Emergency services in England to be under new duty to work together to 'improve efficiency or effectiveness'

The government said it would include the duty in new legislation that would also make it possible for police and crime commissioners (PCCs) to gain oversight of fire and rescue operations in their area and for police and fire service personnel to be merged under a single employer.

The plans (26-page / 628KB PDF) were detailed in a document published following the end of a consultation exercise that attracted more than 300 responses.

"The [new statutory] duty is intended to be broad to allow for local discretion in how it is implemented so that the emergency services themselves can decide how best to collaborate for the benefit of their communities," the government said. "However, there would be a clear duty on local emergency services to consider opportunities for collaboration and implement those which would improve the efficiency or effectiveness of all parties involved."

"The duty will not prevent other parties, such as local authorities and the voluntary sector, from being part of a collaborative activity, albeit that the duty itself will not extend beyond the emergency services," it said.

The new legislation would enable PCCs to assume the responsibilities of local fire and rescue authorities where this is "in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness or public safety, and where a local case is made", the government said.

"Where all parties are not agreed that fire and rescue should transfer to a PCC, it would be for the [home secretary] to consider the local business case and decide whether the governance change would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness or public safety," it said. "To inform that view, they would take into account the outcome of the local consultation and they would seek an independent assessment of the local business case before any decision to proceed. Implementation in each area would be via secondary legislation which would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny."

Mike Penning, minister for policing, fire, criminal justice and victims, said the government's proposals were about enabling "smarter working".

"It simply doesn’t make sense for emergency services to have different premises, different back offices and different IT systems when their work is so closely related and they often share the same boundaries," Penning said.

Public sector contracts expert Clare Francis of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said radical changes, like these latest proposals of the government, are likely to be made in other areas of the public sector in light of pressures on spending. She said many public bodies had already merged back office functions like HR and IT services, but would now be exploring broader transformation projects.

"Collaboration is the buzzword across the business world, with companies increasing looking for the latest innovation, whether in products, services, processes or business models, through partnerships with others," Francis said. "Given the pressures on public bodies to do more for less it is no surprise that collaboration opportunities are being explored across the public sector."

"Radical changes could involve the merging of roles performed by staff at different bodies, or even a complete overhaul of existing organisational structures and governance procedures that underpin those operations," she said.

Francis said that public bodies' transformation projects need to involve close consultation with any affected staff.