It is about a single person having responsibility for both services. By their very nature, some will go before others and some are more advanced in working up their business cases. The public consultation that the noble Lord asked about took place over a period of about six weeks, I understand. People had an opportunity to respond.
The noble Lord also asked whether I had had any individual representation. I certainly have from Greater Manchester, which will not surprise him. I probably have not been in post long enough for my mailbag to
start filling up with people’s views. I suspect that the Fire Minister, Brandon Lewis, may have had rather more.
To go back to what I was saying, Sir Ken Knight, whom noble Lords have mentioned, carried out an efficiency review of the fire and rescue service back in 2013. He concluded that opportunities to foster innovation and joint working were “hindered by local relationships” —of course, things can be vastly enhanced by local relationships in parts—and that greater leadership was required to overcome barriers to collaboration. He concluded that police and crime commissioners are well placed to provide that leadership and could clarify accountability to the public.
Taken together, Clause 6 and Schedule 1 enable a PCC to take on responsibility for the fire and rescue service in his or her local area. The Government believe that the directly accountable leadership of PCCs can play a critical role in securing better commissioning and delivery of emergency services at a local level. By overseeing both services, they can maximise the opportunities for innovative collaboration between policing and fire services, and ensure that best practice is shared.
As noble Lords have alluded to, we are introducing two models for PCC governance of fire and rescue services. The first, the “governance” model, will enable the PCC to take on responsibility for fire and rescue services in their area. In this model, the two distinct organisations will remain, with a chief constable in charge of the police force and a chief fire officer continuing to have operational responsibility for the fire and rescue service.
As a further step, a PCC could put in place the “single employer” model, under which the PCC would appoint a single chief officer, who would employ both police and fire personnel. This approach will remove the barriers that can prevent the full potential of fire and police collaboration, including the need to draw up contracts and collaboration agreements. This model will also enable upper tiers of management to be streamlined, with a single chief officer at its head. To ensure consistency, Clause 8 applies the single employer model to combined authority mayors to enable mayors with both policing and fire functions to secure the same benefits of closer alignment of policing and fire as their PCC counterparts.
I stress that the provisions in Schedule 1, providing for PCCs to take on the functions of fire and rescue authorities, are locally enabling. I hope this gives the noble Lord, Lord Bach, comfort. I stress that the Government are not mandating the transfer of these functions to PCCs. We know that a one-size-fits-all approach would clearly be inappropriate and it should be up to local communities to have a say in how their services are provided. Rather, PCCs will be able to take on responsibility for fire and rescue only where a strong local case is made that it is in the best interests of either efficiency, economy and effectiveness on the one hand, or public safety on the other, for the transfer to take place. They would be required to consult locally on that case.
If the PCC does not have local agreement to their proposal but still wishes to proceed with their case, the Home Secretary will be required to seek an independent
assessment of the PCC’s business case and consider it and the representations made by the relevant local authorities before taking the decision whether to give effect to the proposal. This will be a robust process that ensures local concerns are fully taken into account and provides for independent verification of the merits of the case.
It is also important to be clear—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked about this—that under these reforms, local police forces and fire and rescue services would remain distinct front-line services, albeit supported by increasingly integrated back-office and support services. It is not an operational merger. The important distinction between operational policing and firefighting will be maintained, with the law preventing a warranted police officer being a firefighter remaining in place. There is no intention to give firefighters the power of arrest or other core powers of a constable.
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It is important to say that we do not support compulsory force mergers, which would reduce rather than increase the quality of neighbourhood policing and distance police forces from the communities they serve. We will consider requests for voluntary mergers only where they are supported by the robust business case I talked about and have community consent. I hope that gives comfort on one point.
Neither will the brand identity of fire and rescue be eroded. The fire and rescue authority will remain a distinct legal entity and neither of the proposed models will enable fire funding to be spent on policing or vice versa. I know this issue is of particular concern to the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Bach, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick mentioned it as well. I reassure them and the whole Committee that there will continue to be separate funding streams from central government and separate precepts for fire and policing, and the money spent on each service will need to be accounted for separately.
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, mentioned this to me this morning but also asked in Committee today what would happen if, for example, public service expenditure were cut or, indeed, increased. Would police budgets be able to be vired over to fire budgets or vice versa? Would one service become the Cinderella service? Under this mechanism, that could not happen because the two budgets are entirely separate. I stress that point. However, where the two services share, for example, the same headquarters or back-office functions, the cost would need to be apportioned between the relevant budgets appropriately. I hope that provides clarity on that point.
The provisions in Clause 6, Clause 8 and Schedule 1 form a central part of the overall package of reforms aimed at driving greater collaboration between local emergency services and developing the role of PCCs. By all means let us have a debate about the detail of these provisions, and I am open to suggestions about how they might be improved, but I would invite the Committee to agree that they stand part of the Bill.
Coming to some of the questions asked, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was concerned that it is too early in the evolution of PCCs to do this. As recognised by the Home Affairs Select Committee in its 2014 report,
individual PCCs provide greater clarity of leadership for policing in their areas and are increasingly recognised for the strategic direction they provide. Indeed, the quality of PCCs is to be commended. We have some very good people. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, was not listening when I said that but I was praising him. I think noble Lords would agree that since PCCs came into post, public accountability is much sharper in that members of the public are dealing with one person, whose profile seems greater than that of the old police authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about this being too much for one person. I understand that the Official Opposition support the creation of the combined authority mayor in Greater Manchester. That mayor will have responsibility for both police and fire, and they strongly support this. If the principle of one directly elected person overseeing both services is acceptable in Greater Manchester, why could it not be accepted elsewhere in England?
The other point that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, expressed concern about is that the Government could slowly put pressure on PCCs to take on the governance of their local fire and rescue service. He made clear his views about that, but it is not the case. PCCs are elected by the public and are therefore directly accountable to them, not the Government. While the Government wish to see deeper collaboration, we recognise that it is best left to local leaders to decide what is best for their areas. With those points, unless there are any other concerns noble Lords would like to bring up, I ask them to support these clauses standing part of the Bill.