My Lords, the Government came into office with a clear manifesto commitment to enable fire and police services to work more closely together and to develop the role of our elected and accountable police and crime commissioners. The provisions in Part 1 of the Bill, including those in Clause 6, give legislative effect to that commitment.
It is clear that better joint working can strengthen our emergency services, deliver significant savings to taxpayers and, most importantly, enable the emergency services to better protect the public. While there are many excellent examples of collaboration between the emergency services across the country—I draw noble Lords’ attention to the excellent overview of such collaboration recently published by the Emergency Services Collaboration Working Group—the picture of collaboration remains patchy and more needs to be done to make collaborative working the norm. The directly accountable leadership of PCCs can play a critical role in this by securing better commissioning and delivery of emergency services at a local level. This is not about a merger or a police takeover; nor is it an erosion of the brand identity of the fire service. By overseeing both services, PCCs can strengthen the services by maximising the opportunities for innovative collaboration between policing and fire, and ensure that best practice is shared.
It has been said many times before, but I should stress again, that the provisions in Clause 6 providing for PCCs to take on responsibility for fire and rescue
are totally locally enabling. 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. 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 or effectiveness, on the one hand, or public safety, on the other, and where they have consulted the relevant local authorities and the public. Removing the provisions from the Bill that enable PCCs to take on governance of fire and rescue denies PCCs the opportunity to drive forward local reform. In a number of areas—for example, Essex, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire—we know that PCCs are already working closely with their fire and rescue authorities to consider the local case.
Requiring there to be local agreement before a transfer of governance can take place, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, would introduce unnecessary and unjustifiable barriers that serve to inhibit positive collaboration taking place at a local level. If there are valid reasons for a local authority’s opposition to a PCC’s proposal, these will be identified in the independent assessment process and the Home Secretary will approve a transfer only where a case has been made that it is in the interests of local communities. It would not be right to let parochial local interests—to take up what the noble Lord said—get in the way of reform where there is a clear benefit to the public.
In Committee, I was clear that the Government’s intention is for the process by which a PCC brings forward a business case for the transfer of responsibility for fire to be as robust and transparent as possible. It is important that this process commands the confidence of all parties and that local views are properly taken into account. To provide even greater assurances on this point, the Government have put forward a number of amendments which strengthen the consultation and transparency duties on PCCs. These amendments respond to a number of helpful and important points raised by noble Lords during the earlier stages of the Bill.
First, Amendment 9 will replace the existing duty on PCCs to seek the views of people in their police area with a duty that requires them to consult them. This strengthening of the duty makes explicit the Government’s expectation that PCCs will take local views into account when developing their business case and responds to concerns that the existing duty to seek views is not strong enough. In addition, Amendment 10 places an explicit duty on PCCs to consult with persons representing the views of employees and of members of the police force who may be affected by their proposal. I would expect this to include trade unions and staff associations such as the FBU, Unison and the Police Federation.
Amendment 16 will additionally require the PCC to submit a summary of the responses to such consultation to the Home Secretary to inform her decision on the proposal where the PCC does not have local agreement. It remains appropriate that it is for the PCC to determine the manner in which they should consult local authorities, the public and employee representatives, and Amendment 13 makes that clear. In the interests of transparency, Amendments 11, 15 and 17 will also
require the PCC to publish the outcomes of their local consultation and the Secretary of State to publish the independent assessment that she secures of a PCC’s business case, where they do not have the agreement of the relevant local councils.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, tabled further amendments to these provisions, which seek to further prescribe the process by which a PCC consults on his or her proposal and the requirements on the Home Secretary to publish an independent assessment. As I have already set out, I am very keen, like the noble Lord, to make sure that the process by which a PCC seeks to take on the responsibilities of a fire and rescue authority is as robust and transparent as possible. However, I hope the noble Lord would agree that many of the points that he has raised are properly a matter for guidance rather than for primary legislation. The circumstances of each local consultation will be different, so we should not unduly fetter local flexibility to put in place proportionate arrangements that recognise the nature of each local business case. The amendments, while well intentioned, risk cutting across the local accountability of PCCs and risk Whitehall dictating matters that should rightly be left to local leaders.
In response to the noble Lord’s important concerns, however, I can be very clear about the Government’s expectation that the PCC’s consultation will be undertaken in an appropriate manner and be of an appropriate duration to allow local people to express their views and for the PCC to have them taken into account. Further, we would expect the PCC’s response to the consultation to cover the matters that the noble Lord has listed in Amendment 12. The Home Office will work closely with the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the Association of Police and Crime Chief Executives to ensure that their guidance on the development of PCC business cases incorporates these points. However, I should stress again that it is for the PCC to determine locally how to achieve such outcomes based on the nature of the case, its complexity and its understanding of the best ways to engage with local communities.
Furthermore, government Amendment 17 will ensure that the independent assessment is published as soon as is practicable after the Home Secretary has made a determination. In practice, this will ensure that all parties have sufficient time to consider the findings before an order is made. Adding in what amounts to a statutory one-month pause in the process in every case again strikes me as unduly complicating the procedure for making these orders and risks increasing local uncertainty as the process is drawn out. I might add that having received the independent assessment, there is no assumption that the Home Secretary would necessarily approve a PCC’s proposal. She will base her decision on the evidence presented. I hope that noble Lords will agree that the government amendments set out a clear expectation that there should be a comprehensive consultation, that the process will be transparent, and that local views will be properly taken into account.
I also indicated in Committee that I would give further consideration to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, regarding public safety. As I set
out during that debate, public safety is a core function of the emergency services and we consider that any assessment of the impact of a proposed transfer of governance on effectiveness would include an assessment of its impact on public safety. None the less, I am content to make provision on the face of the Bill that puts this matter beyond any doubt. Government Amendments 5, 6 and 35 explicitly provide that the Secretary of State may not make an order transferring responsibility for fire and rescue to a PCC or implementing the single employer model under either a PCC or a combined authority mayor where it would adversely affect public safety.
I shall deal with the other government amendments in this group. As the Bill is currently drafted, when a PCC implements the single employer model and so delegates fire functions to a single chief officer, schemes that may be made by the Secretary of State transferring property, rights and liabilities from an FRA or the PCC-style FRA to that chief officer are one way only. On the terms and conditions for police and fire and rescue personnel, when staff are transferred from an FRA to the PCC, and under the single employer model from the PCC to the chief officer, they would be covered by the principles of the Cabinet Office code of practice entitled Statement of Practice of Staff Transfers in the Public Sector, taking into account the considerations associated with bringing two workforces closer together. For example, we propose that under the single employer model, complaints, conduct and death and serious injury matters for both the police and the fire service are treated on a consistent basis. PCCs will need to consider on how to best reflect a more closely aligned workforce locally when preparing their business case, including consultation with the relevant unions where necessary, as I said previously.
On the question whether the proposals will take firefighters, emergency fire control staff and fire support staff out of national pay and conditions, pensions and other arrangements, the terms and conditions of firefighters and control staff are negotiated on a UK-wide basis via the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services. The NJC has no statutory basis and it is for PCC FRAs to decide whether to remain members. PCC-style FRAs will also have the same ability as FRAs to negotiate changes to terms and conditions at local level, while remaining members of the NJC, but PCCs would need to approach the NJC if they wished to become members.
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Ongoing engagement on implementation with both policing and fire partners, including the Police and Crime Commissioners Treasurers’ Society and the Fire Finance Network, has identified merit in enabling flexibility to transfer property rights and liabilities back from the chief officer to the PCC-style FRA. This is consistent with the nature of delegation envisaged under the single employer model: the PCC remains the FRA and is ultimately responsible for the exercise of its functions. Amendments 7 and 8 provide for such two-way transfers under PCCs and Amendment 36 makes corresponding provision for combined authority mayors.
Finally, Amendments 20 to 22 make it clear that where a PCC is also a fire and rescue authority, he or she is able to prepare a joint plan setting out their priorities for both policing and fire. Within such a joint plan, they would be able to take a holistic view of their priorities across both functions and reflect the nature of collaborative working within their area.
We have listened very carefully to the concerns raised in Committee about the provisions in the Bill enabling a PCC to assume the responsibilities of the fire and rescue authority in their area. The package of amendments the Government have brought forward, which will be further augmented by guidance, significantly strengthens the transparency of the process by which a PCC puts forward a proposal, and ensures that the local community and affected staff are properly consulted. With these changes, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and indeed the whole House, will accept that these locally enabling provisions should remain part of the Bill. There is nothing to fear from these provisions. Our common objective is to deliver a more efficient, effective and accountable policing and fire and rescue service for the benefit of communities. These measures will do just that. Given my explanation, I hope that the noble Lord feels content to withdraw his amendment.