Hansard

Yes please. I thought that it might be helpful if I set out for the committee how we reached the position of drafting our new fire service legislation. I intend to cover the consultation process that we embarked on and the responses that we received, and then I shall provide an overview of the key provisions in the legislation. I expect my remarks to take about 10 minutes. The bill is the first substantive piece of fire legislation in the past 50 years and the culmination of a significant effort to establish a modernisation agenda for the fire service. It began with publication in April 2002 of a policy paper entitled "The Scottish Fire Service of the Future", which set out the Executive's blueprint for the fire service in the new millennium. It contained 28 recommendations, all of which were aimed at building on the fire service's deserved excellent record of service to the community. Progress on taking forward our policy paper was affected by the industrial action in the fire service, which began in the autumn of 2002 and was not resolved until June 2003. In September 2002, Professor Sir George Bain was appointed to carry out an independent review of the fire service, and he published his report in December 2002. In June 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published a white paper on the fire service in England and Wales. All three reports—our policy paper, the Bain report and the ODPM white paper—arrived at not dissimilar conclusions about how to develop the fire service, although perhaps with a different emphasis in each case. In our policy paper, "The Scottish Fire Service of the Future", we recognised that many of the proposals would require legislative change. When the threat of industrial action was lifted last summer, we were able again to concentrate on taking forward the fire service agenda. Consequently, in October 2003, we launched a consultation paper on the legislative proposals for the fire and rescue service. The proposals were debated in Parliament on 8 October. In addition, during November and December 2003, a programme of visits was undertaken by the fire bill team to the eight fire authorities to present and explain the rationale for our proposals. Stakeholders from the main trade unions, staff associations and professional bodies were invited to the same presentation in Edinburgh in December 2003. Those meetings provided an early opportunity for stakeholders to clarify their understanding of the proposals, to provide their initial views and to raise with us issues of particular concern.The formal consultation ended on 31 December. A total of 62 responses were received—more than double the number received when we published our policy paper. We had permission from 54 of the respondents to publish their responses on the Scottish Executive website. That has been done, and a comprehensive report on the consultation exercise has also been published. The majority of the respondents were from local government. All six main unions and staff associations also responded. Generally the proposals for the new legislation were welcomed, although some concerns were expressed in some areas and we have tried to address those in the bill. I would now like to take a few minutes to outline the key provisions in the new legislation. The Bain report was critical of central Government for not providing sufficient strategic direction to the fire service over many years. Under section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, fire authorities must seek ministers' approval to make changes in a number of operational areas, such as the deployment of operational vehicles. We believe that such operational matters should be for local decision. Consequently, we want the fire service in future to be clear about its direction and objectives. In recognising the way in which the fire service has developed, we propose to rename fire authorities as fire and rescue authorities.In taking forward our commitment to provide direction and guidance for the fire service, the bill provides for the publication of a national framework. The framework will set out our objectives for the fire and rescue service, what is required of fire and rescue authorities to meet those objectives and the support that the Scottish Executive will provide. The bill will place a duty on Scottish Ministers to keep the framework up to date and report on it. It will have to be consulted on and published before being laid before Parliament.The national framework will set out the key national priorities covering prevention, intervention, the work force, delivery of the service, performance and the role of the Executive. It will make clear that the fire and rescue service is a local authority service. It will not tell fire and rescue authorities what to do but will set out how we will work together in the interests of creating a safer Scotland.Much of what the fire service has been doing over the past 50 years has evolved simply because of the skills and expertise that the fire service has acquired. We think that it is important to recognise and underpin those tasks with a statutory responsibility. Therefore, the new legislation restates and clarifies the roles, powers and duties of fire and rescue authorities. We have an appalling record of fire deaths and injuries in Scotland and we must place a much greater emphasis on fire prevention and community fire safety. Therefore, there will be a new statutory duty on all fire and rescue authorities to promote fire safety, with a shift towards a more prevention-based approach aimed at saving more lives by stopping fires occurring in the first place. As well as the traditional firefighting duty, there will be a new core duty of responding to road traffic accidents. The bill will also provide powers for ministers to make additional function orders, which would confer a responsibility on fire and rescue authorities to respond to other emergencies, such as serious flooding, and to implement measures to plan for and respond to the increased threat from terrorism. We intend to consult on the scope and content of those orders.The bill also seeks to recognise that, as we are a small country, we need to strengthen the collaborative approach and streamline existing powers to enable fire and rescue authorities to work together more closely. That should secure greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness and should ensure that public safety functions, such as planning for serious emergencies, can be organised on the most effective basis.The bill provides new powers for ministers in a number of areas, including the area of national resilience. The new powers provide for ministers to direct fire and rescue authorities during particular, specific, emergencies to ensure that there is a co-ordinated and strategic response and that resources are focused where they are needed most. In that regard, the bill also gives powers for ministers to provide equipment and services for fire and rescue authorities and to direct them on the use of their equipment, in order to ensure uniformity of approach across the service, which is crucial to national resilience and public safety. Among some of the other issues covered in the new legislation, the bill maintains the existing ability for fire and rescue authorities to charge for particular services. However, the bill will continue to exclude the possibility of charging for firefighting and other rescue work where life is at risk. We will shortly be consulting publicly on the charging provisions.The Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council has existed for many years under current legislation. Although we do not seek to decry the work of the council, we believe that it has become too cumbersome and is not good at delivering swift, meaningful change. We will consult on how best to put in place more effective and flexible stakeholder advisory and consultative groups to ensure that advice from stakeholders in the service informs the future direction and development of the service. However, we do not believe that that advisory structure needs to be enshrined in legislation.Finally, in part 3 of the bill, we provide for a new fire safety and enforcement regime for non-domestic premises. The current fire safety legislation—the Fire Precautions Act 1971—has served us well for 30 years but focused attention on getting people out of burning buildings before they came to harm. It is all about providing adequate means of escape and other precautions. The new regime builds on the approach provided for in the current Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997. It will place a duty on owners to ensure the safety of their employees, people visiting the premises and the premises, and will impose a duty to carry out a risk assessment. The bill imposes a number of specific duties in relation to the fire safety measures to be taken and provides for enforcement, appeals, offences and connected matters. The intention is that the new fire safety regime will apply consistently across the UK. In England, the new regime will be enshrined in a regulatory reform order.I could say much more about the bill, but I hope that my opening remarks have been helpful in setting the scene. We look forward to answering the committee's questions.