the then Party Spokesperson Julia Goldsworthy told the FBU’s Firefighter magazine that the Government should think again over FiReControl. She said:
“The Liberal Democrats are opposed to the Government’s plans to centralise Fire Control. This project will mean vital knowledge is lost and this could risk the response time to incidents. The project has already proved to be too expensive and is likely to make the Service less rather than more responsive. WE have called for the project to be stopped and for existing Control Rooms to be upgraded as necessary to ensure the communications benefits sought by Government are dleivered by local Fire Brigade Control Rooms, as they will be in Scotland and are in Wales, without the need for Regionlisation.”
Given the wide political agreement between both Government parties on this issue, we would like an understanding from you that the FiReControl project will be scrapped, with a timetable for this process and for the upgrading of existing Control Rooms.
Your faithfully
MATT WRACK
General Secretary Fire Brigades Unioncc:
The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP – Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council Eric Pickles MP – Secretary of State Communities and Local GovernmentRelated Links