Press 6 For Prescott...The Unwanted Emergency Service

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Christopher Booker's Notebook
Sunday Telegraph 22nd August 2004

John Prescott's regionalisation policy has received its most severe rebuff so far, as Britain's firefighters protest that his plans to "regionalise" the country's fire services are "crazy" and "could well put lives at risk".

The opposition of both fire chiefs and the Fire Brigades Union to Prescott's plan will be a central issue in the first referendum campaign on an elected regional assembly, due to be held in the North-East in November.

What particularly angers the firefighters is Mr Prescott's proposal, highlighted last week by Neil Herron, the director of the North-East's "No" campaign, to replace the existing 49 fire control centres in England and Wales by just nine regional control rooms. (There is a similar plan to foist just one control centre on the whole of Scotland.)

The public will be expected to contact these centres through an automated answering service. At present 999 calls can be connected to a local control room, manned by officers who know the area and can instantly send out an appropriate response team.

Regional centres, which might be 100 miles away from the caller, will handle calls through a sequence of push-button questions and answers. A computer will then decide which fire appliance is nearest.

Callers would, for instance, have to press 1 to report a fire; then 1 again for a house fire, 2 for a car fire and 3 for any other fire, such as in an office or factory. Similarly complex sequences would have to be followed to determine whether a caller is reporting a chemical spillage, a plane or train crash, or a terrorist incident (press 4; then 1 if it is on commercial property, 2 if residential, 3 for "other").

This system is just one element in the restructuring of our fire services, which in turn is part of Prescott's larger scheme to divide the UK under 12 regional governments.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) points out that it would pose a serious risk to public safety, with "delays in emergency services responding to incidents" and anguished callers being held in queues.

The campaign against Prescott's plan is led by the FBU and backed by many chief fire officers and local councillors as well as a cross-party group of MPs. Peter Jones, Gloucestershire's chief fire officer, says "we must stop this madness at the highest level of government".

Ken Harrold, of Lothian and Borders Council, says "one fire control for the whole of Scotland is totally unacceptable".

Val Salmon, co-ordinating the FBU's national campaign, says "no one wants regional controls apart from a handful of people in Whitehall".

Mr Prescott's game has been stealthily to transfer power - over planning, housing and the courts, for example - from elected local authorities to a regional level, so that he can then argue that elected assemblies are needed to make these bodies accountable.

But last week, as Neil Herron in Newcastle told FBU representatives, including Peter Wilcox and Jean Westwood, the fire control representative for the North-East: "Mr Prescott's bluff is finally being called. This proposal to undermine our fire service will be a central issue in the North-East referendum campaign, because it brings home just how Mr Prescott's plans will affect everyone in the country - even to the point where lives could be endangered."