FiReControl

A number of reports influenced the Governments decision to combine the 46 control rooms into 9 regional control centres these included:-
 * Sir George Bain, The Future of the Fire Service: reducing risk, saving lives - The Independent Review of the Fire Service December 2002
 * Government white paper: Our Fire and Rescue Service
 * Mott Macdonald: The Future of Fire and Rescue Service Control Rooms in England and Wales

The FiReControl project was formally initiated in March 2004.

Current arrangements in existing Control Rooms
Each Fire and Rescue Service in England is responsible for accepting and processing Emergency fire calls in their own local authority area and with agreement emergency calls from other Fire and Rescue Service areas. These are answered by dedicated Fire Control Operators who use computer aided mobilising systems to locate the nearest, available, appropriate resources and mobilise them to the incident. The Control Operators maintain contact with the Fire crews, in most cases by voice radio whilst on their way and during the incident to provide current information and respond to critical requests. In general the Fire and Rescue Services can support each other with additional resources, however the Control rooms rely on different technologies and operational procedures and they are not physically networked, therefore they have a limited capability of supporting each other in the event of high demand or failure.

Future arrangements in Regional Control Rooms
The Regional control rooms expect to improve on the current arrangements by
 * Networking each of the 9 centres so they will be able to automatically back each other up in times of increased call pressure or failure.
 * Providing purpose built, secure and resilient modern facilities.
 * Ensuring each RCC will have access to the same information and the ability to manage and deploy resources on a local, regional or national level.
 * Providing each RCC with caller identification location technology – which means the location a call is coming from will be identified automatically.
 * Providing Satellite positioning equipment – which will monitor the whereabouts of each vehicle.
 * Mobile data terminals - will be installed in cabs so firefighters have constantly updated information.
 * Rationalise mobilising policies and procedures across all existing Fire and Rescue Services in England.

In support of the new Control Rooms an additional Government project called FireLink is delivering a new digital radio system called Airwave

Delivering the Technology
In March 2007; then Fire and Rescue Service Minister Angela Smith announced that EADS Defence and Security Systems had been awarded a £200m contract (over eight years) to supply the IT infrastructure for the regional control rooms.

Location of Regional Control Rooms

 * Merton Industrial Estate, Morden, London Borough of Merton
 * Cambridge Research Park, Cambridge
 * Belmont Business Park, Durham
 * Lingley Mere Business Park, Great Sanki, Warrington, Cheshire
 * Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, Leicestershire
 * Paragon Business Village, Wakefield, West Yorkshire
 * Wolverhampton Business Park, Wolverhampton
 * Blackbrook Business Park, Taunton, Somerset
 * Kite's Croft Business Park, Fareham, Hampshire

Cut over to Regional Control Rooms
Cut over will happen gradually with groups of Fire and Rescue Services moving from local to regional controls in batches. This will make it easier to identify, isolate and address any problems that arise without affecting the quality of service provided to the public.

Order of cut over can be found at http://www.communities.gov.uk/fire/resilienceresponse/firecontrol/howitwillwork/cutovertimetable/

Manangement of Regional Control Rooms
Each Regional Control Centre (RCC) will be run by an organisation known as a local authority controlled company. This company is jointly owned by all the Fire and Rescue Authorities(FRAs) in that region.

As of April 2008 regional local authority controlled companies have been set up in the North East, North West, East Midlands, West Midlands, South West and the South East. London does not need to set up a local authority controlled company because of its unique arrangements

Opposition to Regional Control Rooms
The Fire Brigades Union which represents firefighters at all levels within the Fire and Rescue Service across the UK – in fire stations, control rooms or other departments has launched a campaign against the regionalisation of emergency fire control rooms.