Fire Minister calls new FireControl centres 'essential' - Bapco Journal

Fire Minister calls new FireControl centres 'essential'

Published: 

27 November, 2008

Fire Minister Sadiq Khan has laid out the national case for the new linked network of control centres for the Fire and Rescue Service and the Government has said it remains committed to paying the set up costs of £380million before giving the new network to England's Fire and Rescue Authorities it was announced yesterday.

As reported on the BAPCO Journal website in previous weeks, the FireControl project has come underfire from the Fire Brigade's Union (FBU) and has been backed by the Chief Fire Officers' Association (FCOA).

The latest announcement  was made by Fire Minister Sadiq Khan in a Written Statement to Parliament announcing the publication of the Business Case:

 "The Government is investing £380m in FireControl and remains strongly committed to it. Good progress has been made on a number of fronts, including the completion of eight new highly resilient Regional Control Centre buildings, the establishment of eight Local Authority Controlled Companies which bring together all relevant local partners, and the development of a strong network of regional project teams working to ensure the project is a success in their areas." 

Sadiq Khan also said:
  

"Major emergencies in recent years have shown us the very real challenges we face in today's world. FireControl will give all Fire and Rescue Services access to systems and technology that only a few currently benefit from. It will result in greater resilience and collaboration, better information and incident support for firefighters, and a better service to the public - both day to day and during major incidents." 

Highlights in the national business case include:  

 

 

• the completion of all three major national procurements
• overall savings of £8million per year nationally once the network is fully operational
• eight of the nine RCC buildings have achieved practical completion and work to fit them out with the new IT infrastructure has started. The ninth is on schedule
• all eight Local Authority Controlled Companies (LACCs) have been established. London is already established as LFEPA is a single authority.

The Government is also committed to making payments to FRS for net additional costs they incur directly as a result of helping to set up the new network. Of the £380million, £42million has been paid to Fire and Rescue Authorities to support local and regional delivery costs and a further £66million has been allocated for the next two financial years, 2009/10 and 2010/11. The Government is also committed to making a resilience payment of £5.6million per year, to ensure no region is worse off under FireControl.  

 

Following initial discussions with representatives of England's Fire and Rescue Services, as well as the main contractor and the Firelink radio communications project, the Department has also published a revised timetable for the change over to the new network.

Sadiq Khan added:

 "I am determined that we build stakeholders' trust and confidence as we move forward. I am grateful to all of our partners for their commitment and for working so closely with each other and with us to make this project a success." 

 

 

 

Planning indicates that the first three to be up and running will be North East, East Midlands and South West with changeover starting in summer 2010. The full national network of nine will be operational from spring 2012, but we will only have certainty once earlier stages are completed.   

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