The criticism of the new, decentralised approach comes after the 2010 cancellation of the FiReControl programme, a top-down scheme designed to centralise the deployment of English fire crews in nine regional centres.
“There is a risk that the DCLG has swung from an overly prescriptive national approach to one that does not provide enough national oversight and coordination and fails to meet national needs or achieve economies of scale,” Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge warned.
Hodge said DCLG hasn’t come up with suitable uses for four out of nine mothballed regional control centres built under the previous programme, and raised doubts about the ability to effectively procure services without national coordination.
Her committee’s report, published today, challenges civil servants to “explain to [the committee] how individual fire and rescue authorities with varied degrees of local engagement and collaboration can provide the needed level of interoperability and resilience”.
The committee makes a number of recommendations in light of its findings that seven of the 22 new proposed local area projects, costing a total of £82m, are running late. Two have been delayed by more than a year.
Recommendations include setting out how the approach will achieve predetermined goals such as value for money, how it will meet deadlines, and how it will foster service interoperability between areas. MPs said the projects’ accounting officer should write to the committee to explain how these aims will be achieved.
The report also warns DCLG not to concentrate on its own accounts without regard to the wider impact on the public purse.