Official Report 196KB pdf
Item 3 is our opportunity to take evidence on the Fire (Scotland) Bill from the bill team, and it is my pleasant duty to welcome to the meeting: Ian Snedden, head of the fire services division; his colleague, Jill Clark, the bill team leader; Robert Marshall, a solicitor with the Scottish Executive; Rosemary Whaley, who is also a solicitor; and Brian McKenzie, an assistant inspector of fire services. On behalf of the committee, I welcome you all to our meeting this afternoon.
Yes please. I thought that it might be helpful if I set out for the committee how we reached the position of drafting our new fire service legislation. I intend to cover the consultation process that we embarked on and the responses that we received, and then I shall provide an overview of the key provisions in the legislation. I expect my remarks to take about 10 minutes.
Thank you, Mr Snedden. Those remarks are helpful and they may have thrown some light on areas that we had questions about.
Yes. Technically, the bill's provisions would allow amalgamation orders to provide for a smaller number of larger joint boards. However, in essence, that part of the bill restates the current arrangements. The current boards are set up through such amalgamation orders.
Are those provisions in the bill an identical replication of the existing provisions?
They are not quite identical. The current legislation also provides that fire authorities themselves can make proposals for amalgamation schemes. We have not replicated that position entirely in the bill because, even if fire authorities make such proposals, it is essentially for ministers to make the necessary orders to make them happen. Although it is not provided for in the bill, the bill would not prevent fire authorities from suggesting an amalgamation of fire boards, but because it is technically for ministers to make the order, we did not include the provision in the bill. Our solicitor Robert Marshall might want to add something on that point.
In referring to the existing legislation, were you referring to the voluntary combination provisions?
Yes.
Will those be abolished by the bill?
The combination of boards will not be abolished, but in removing those provisions, we are identifying the fact that fire authority proposals for such structural changes can be acted on only by ministers.
However, the voluntary element that was previously enshrined in statute will disappear under the bill.
The advice that we received was that those provisions were technically unnecessary as they did not do anything. Perhaps Mr Marshall can explain.
It might be helpful to set out how the current administration schemes work. The terminology of the 1947 act is not helpful as it was replaced by section 147 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Therefore, the current schemes date from local government reorganisation in 1975.
Just to deal with the specific aspect, where does section 5 of the 1947 act relate to all of this? I understand that that was the genesis of a voluntary combination scheme.
I hesitate to correct you, but section 5 does not apply to Scotland.
Right. It is helpful to know that.
The issue is complicated. Section 36 of the 1947 act is where one reads what happens in Scotland. However, it, in turn, has been amended heavily and so it is quite difficult to find out what the 1947 act does for Scotland. I confirm that section 5 applies to England and Wales.
Thank you for that helpful clarification.
Section 35 is about what we call reinforcement schemes. It is about the arrangements under which fire authorities come together, as they do at present, to put in place mutual aid arrangements that allow them to work together more closely. Essentially, section 35 says that, if one fire authority wants to have a mutual aid scheme and another one does not, they can apply for Scottish ministers to act as umpire on whether the arrangement would be helpful. Ministers can use the powers to put in place the mutual aid arrangement—or reinforcement scheme as it is called.
That suggests that the provisions of section 35 are a little gentler than I had thought. The way in which I read the section, it seemed to suggest that powers are available to ministers to step in and issue directions of their own account.
The only situation in which ministers could exercise those powers is if they were invited to do so by one of the authorities.
So that is the Executive's intention.
Yes.
Ministers would not make a spontaneous intervention.
The party to such an agreement would bring forward the provision on his own initiative. Ministers would agree with the provision only for the purposes of securing greater economy, effectiveness and efficiency.
Thank you for that.
Under current legislation, provisions apply for charging and, in essence, those provisions will not be changed. A public consultation will be held on the charging provisions in the bill: we will consult on where charging might and might not apply. Instances in which they would not apply relate to the activities that a fire and rescue service carries out that are life saving or which come under the category of rescue work. However, there are areas of the fire service's current work for which it might want to consider recovering its costs, for example in helping to drain a pond. The charging regime offers the opportunity to do so. We will set out the charging provisions in our consultation paper and take the views of stakeholders, including the fire authorities.
Is it the Executive's intention to be more specific in the bill? From what you have said, the old lady whose cat has gone up a tree is not in an exempt category.
The bill includes provisions that allow fire authorities to carry out specific functions that they believe to be appropriate. Rescuing a cat up a tree is traditionally associated with the fire service, and I would not expect the service to introduce charging arrangements for that sort of thing. The provision relates more to instances in which services might be provided to a commercial concern, when it might not be unreasonable for the service at least to cover its costs.
If an organisation was indifferent to equipment or facilities and was rendering false alarm calls on a regular basis, I presume that the fire service would consider charging.
That is a good point, and it is proving controversial. There are issues around responding to automatic fire alarms and whether the alarms are going wrong because they are not being properly maintained and so on. We are aware that some fire authorities would quite like to have the ability to charge for such false call-outs, and we will be consulting on such issues in our paper on charging.
Can you tell us about the period of consultation on the charging proposals?
We would expect it to be the traditional three months.
Towards the end of your presentation, you mentioned the Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council. For the purposes of our discussion, I will just call it the advisory council. From the responses that we have looked at, there seems to be a general acceptance that the body should be abolished, yet there is a desire to have it replaced with something else.
Yes.
Why have you expressed the view that the existing body is "cumbersome"? If you are going to replace the advisory council, what are you going to replace it with? Unison was concerned that, unless there was a statutory duty on ministers to consult fire service bodies and trade unions, the consultation might be inadequate. Could I have your views on those three points?
The Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council is a big body and its decision making is unwieldy. A minister has always chaired the council and, in many respects, its meetings have become an opportunity for the members of the council to have a go at the minister, quite often on matters over which the minister does not in fact have any control or responsibility. Often, it is concerned with issues about how the fire service responds in particular circumstances. The range of issues that come before the Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council is diverse. Often, they should be sorted out at a different level. We would like to put in the council's place arrangements that are more appropriate to the kind of functions that we expect the advisory council to carry out.
I would like to press you on that. You are not wedded to the English model, and no particular suggestions came forward from the consultation, but is a model being developed by the Scottish Executive that you would care to share with us?
The short answer is no—a model is not being developed at the moment. We are looking across the Executive to see whether we can get advice from other areas in which there is an issue around consulting stakeholders about the advisory structures that might apply to them. All I can say is that we will produce a paper that sets out some options and we will consult the stakeholders, the staff associations, the fire authorities and others to get their views before we make up our minds.
What is the timescale for that, Mr Snedden?
We are looking to produce our paper within the next couple of months.
Before the legislation is passed?
Absolutely.
I would like one final point of clarification. If I have understood you correctly, the issue is not the duty on ministers but the fact that the structure is cumbersome.
Absolutely.
My question is on the proposals for the fire brigade control rooms, on which you are consulting. I suppose you are aware that the proposal to have just one, two or at the most three control rooms in Scotland has caused consternation in the area that I represent, which is covered by the Highlands and Islands fire brigade. I do not know whether you are aware of the response that the Highlands and Islands fire board sent to you, in which it questions whether Mott MacDonald, when it put out the report to consultation, understood what the control rooms do, especially in the Highlands, and the fact that they are more than call centres.
Mott MacDonald carried out an extensive programme of visits to all the fire authorities and looked at all the control rooms in Scotland. In the report, it acknowledges that fire control rooms do not just answer emergency calls but carry out other duties in relation to gathering information—sometimes they provide a data collecting service for the brigade—and moving other brigade resources around the area. The report acknowledges that, even if the number of control rooms is reduced to one, two or three, there will still be a requirement for those functions to be carried out in the individual brigade areas. It is not the case that Mott MacDonald was not aware of the full role of control rooms.
The other point that I want to make relates to safety. How safe would it be in an area as large as the Highlands and Islands to have the control room somewhere else? For example, I cannot remember how many Sandwicks there are in Orkney, Shetland and Lewis. In addition, if the fire brigade control room fails for any reason, Northern constabulary—whose boundaries are coterminous with those of the Highlands and Islands fire brigade—provides the back-up. If those boundaries were not coterminous, how would the back-up systems work? I think that there are issues beyond those in the consultation document that need to be explored before a decision can be made.
That is a perfectly fair point, which I accept. We considered—and we asked the consultants to examine—fallback arrangements in the event that control rooms failed. It is clear that whatever system we come up with will have to have a foolproof fallback system, so that if one control room were to be taken out of action, there would be an immediate transfer to another control room.
I am glad to hear that last sentence. I look forward with interest to the outcome of the consultation.
I want to ask about the water supply. Who is responsible for supplying the water and so on? Did you give any thought to transferring responsibility for that to the water authorities? What consideration was given to the present arrangement and how it might change in the future?
With permission, I will ask my colleague Jill Clark to respond to that. Generally speaking, we thought about that very carefully and did a lot of work on how best to deal with the issue.
Scottish Water is responsible for the purity of the water supply, for ensuring that there is proper pressure and for reducing leakage. We are not aware that there are any problems with the current arrangement; we have certainly not been made aware of any difficulties.
There is also the issue of areas where there are no hydrants and water is obtained from a local water supply. Although the fire authorities have exemption from prosecution, they are liable for the reasonable costs incurred in repairing any damage that they might do. How will the bill address that?
I am sorry. Can you clarify your question?
In a rural area, it may not be a hydrant that is used, but someone's local water supply. It is possible that, in getting to that supply, the fire service will cause damage to fences and so on. I understand that at the moment the service is exempted from prosecution for that but liable for reasonable costs. Is such provision included in the bill?
Yes. For water supply purposes, the bill more or less replicates the provision that exists already; the bill updates much of the language but does not alter the existing situation. In practical terms, if a fire and rescue authority knows that it must cover a rural area and a hydrant is not available, it will have made arrangements concerning the water supply that it will use. If it is planning to use water from a local loch or estate, it will have arranged to do so and will have set up the relevant cost arrangements. That provision is replicated in the bill.
Obviously, the Executive's consultation on control rooms has been slightly controversial. However, you are also consulting on the establishment of a common fire services agency. Can you give the committee an indication of the responses that you have received and what the thinking is on what you may do in the light of those?
Our consultation paper included proposals to set up a common fire services agency, because we believed that some of the services that individual brigades undertake might be delivered more efficiently centrally and that that might take the strain off some smaller brigades. In the paper, we said that we intended to consider that issue.
Section 9 of the bill rightly recognises the important role that the fire service plays in dealing with road traffic accidents. A number of the written responses that the committee has received from fire authorities around the country have welcomed that, but they have also sought clarification. People are keen to know whether you can clarify what you mean by partnership arrangements and powers of authority when you refer to the prevention of road traffic accidents. Highlands and Islands fire brigade and Lothian and Borders fire brigade, in particular, have raised that issue. Can you offer the committee some clarification?
The fire service attends twice as many road traffic accidents as it does fires—that is a matter of fact. As a result, it has acquired a great deal of expertise in extricating casualties of road traffic accidents from vehicles. In the bill, we recognise the fact that the fire service is doing that job and doing it well. We have underpinned the work that the service does in that regard by making it a statutory duty.
You rightly say that the fire service attends a number of road traffic accidents in the course of its normal duties. Do you believe that the powers of fire investigation in relation to road traffic accidents should be extended? Should the fire service have the power to investigate road traffic accidents?
We are not providing for those powers specifically in the bill. As I said, the fire authorities and brigades have relevant expertise and might be asked by the police, who usually carry out those investigations, to give their opinion on the cause of road accidents.
I notice what is said in the policy memorandum about section 36, which concerns the framework document. If I understand the situation correctly, the spirit of the bill is that operational flexibility should not be interfered with. Is that right?
Absolutely.
There will be a power of strategic guidance rather than specific instruction as to how the job is to be done.
I will give you a little bit of background to our thinking. In his report on the fire service, Professor Bain was critical of central Government for not giving more direction and guidance on strategic matters and letting the fire service simply develop at a local level. We have absolutely no intention of changing the thrust of the fire service. It is a local authority service, run locally and accountable locally and we intend to preserve that. However, bearing in mind Professor Bain's comments, we believe that it is important that we set out some strategic direction for the fire service and try to reflect the Executive's priorities for the service. The fire authorities are responsible locally, but the Executive puts a lot of money into the fire service centrally and we are accountable to Parliament for the way in which that money is used. We believe that it would be helpful, in a spirit of partnership, to set out clearly for fire authorities how we think that the partnership should work.
As I understand the current position, firemasters, for example, have to be concerned with issues such as risk management processes, integral personal development systems, risk assessment and effective management. Is it intended that the framework document will cover those issues?
Yes. Standards of fire cover, which were introduced just after the second world war, drive almost everything that the fire service does. Areas are grouped into specific categories that require varying levels of response. For example, in central Edinburgh, which is a category A area, three fire engines will turn up whenever there is a fire call or an alarm, whereas, in rural areas, the response times and so on are less onerous because of the distances. The standards of fire cover determine the number of category As in an area, which determines the number of vehicles that are needed and the number of firefighters who are needed to crew those vehicles for 24 hours. That is how the money flows through.
The provision for local training centres in section 44 seems to cut across the broad weave of the bill, which is about strategic guidance from ministers and local flexibility in operation. In what circumstances would the power be used? I would have thought that local training centres were an issue for the relevant authority.
The training structure in Scotland is and has been for several years based on the fact that the Executive funds national training. The Scottish Fire Services College down at Gullane is the central institution serving the fire service.
So the provision is a supplement, not interference. Is that a fair assessment?
Yes.
Community safety and risk assessment are a key part of the bill and respondents have generally welcomed provisions on that. However, our experience is that the reception for such provisions in workplaces and throughout the business sector can be a little patchy. I am keen to know the Executive's approach to supporting that important change in respect of the production of regulations and codes of practice, the competency to undertake risk assessments, training for employers in the business sector and public awareness, because we all have a responsibility.
As I said in relation to the fire service's statutory responsibilities, we want greater emphasis to be placed on fire prevention, risk assessment and reducing risks. That is why we have given fire authorities a statutory duty, although they emphasise those matters anyway.
On residential care homes, will you work with the care commission and other agencies that have a view on the matter? My experience from my constituency has been that, sometimes, building control, the care commission and the fire service all see things differently. It is important that they speak with one voice and that there is no confusion for residential care home owners or owners of other establishments. Whether we are talking about nursery provision or day care, everybody needs to know that there is a level playing field and that they are all working towards the same objectives.
The new fire safety regime for which the bill supplies the framework will apply to residential care homes. It will put the onus on the proprietor of the care home to carry out risk assessment and put in place fire safety measures that are appropriate to the risk assessment. Under the new regime, enforcement of the legislation in the care homes will sit with the fire and rescue authority, whereas, just now, there is a degree of control through the care commission and the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001.
We met the care commission recently; indeed, we have been working closely with it over the past few months, not least because of the implications of the Rosepark tragedy. As you may recall, the minister invited fire authorities to carry out reassurance visits to all the residential care homes around the country. We were brought much closer to the care commission in carrying out that process. We very much appreciate the need to work alongside such bodies.
I will pose a question to Mr Marshall and be a boring legal anorak. In part 3, under the interpretation section, although "employee" is defined I could not find any definition of "employer". Is that embraced within the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974?
That is exactly right. We are relying on that interpretation.
I want to go back to the point that Karen Whitefield raised. The City of Edinburgh Council has expressed concern about the change in responsibility for houses in multiple occupation. At the moment, the council is responsible for monitoring HMOs, but it seems that the bill will give responsibility for fire assessment in HMOs to the fire authority. How will that sit with HMO legislation?
You are quite right. It is intended that the new regime will catch HMOs, and we recognise that a regime is already in place. In my earlier remarks about the new fire safety regime, I tried to point out that we want to consolidate the regime and make it easier. We want to make it clear that, instead of being spread across a range of agencies, responsibility for fire assessment will lie with the fire authority. We intend to bring HMOs into the new arrangements, but Brian McKenzie might wish to add some comments.
The situation at the moment is that the HMO licensing legislation that was introduced under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 is enforced by the local authority, but the local authority is required by statute to consult the fire authority. The changes in the new fire safety regime mean that the proprietor of the HMO will be responsible for carrying out an assessment of fire risk and putting fire safety measures in place. In many respects, HMO licensing will be no different from liquor licensing or care home registration. The scheme will be no different from any number of certification or registration schemes. Responsibility for fire safety will lie with the fire and rescue authority, but nothing will be taken away from the local authority, which will still want to consider fire safety in each HMO.
Section 47 places a restriction on the recruitment of retained and volunteer firefighters. It is interesting that Lothian and Borders fire board and Highlands and Islands fire board have expressed exactly the same concerns; I am not sure whether there has been collusion. The Highlands and Islands fire board says that not being able to employ policemen
We considered the section when we drafted the bill and decided to retain it; it was in the 1947 act and we have carried it over. We did so in consultation with ACPOS.
Retained firefighters get paged on a call-out. If a police constable was on duty and was paged to call him to his duties as a retained firefighter, a tension could arise as to what he should be doing. We recognised that that could lead to a conflict of interests.
I do not know whether anyone else has a view on the matter, as my constituency is not rural. It just seems to me that it will be difficult to get people to volunteer to be retained or volunteer firefighters. What is more important? If a policeman who happens to be on patrol in a rural area gets an urgent call to a fire, going to the fire to save someone's life might be more important. It is a difficult one.
Is there not a statutory empowerment for a constable to do that?
There is a statutory empowerment in the existing legislation that we have carried over into the bill giving a constable power to respond to a fire. That is absolutely right.
Yes, but presumably a retained or volunteer firefighter will have had training and will know what to do when he gets to the fire. A constable who has not had training would not know what to do when he got to the fire. I suppose that that is my next question. Should there not be some provision in the bill to ensure that policemen have some basic training. Presumably, the first people who arrive at a fire are often policemen and they might act out of humanity and then find that they have problems. Has any thought been given to giving policemen some basic firefighting training?
That is a good point and I see that there is a dichotomy between giving police specific powers in relation to fires and not wanting to use them as retained firefighters. Obviously, we will return to that issue.
On retained firefighters, do you agree that it is important that rural communities that do not have a full-time fire service are able to rely on firefighters to attend a fire as quickly as possible? In the urban-rural community that I represent, Shotts, which had a retained fire service, I know that the firefighters would often respond to a fire within three or four minutes. That service would be hard to beat. The priority should be to make sure that people are safe and able to do the job and that should always supersede the potential for someone to be able to do the job in theory but to be prevented by something happening. Communities need to be offered safety and they need to be able to rely on that safety.
I would not take issue with you on that. The Executive values the work of the retained fire services. Our fire service inspectorate recently carried out a review of the retained and rural service and made a lot of important recommendations about developing, maintaining and improving the service. Members of the rural retained service are often from families who have served as retained firefighters going back several generations. We are keen to develop that service.
I am going to ask a question that you probably cannot answer. When will we know when we are going to get the transitional funding for the Highlands and Islands so that we can decide how many of our retained firefighters we can use?
Even the minister would allow me to say that agreement has been reached on the level of transitional funding, including that for the Highlands and Islands upgrade programme. We are still in discussion with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about some of the detail of the phasing of the transitional funding. I am happy to say that the Highlands and Islands fire service will certainly benefit from the arrangements that are being put in place.
I believe you.
We have kind of covered the statutory duty to consult, but I want to return to consultation and the terminology in the bill. The bill talks about consulting such persons as ministers might consider appropriate. The view has been expressed to us that we should include the words "recognised trade unions". Why is that wording not in the bill?
I will ask my legal adviser to tell us whether there is a specific legal reason why we did not include that wording.
It was a really easy question as well. For goodness' sake.
It is never too soon to call your solicitor.
Will you clarify exactly what you are asking? Are you talking about the trade union representation or something slightly different?
When the bill talks about consulting, it talks about consulting appropriate persons. It does not use terminology that some of us would be more comfortable with, such as "a recognised trade union", as well as others.
Indeed. Your question is probably aimed at the negotiating body.
It might well be.
It is a matter of policy whether certain bodies are going to be consulted, so, in a sense, I cannot answer your question. However, we do talk about consulting such persons as appropriate, which might include a trade union, so, to that extent, trade unions appear there. There is a general duty for ministers to consult before they sign and make orders. That is standard statutory instrument practice. There might be omissions of that type throughout the bill. It might say nothing about consulting simply because that is expected—that is what happens and there is no legal requirement for it to be stated in the bill. Where the policy is that a particular body ought to be consulted, we have put that in the bill specifically. For the negotiating body, we wanted to make it absolutely clear that "appropriate body" includes trade unions; the policy is to ensure that they feel included in that.
We have had a situation in the fire service over a number of years where certain trade unions have not been recognised by other trade unions. There is always the danger that when we start specifying trade unions that should be consulted, we leave out other trade unions that think that they should be consulted but have not been. The terminology is not designed to preclude any consultation with trade unions; it is to ensure that the consultation is all-encompassing, by using the phrase "consulting all interested bodies."
I understand that and I am not suggesting that you should list every single trade union in legislation, because even unions are prone to merge from time to time and change their names. However, the phrase "recognised trade union" is broadly accepted, which is why I wondered why it was omitted from the bill. You are saying that that is a policy point and I shall therefore explore it with others.
The answer to that is no, the bill does not repeal part 1 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 as it applies to Scotland in respect of reserved matters. If that answers your question, I need not go any further.
Although I am sure that you want to enter into a semantic debate about precisely why that is the case.
Yes indeed. I am still not exactly clear about what was said about houses in multiple occupation. It seems that we will have two acts working alongside each other and that there may be two lots of people inspecting premises. If the bill places a duty on the fire service to inspect premises, it will have to do it, but there is also a duty on the HMO licensing body to inspect premises. What is happening? Is there something strange about the definition of houses in multiple occupation? I do not see what is happening.
I understand your point entirely. Fire safety is one of the statutory responsibilities that the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care has for residential care premises and until now, the commission has been responsible for ensuring that proper fire safety measures are in place for residential care premises. The care commission will retain all the functions that have been given to it in relation to its proper responsibilities for monitoring residential care premises except that it will not have responsibility for monitoring fire safety, which will move to the fire service under the bill. That is the same as what we intend to happen in relation to HMOs.
Does that mean that we will have a raft of legislation amending all sorts of other acts?
No.
It strikes me that we have a joined-up service that you are attempting to unravel into its constituent parts. If I am on the receiving end of a visit for an HMO, I am going to be visited twice, which strikes me as a duplication of effort and contradicts the points that you made earlier. The Edinburgh example is apposite. It has a dedicated team that is resourced to do HMO licensing and which seconds a fire officer to the team to bring that degree of expertise. The duty is on the local authority, but there is a joined-up service that does not miss a thing. My concern is that we will start to fragment the service, and naturally I would expect the fire service to turn round and say, "Where are the resources for us to assume all these new responsibilities?"
As far as resources are concerned, the fire and rescue authorities are involved in the inspection process of HMOs at present. The responsibility falls directly on them for enforcing fire safety in HMOs. There is no perceived additional burden. In fact, the fire and rescue authorities are expected to enforce the new legislation through a risk-based inspection and enforcement regime. In essence, there may be some reduction in the burden on the fire and rescue authorities, and perhaps on some of the end users, because whereas before the authorities may have inspected at a set frequency, they may decide to inspect low-risk premises less frequently.
I accept that you are looking for clarity in this area. There is a sense in which some of this is work in progress, because a whole suite of regulations will have to be introduced on the back of part 3 of the bill. We will examine the issues that you raise within those regulations. I guarantee that we will go away and consider the points that have been raised.
That is helpful, because the issue is important. In the Parliament we are all agreed that we have no desire to make legislation that replicates any form of provision, be it obligation or enforcement powers or whatever. It would be helpful if you could consider those matters.
We will.
I have a couple of questions on things that have not been included in the bill. Can you confirm that section 12(2) of the Fire Services Act 1947 applies in Scotland? It refers to ensuring that the firemaster reports directly to the fire authority. If it does apply in Scotland at the moment, why has it not been continued in the Executive's proposals?
That is a fair point. It has not been included in the new legislation for a number of reasons. We believe that the fire service is changing and modernising and it may not always be the case that there will be a firemaster who will head up the fire services. Issues to do with the reporting arrangements and the responsibility of the chief officer to the fire authority are matters that are more appropriately dealt with by having duties and responsibilities set by the fire authority rather than by having them provided centrally in the legislation.
I can understand your thinking on that, but my concern is that it is important that there be statutory recognition for the fire board, to ensure that fire boards are given their place, are involved in discussions and know what is going on in the authorities for which they are responsible. You leave it all down to an individual's terms and conditions of employment, so I am not quite certain that one can always ensure that the requirement for the authority to be involved and to be aware of the decisions that are being taken can be guaranteed.
I see where you are coming from on that point and I recognise that it is a change from the existing arrangements. However, we believe that the responsibility of the chief officer to report to the fire authority and to be accountable to it is more properly dealt with as part of the employment process.
I would like to ask two questions that were asked by Strathclyde fire board. It asked why the bill does not include an offence of someone masquerading as a firefighter. It may well be that it is not appropriate for such an offence to be included in the bill, but that is something that the authority raised in its written submission. It also asked why there is nothing in the bill that relates to assisting overseas fire and rescue authorities and charitable bodies that seek second-hand equipment that Scottish fire and rescue authorities are disposing of. The board accepts that, at present, such bodies rely on the Local Government (Overseas Assistance) Act 1993, but it believes that that act is inadequate and it would have liked to see something in the new bill that allowed it to help out other countries when old equipment was no longer wanted.
To give Jill Clark a little more time to think about the answer to the first part of your question, I shall deal with the second part. You are quite right to say that fire authorities have for many years had arrangements whereby vehicles that were going out of service and were going to be replaced would be handed over to third world countries to assist in their development. Over the years, fire authorities have also released officers to go and help in the development of fire brigades in other countries. We have not had specific representation from brigades that that was a problem or that they did not have enough authority or flexibility to do that. As far as we were concerned, the arrangements were operating quite successfully. However, if Strathclyde fire board believes that it is a problem, we shall certainly look at that.
And on my first point?
In part 3, we seek to make it an offence for someone to pretend to be an enforcement officer. However, that is really more to do with the fire safety enforcement side of things. We have not made it a general offence to masquerade as a firefighter, because no one has brought that particular issue to our attention.
It was certainly mentioned in Strathclyde fire board's submission. In particular, the board is concerned about the misuse of uniform, letterheads and equipment. Perhaps you could consider the issue and get back to the committee on it.
The first time we came across the matter was when we read that evidence. We will certainly consider it.
Mr Marshall, is there a common-law offence of impersonating a public officer in an emergency?
I think that there was a common-law offence of impersonating a police officer and there are also offences of impersonation in the Police (Scotland) Act 1967. If one were to pretend to be a firefighter, and any practical result flowed from doing so, that would be fraud. In other words, that person would be obtaining a certain result by fraud. It would very much depend on the circumstances, but off the top of my head I do not think that pretending to be a fireman is a common-law offence.
I do not know whether the condition is rife throughout Scotland, but it is a point of interest.
Such an offence might stop stag and hen parties all over Edinburgh. [Laughter.]
Does that happen only in Edinburgh?
I can act only on instructions.
Let me try and inject a serious note into this discussion. The bill is silent on offshore firefighting and firefighting at sea or in inland waters. However, the Chief Fire Officers Association has provided a helpful and quite detailed submission that explains that you are actually part of the UK sea of change project. Given that, by April 2005, the Scottish fire service will have the facilities to tackle such situations, why do we not put such provisions in the bill now?
You are quite right to say that the matter is serious. We are treating it seriously. However, it is also a very complicated matter because of the implications for determining a fire authority's boundaries and what happens as a result of that. Moreover, it is complicated by the fact that whatever we do to boundaries has a knock-on effect on other pieces of local authority legislation and such like. As a result, we are considering how best we can deliver our commitment to clarify in the legislation the boundaries and the extent to which fire authorities are responsible for firefighting at sea. I can say that we are working very closely and intensely with our legal colleagues to capture that properly and effectively. Subject to the committee's agreement, we will come back to the issue at stage 2 with various proposals and amendments.
Basically, you intend to do it, but you need more time.
Yes.
That is fine.
The way the bill is constructed, section 10 sets out powers to make additional functions orders. We intend to consult on what such orders will capture. At the moment, three specific areas in that respect are chemical spillages, flooding and urban search and rescue. I should point out that the fire service has acquired certain responsibilities and roles without having the statutory function; it has simply been taking on those responsibilities.
An issue that has been brought up in debates on firefighting is whether there should be a duty to protect the environment, particularly with outdoor fires, which might not endanger property, buildings or people, but might endanger the environment or animals and birds. That issue is not covered specifically in the bill, but I wonder whether it should be.
The bill talks about the environment in certain places. When fire brigades go to a fire, they often have to make a judgment about the possible impact on the environment of what they intend to do. The substances other than water that they use to put out a fire, such as foam, might have a detrimental effect on the environment. I expect us to cover those environmental issues in the framework document, but we have not included them specifically in the bill.
I was thinking of a survey that David Stewart MP did about the environmental impact of forest fires and heath fires. He spoke to bodies such as Scottish Natural Heritage as part of a local campaign that was going on about retained firefighters. There was doubt about the future of the various bodies in small towns. An issue that was highlighted was the need to have firefighters in place in rural areas to protect the environment when there were forest, heath or grass fires.
You are right that that issue arises for the Highlands and Islands fire brigade much more so than for other brigades. I believe that the Highlands and Islands fire authority will look, through its integrated risk management plan, at what more might be done to deal with the impact on the environment of fire in that area. We hope that the integrated risk management plan will provide much more flexibility and will allow local issues to be dealt with locally. All fire authorities are required to consult on their plans. I hope that the issues that you raise will be picked up through that mechanism.
I will think about that.
Mr Snedden, as there are no further questions, do you have anything else to say by way of conclusion?
Can I come back tomorrow and answer the questions again?
That depends on the answers.
On behalf of the committee, I thank Ian Snedden and his colleagues for joining us; the session has been exceedingly helpful. We have made a note of aspects of the bill to which further consideration is to be given and we look forward to hearing the outcome of that. The committee has found the session instructive.
On behalf of the team, I thank you for being so courteous in your treatment of us.
The committee will move into private session for agenda item 4, but this might be an appropriate time for anyone who wants a cup of tea or coffee to get it. We will have a five-minute suspension.
Meeting suspended until 15:50 and thereafter continued in private until 16:06.