uh greby consultation meeting to consider the merger of West Kirby and Upton at greby I'm Peter rushan from mde fire and rescue service and I'm here to chair the meeting tonight uh also with us tonight is the Chief Fire officer Dan Stevens and a number of the senior Managers from the fire service um on the screen uh is the agenda for the evening which includes an explanation uh of the con consultation process and then some of the headlines of the chief's presentation this will be followed by an opportunity for yourselves to make comments and ask questions uh the chief's presentation uh is going to cover statutory duties of the fire and rescue auor Authority the financial challenges we Face budget decisions the merger options that we've considered and the proposals uh on the greby fire station just to make it clear this is not a planning consultation but a consultation about changes in Fire cover and whether in the circumstances our proposals are reasonable it's the fourth public meeting with held and obviously the second in griby uh the others in West Kirby and O and we're also holding deliberative forums and a stakeholder Forum as I said the chief is now going to give you a presentation of our proposal and then it will be over to you to ask questions we're going to ask you to come up to the mic to ask those questions uh so that everybody in the building can can hear you and and take part there are two other rooms outside there uh full of people who are also listening and seeing the same as you um at the end of it uh you've got to hopefully you as many as possible have' got a newsletter and there are survey forms if you haven't picked them up there are some on the table at the back and we'd like you to fill them in if you can um we intend to finish at 9:00 tonight thanks very much any than Peter Vicky can you move the slides on please okay I don't control the uh the presentation for so I'm going to have to ask my colleagues to uh move the slides on after the after I've spoken to each one uh before we start and at the risk of insulting anyone's intelligence saying that that certainly is not my intention I need to make it clear from the outset that Mesi Side Fire and Rescue Authority is a standalone statutary body convened under Section one of the sorry part one of the fire and Rescue Services act we are not will Metropolitan B Council and as the Chief Fire officer I in the same way as the chief Constable is responsible for operational policing matters I am responsible for operational fire and rescue cover for the county of Mery side so we need to make that clear from the uh from the outset and that is very much the context in which that I speak to you tonight and I will make clear what my position is in relation to the method of the proposed merger the far and Rescue Services act 2004 part two details the core functions of the fire and rescue Authority these are the specific operational response functions section six is not up on on the board that that is related that relates to the duty to provide fire safety advice that is not impacted At All by The Current financial challenge faced by The Authority in this sense or indeed this proposal section seven of the ACT is our duty to respond to fires section eight is the duty to respond to road traffic collisions section nine is the duty to respond to emergencies as defined in in the fine Rescue Services emergencies England order 2007 articles 1 through3 which is specifically for chemical biological radiological nuclear and conventional explosive emergencies all emergencies which require the rescues of persons from collapse structures or serious transport incidents which do not involve Motor Cars IE trains trams or aircraft section 11 of the fire and Rescue Services act details the elective Powers available to the fire and rescue Authority those Powers extend to us Mak a response to any incident where somebody may die be injured or become ill the same extends to animals or the environment that is pretty much anything that isn't covered in sections 7 through 9 move the slide on please make the far and res service National framework is required under section 21 of the fan Rescue Services act and that placed as a duty on the Secretary of State for the Department for communities and local government which is Eric pickles to prepare a far and rescue service National framework and far and rescue authorities must have regard to that framework in the discharge of their functions you may not be able ble to see on the slide there The Narrative so I'll read it out what it says is that each fire and rescue Authority must produce an integrated risk management plan that identifies and assesses all foreseeable far and rescue related risks that could affect its Community including those of a crossborder multi authorit and all national nature the plan must have regard to the community risk register produced by the local resilience forum and and any other risk analysis as appropriate what the framework also says and in truth is the knob of the issue for us to consider tonight is that the fire and rescue Authority must hold the Chief Fire officer or chief executive which is one and the same to account for the delivery of Fire and Rescue Services in this instance across mey side that means ultimately I and I alone am held to account the fire and rescue cover and it is that which is my primary concern when making recommendations to the fire and rescue authority to be clear under the scheme of operational delegation I do not have the authority to close West K or Upton and to build a new station at greey only the fire and rescue Authority can make that decision only the fire and rescue Authority can make that decision based on the requirements of the fire and Rescue Services act I'll take I'll cover the point that you make later on in the presentation need to make that clear now and please don't take umage at this comment the fire and rescue Authority does not have a statutory duty to keep people in G be happy that is in no way meant to be an inflammatory comment it is true it is true to the people what I will say is and what I will explain in detail as I move through the presentation the mechanism by which the people of greby can oppose any building of a fire station in greby I will make that abundantly clear and what I will also do and as I've made clear on every presentation that I've delivered are will Faithfully represent the views of the people of greby and West kby and Upton to the fire and rescue Authority but ultimately it is they that make the decision not me the reason that they are not here is because it is my professional recommendation to them that we are Consulting on now it would be predetermination for them to stand here to argue the case for or otherwise a major they need to consider my recommendations in an operational context along with the views of the people in the communities affected need to make that point clear to everyone now apologies for dwelling on that point apologies if have insulted anyone's intelligence but it is important to make that clear to everybody we the slide on please let me say from the outset there is no prospect that I would recommend the closure of any fire station to the fire rescue Authority if there were any other alternative the financial challenges didn't as side far and rescue Authority is face did not start in 2010 they started way back in 2004 and there are some Legacy reasons for that which I will attempt to explain on the last bll point of this slide but have deal with the comprehensive spending review for 2010 so it is that which covers this existing Parliament that we are in now so 201112 through 1415 the meride foreign rescue Authority Grant so that is the money it receives directly from government has been reduced by 35% NYS side F rescue Authority relies on that grant for 70% % of its income The Authority can only raise therefore 30% of its overall income from precept that is what we all pay on in addition to the the council tax so you see you have for those of you who all live in wh will Council take the majority of the the money from the council tax then the police F commissioner then the fine rescue authority over the course of the uh of this Parliament the government has limited C tax increases to 2% what that means is that the authority has no Prospect of offsetting in any great in any great measure the extent of the direct reductions to its grant that issue was fair compounded by the fact that Mesi side has a very low tax base the lowest in the country and what that means is the majority of properties on Mery side fall within band a that means we have the lowest actual cash terms yield from council tax the grant Cuts in year4 20156 so take the effect as of the first of April next year require the authority to make an additional 6.3 million of savings Beyond the2 million of savings The Authority has had to make up to this point within this spending review that is on on top of significant reductions since 2004 all of the mainstream political parties are committed to eradicating the structural deficit that means in the next Parliament whoever is in power and assuming that the big spending departments such as health and education continue to be protected in the way that they have been local government of which far and rescue a part of will bear the brunt of further efficiency savings the best case predictions that we've modeled th far based on information in the public domain assumes that the savings challenge will rise to just over 9 million in 1617 and potentially up to 20 million by 2020 that is on top of the savings we've had to make up to this point in the interest of balance the point I have to make is that as he said is still even after these efficiency savings the third most expensive Authority by gr per headed population and the fifth on overall spend that includes the council tax year as well but our Legacy reasons for that would take back to the 1950s the fire Services act sorry the fire Service Act 1947 was enacted immediately after the second World War the early 1950s the Riverdale commission undertook a piece of work to determine national standards of Fire cover these were these were repealed in 2004 those standards of Fire cover targeted ostensively heavy industrial risk there were four levels of risk categorization a risk heavy industry things like docks two pumps in five minutes one pump in 8 minutes commercial and medium to Light Industry B risk one pump in 5 minutes one pump in eight Suburban dwellings one pump in 8 to 10 minutes roal one pump in 20 back in the 50s the majority of merys side was aisk the reasons which we will allall back then Liverpool was the second city was 15 miles of operational dock that stretched from se4 in the north to garon at the south of Liverpool that was broadly replicated over here on the wh in Bon head and Wy that of course is now all gone along with the heavy industry that was once there back in the 50s population of meys side has also decreased significantly over that time it was 1.7 million in the 1950s it is now 1.38 million population of Liverpool was 850 53,000 it's now just under half a million in 2004 when the funding moved to per capita base IE the head of population we were by some margin the most expensive fan rescue Authority in the country and unfortunately at that point the chickens well and trly came home to roost in all my time as Chief fir officer I have never presided over a budget that's required me to do anything other than make sign ific cuts to the fire and rescue Authority that is a fact unfortunately we are at the point now as I will explain further on in the presentation where we have nothing left to go at other than fire stations and unfortunately fire engines which brings us to this point where we're at now Becky can you move the slide on please in terms then of the Savings in year for 1516 we are assuming the authority is assuming that we will be able to deliver just under3 million from what we ter support services that in truth is not an accurate reflection of what we mean by Support Services what we've done is very simply differentiate from expenditure that is not directly on fire stations we've called everything else support services this includes our community safety advocacy teams and our protection officers are fire safety enforcement all of that is front line it just isn't fire engines they need to make that point we were left to lose more than 40 of our non-uniform staff over the in 156 on top of the 90 uniform staff that we had to take out over the last four years we are assuming pay restraint to continue for a fair two years beyond the the four sorry five years now that the P Str to being in in operation there is very little Prospect we will avoid compulsory redundancies if I'm honest with you we haven't done up to this point what we have done is given people what I would ter the Sicilian choice they either leave on enhanced terms or we make them compulsory redundant an appalling thing to have to do but the reality nonetheless the point to make is that this will and continues to have a significant impact on our organizational cap pardon me organizational capacity not least to try to deliver all of the uh savings measures that we will have to deliver some of which I will speak to as I move through the presentation move on please accepting if we can say just under 3 million from uh support services so for non-fire station related savings stands to reason therefore that the balance 3.4 million has to come from operational response £ 3.4 million is broadly 100 firefighter than senior manager posts that will be achieved through retirement like we're not going to lose all of those posts on the 1st of April 2015 The Authority will use reserves to smooth out those post deductions through natural retirement that is the only way we can avoid compettive abundances in the very simplest of terms the number of whole time firefighters we can employ directly determines the number of fire engines we can STA and it is that which ultimately determines the number of Fire Stations from which we can operate the savings that we're going to need to deliver in 15 16 will mean that we have no other choice but to reduce our stations down from 26 to 22 we will seek to Main maintain however 28 F appliances what we will not be able to do is maintain 28 whole time pumps what we intend to do is to crew 24 of those appliances whole time that is with firefighters who are there 24 hours a day on station ostensibly through a four watch system on two 12-hour days 2 12h hour nights and 4 days off in order to maintain the number of appliances at 28 what Our intention is is to Clue the remaining four appliances on what we term whole time retained and I will explain what that is in more detail on the uh the next slide if we are unable to secure sufficient numbers of our existing staff to undertake retained cover and what that is very simply is if you accept our staff do two days two nights and have four days off on the middle two days off what we will be asking them to do is for the 10% retaining fee provide availability over those two days to respond in on a half hour recall if our Appliance numbers Falls below a predeter level I'll explain why that's our intention to do that as I say as I move through the presentation what we may need to do if we cannot secure the appropriate numbers is to recruit directly onto that system I will explain also the reasons why that would be my last result as I move through the presentation you move on please Frey earlier in the year The Authority undertook a consultation exercise over our integrated risk management plan as we are required to do and within our consultation is clearly we had a very good idea of as to the extent of the financial challenge we would face in 15 16 and Beyond I us the Chief Fire officer Advanced the four realistic options which are available to the your policy in order to make the structural changes required to meet reduction in the budget and they are outright station closures that is something that we are pursuing in Liverpool station merges and to be clear station merges is station closures I'm not in any way trying to test that up as being anything other than what it is what that involves is the closure of two stations to build a new station at an optimal distance in between the two stations here Mark for closure day's only cing is another option that we could pursue it would not help us clearly have a night time in terms of operational response but there would be some logic to pursue that option given the fact that it would allow us to facilitate training and Community intervention work during the daytime which is something we do a great deal of now the only other realistic alternative would be the use of community retained firefight syst if you just indulge me I'll explain to you now why that is not an option that I would recommend to the F rescue Authority and they them Hest this is an option of pretty much every other F rescue Authority in England recognizes is far from the Panacea that some suggest it is we have not had Community rain firefighters since 1992 in the true Cent rainford over in St Helens had a community rain station the nearest community retain station to here is frim and cheser that's been long established what community retained is is members of the public who must live within 5 minutes of a fire station who give up broadly speaking 120 hours a week to be on cover for which they are paid a 10% retaining fee so £2,800 a year to remain within 5 minutes of the fire station assuming I were able to find individuals who were prepared to do that and let's take West kby now as being the the case in point and it may be that I could it may be that I could do that I would need to train them from scratch takes 40 weeks to train a whole time fir it takes about 2 years for them to demonstrate competence assuming that I could train a crew of individuals