Union urges rethink on fire centres merger

Aug 26 2008 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

PLANS to close Merseyside’s fire control centre and answer 999 calls in Warrington should be the subject of an inquiry because of soaring costs, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said last night.

The union said in the North West the merging of five control centres into one was supposed to deliver savings of around 30% off the running costs – around £2.8m.

According to the FBU, this has now been revised down to £400,000, under the shake-up that will see the closure of the Bootle centre.

The union, whose calculations are based on the response to Parliament-ary questions, claimed the scheme to merge 46 centres across England into nine had soared from the £100m originally estimated.

Fire minister Parmjit Dhanda accused the FBU of “misrepresenting the facts” but did admit the overall cost will be £360m.

The FBU claims the figure is actually £868m and includes rent, a new IT system, redundancy payments, and the costs of consultants in its calculations.

Last night, the Government said saving money was not the real reason behind the changes, but instead to provide greater resilience against major incidents on the scale of the London terror bombings.

The new control room at Warrington, on Lingley Mere business park, in Great Sankey, is due to open in 2010 or 2011 and will allow firefighters to respond more quickly to incidents, it is claimed.

Some of the 58 staff at Bootle, and the 27 at the Cheshire control room at Winsford, will lose their jobs, as staff numbers across the North West fall from 212 to around 110.

Kevin Brown, North West regional secretary for the FBU, said: “We are calling for an inquiry into this appalling waste of money. The important thing to point out for the North West project is that the cost savings have just evaporated.

“We are not going to have an improvement in service, and no savings are going to be made.”

The project will see the total staff of 220 that currently work at the five control centres reduced to 85, he said.

The union believes the entire project to be unnecessary and will actually make the country more vulnerable to attacks by reducing the number of control rooms.

Mr Brown said ministers should take a lead from Scotland, where similar plans were recently dropped.

The union claims around £55m will be spent on management consultants, an increase of more than 50% from estimates of £36m.

Mr Dhanda said: “This is basic FBU scaremongering by misrepresenting the facts.

“They have completely ignored the significant savings that will be made from running nine networked centres, instead of the current 46 outdated ones.

“Our firefighters and the public deserve the very best, which is why we are pro- viding the most advanced technical support to any fire service in the world.

“Every area in the country will benefit from capabilities the current control rooms do not have, including water supply and hazard information, and automatic location of the nearest appliance.”

davidbartlett