Hansard

The Scottish Government requested this debate to give the Parliament an opportunity to discuss our continued commitment to ensuring that Scotland has an efficient and effective fire and rescue service during the period of public consultation on a new fire and rescue framework.

Before proceeding, I will take this opportunity to note on the floor of the chamber the tragic death of firefighter Ewan Williamson while he was attending the incident at the Balmoral bar in Edinburgh on Sunday 12 July. That sad event was a salient reminder of the debt that each of us owes to front-line firefighters. It is also a reminder of why all the partners who are involved in the fire service must work together to ensure that firefighters and the public have a service that is fit for purpose. As you will appreciate, Presiding Officer, the incident is still the subject of a police investigation, so it is neither appropriate nor possible for me to discuss any issues in relation to it today.

I am aware of the public support for the bravery and commitment of firefighters to be formally recognised. Whereas the awarding of the Queen's gallantry medal is a decision for other bodies, I and the Scottish Government support an appropriate form of lasting recognition. I ask members to join me in extending our condolences to Ewan's family and to his colleagues.

In October 2005, the previous Administration published the first "Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland", as required by the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005. That framework set out a new vision for Scotland's fire and rescue services and placed expectations on the service and on the Government. It reflected the historic shift of putting fire prevention on a par with intervention, and it gave individual services more freedom to manage their local risks.

A huge amount has been achieved in the past four years, and it would be impossible to mention everything, but I would like to pay particular tribute to the commitment of everybody who works in Scotland's fire service and of all others who support them in the cause of making our communities safer. We have seen the commitment of our firefighters throughout Scotland in recent days, particularly in the parts of Moray that have been affected by the most serious recent flooding.

Here are just some of the highlights of what has been achieved over the past four years. Integrated risk management planning has been introduced, and so has a new £37 million firelink communications system. A community fire safety regime has been introduced. There are now additional duties in relation to road traffic incidents and flooding, with an enforcement role for commercial fire safety. More than £25 million has been invested in resilience capability to enable the services to deal with the consequences of terrorism and extreme weather—and that capability has been formalised. We moved quickly to resolve uncertainty for staff and fire and rescue services about the number of control rooms in Scotland, and we moved to address anomalies around firefighter ill-health retirement. Today, I am pleased to announce to Parliament an additional £6 million of funding to support the backdating to 2006 of firefighter pension commutations.

Earlier this year, I visited each fire and rescue service in Scotland, because I wanted to see for myself how much the service had changed. I saw some excellent examples of innovation, investment and collaborative working. In Tayside I saw investment in information technology systems, and in Dumfries and Galloway I visited a shared maintenance facility. Strathclyde Fire and Rescue is working on a state-of-the-art training centre in collaboration with the Scottish Government; Fife Fire and Rescue Service is a key part of a strong community planning partnership, which includes youth engagement; Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Service has established strong collaborative working with the Scottish Ambulance Service—and I could go on. Most important, the key indicators are generally heading in the right direction. The number of primary fires is continuing to fall, as are the long-term trends in fire fatalities and injuries.

A great deal still needs to be done. In spite of the long-term downward trend, Scotland continues to have the unenviable record of having more fire-related deaths per million population than any other part of the United Kingdom. Too many Scottish businesses and homes are devastated by fire, which brings personal tragedy as well as economic damage. The fire and rescue services need to stay focused on reducing the figures. Audit Scotland and others have highlighted key areas of concern, which need to be addressed. For example, the removal of national standards of fire cover in 2005 and their replacement with the integrated risk management plan—the IRMP—has been helpful, but concerns are being raised regarding the disbandment of the Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council and the perceived lack of consistency in the way in which IRMP is applied across Scotland. We want to see local solutions to local risks, but we do not want a postcode lottery in fire cover.

We need to address unnecessary duplication in non-front-line areas, such as human resources, training facilities and IT systems. I am sure that none of us wants scarce resources to be diverted away from the front line unless it is strictly necessary. There is no point in doing something eight times if desired results can be achieved by collaboration. More could be done by fire and rescue services and their police and ambulance colleagues to encourage collaborative working. That could help to reduce costs while sharing knowledge, infrastructure and capabilities. More needs to be done to exploit the enormous potential of the 3,600 retained duty service and volunteer staff and to ensure that those personnel are trained effectively and deployed more creatively.

The biggest challenge over the next few years will be financial. Our fire and rescue services cost some 30 per cent more per head of population than their equivalents in England. Some of that difference can plainly be justified by our geography and other factors, but we are now facing public expenditure cuts on a scale that has not been experienced for decades. All areas of the public sector will have less money to spend, not just next year but probably for several years to come. Fire and rescue services will be competing within the local government settlement with services such as housing and education, and local government generally will be competing with health. The need for further efficiency across the services is inescapable, but I would urge those who will have to decide how to make those efficiencies to do so with care. As I have already said, I and many others believe that there is scope to make significant savings while protecting the front line.

I do not want to get diverted at this point into speculation about the structure of the service in the future. I am well aware that many people have questioned whether having eight services is too many. As far as the Scottish Government is concerned, that is a second-order question; the main priority is to ensure that the desired outcomes can be delivered in a manner that is consistent with best value. If a structure or a process gets in the way of the desired outcomes, it should be regarded as expendable—it cannot become an end in itself.

There are opportunities. Against the background that I have set out, the Scottish Government—working with our partners in local government, particularly colleagues in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—believes that a new fire and rescue framework represents an opportunity to give the fire and rescue services a new vision and direction for the future. The "Draft Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2009", which was published for consultation in June, reflected constructive discussions over many months among the Scottish Government, local government and unions. I am delighted that the draft was endorsed by all stakeholders. It sets out our collective expectations of the services and the outcomes that we want to be achieved. I commend our collective desire for

"A Scotland which is free of all preventable fire-related deaths, injuries and damage."

That is at the heart of what we are all about.

The draft framework sets out the roles and responsibilities of all the key players. We all need to be clear about what we are doing to help to deliver the desired outcomes. Most of the delivery is the responsibility of local government, but the Scottish Government plays an important role in developing and setting national standards and in running national facilities for the benefit of local government, such as the new firelink radio system and the Scottish Fire Services College in Gullane.

Of course, I am ultimately accountable to the Parliament for the performance of the services and their contribution to national resilience. That is why members will see that a common theme runs through the new draft framework: partnership. It is also why we have placed the ministerial advisory group, which is our principal forum for matters of strategic importance, at the heart of the new arrangements. The group, which I chair, provides an opportunity for all stakeholders to be involved in regular dialogue about progress towards desired outcomes.

The draft sets out plans for specific projects that will help to flesh out the principles. I will touch on four areas of activity in which we are making progress. First, since the introduction of the first framework we have moved our focus from rescue and firefighting to a more risk-based approach. We have supported such risk reduction through the introduction of integrated risk management plans, which are underpinned by a focus on the protection of people rather than property. IRMP has allowed individual fire and rescue services more effectively and efficiently to allocate resources to meet specific risks.

Although the approach has worked well, it is only right that after three years we should review it, to ensure that it will continue to meet its objectives and that there has not been too great a shift away from national standards.