Fire Brigades Union:

leaked to the Fire Brigades Union shows the Government are to waste local taxpayers money on a scheme which will put lives at greater risk.

The report reveals for the first time that the plans to close all existing centres and open 9 regional centres will cost a massive £754.5 million at today’s prices. The report also makes clear there may be a loss of £107 million costing Fire Authorities over £200,000 a year more.

The project has enormous upfront costs of well over £300 million in the early years to which hard-pressed Fire Authorities will have to contribute. As most of them do not have large cash reserves and some face rate-capping the money will almost certainly have to come from cuts to frontline services.

The Government report assesses the risk, in their own words, of “delay or even total project failure” as very high/high. This is because “the recent history of delivering IT/change projects in the public sector has demonstrated a less than 50% success rate.”

Dean Mills, Executive Council member for Southern England said “ We don’t want a control room which covers an area from Dover to Dorset and from the Needles on the Isle of Wight to Northamptonshire and nor do local people”

Mr Mills, an operational Firefighter for over 20 years said “This scheme will cost local people more in tax and result in a worse service. Look at the fiasco when the air traffic control system crashed. Unfortunately this isn’t about a delay in dispatching a holiday flight its about creating delays in sending fire engines to people trapped and in urgent need of help”

The Government plan a single control room for the entire area of southern England. If busy a call will be diverted to another control somewhere in the UK. Mr Mills stated “ Our Control operators are highly trained and save lives. They are the first stage in the saving of life. This Government wish to reduce the number of controls yet increase costs in doing so its utter folly”

Asked about the response from Government Ministers that the scheme would be more efficient Mr Mills said “If the truth is an iceberg this Governments’ words carry the weight of two ice cubes. They are not being open with costs, not being factual with the delays it will cause, and not being honest with local people. In short they are playing Russian roulette with the lives of local taxpayers and making them pay more money for a scheme they know will not work no matter how they try and disguise its shortcomings.”

Contacts:-

Dean Mills: 07956 502 585

Sharon Eames 07917 065 865