| The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister report is so secret the version given to fire authorities has all the key figures and financial estimates deleted because they are “confidential or sensitive”.
The actual figures have been leaked to the FBU and Tayside Secretary Jim Malone says they prove the plan is “risky”.
The Scottish Executive is considering plans to cut the number of fire control centres in Scotland where there are currently eight control rooms.
The report, with complete figures as published on the FBU website, reveals for the first time that the plans to close all existing centres in England and open 9 regional centres will cost £754.5 million at today’s prices.
The report estimates there may be savings of £42.3 million in England over ten years, £90,000 a year for each Fire Authority. All these figures had been concealed from Fire Authorities.
The report assesses the risk of “delay or even total project failure” as between high and very high. This is because “the recent history of delivering IT/change projects in the public sector has demonstrated a less than 50% success rate.”
There is a high risk “that the current provisional timescales may not be achieved” which would “increase project cost”. These are earlier estimated to be around £11.4 million for each six-month delay for each region.
There is a high risk that Council Tax may be pushed up and the fire service cut as a result of project cost overruns.
The report states, “There is no precedent for a regional structure to deliver an operational function such as this.”
Jim Malone said, “The plan was to axe the 46 control rooms in England and replace them with nine new ones. It would be a private sector development, and the financial burden of this would have to be shouldered by the council taxpayer.
“Obviously it supports our cause in Scotland and confirms it would not result in lives being saved.
“It is unprecedented for something in a Government report to be described as having a very high risk of total failure. It reinforces that the proposals are crazy.”
General Secretary of the FBU Andy Gilchrist said, “This dangerous plan will axe all our excellent command and control centres and be a financial burden on the fire service and council tax payers for years.
“If the Government presses ahead with this folly they will have taken leave of their senses.” |
