UK FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICES ACT 2004

UK Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 Implementing Strategy



UK Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 Implementing Strategy

Introduction

The UK Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 is the first essential change in the law on the operation of the Fire and Rescue Service in over 50 years. It is a new legislative framework to make sure the Fire and Rescue Service is better able to assemble the specific challenges of the 21st Century.

The Act puts avoidance at the heart of what the Fire and Rescue Service does, for instance by creating a new duty for all fire and rescue authorities to encourage fire safety and other powers to help conceive safer communities, especially for the most susceptible in society. The Act formally identifies the broader role the service has taken on over the last 50 years, after its traditional fire-fighting role. This encompasses rescue from road traffic accidents as well as answering to other serious incidents such as major flooding and the new terrorist threat (Rafilson, 1995, pp: 84).

Discussion and Analysis

The UK Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 provides fire and rescue authorities with clear authority to equip and respond to particular local risks and the specific needs of their communities as identified, for demonstration, in their Integrated Risk Management Plan. This could encompass co-responder strategies or other specialist activities for example rope-rescue or considering with heath and moorland fires. It furthermore makes provision to place the 'Fire and Rescue National Framework' on a statutory footing, supplying national and strategic guidance and support to the service for the first time. This Act creates a new package of powers and duties for fire and rescue authorities fit for reason for the needs of a modern Fire and Rescue Service. This new legislative package covers existing activities for example rescue from road traffic accidents but furthermore permits for roles in other emergencies for example serious flooding, rescue from other transport accidents and planning and answering to the new terrorist threat - to be recognized. Crucially, the Act provides flexibility to provide for other functions should the role of the Fire and Rescue Service change in the future (Newman, 2001, pp: 150).

The Act underpins the Fire and Rescue Service's role in considering with a wider variety of emergencies and ensures it can make an effective contribution to national resilience. It comprises powers to react to unforeseen events and ensure a strategic and coordinated response in order that resources are focused where they are needed most. It provides powers for the government to purchase equipment and services that promote the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of fire and rescue authorities. It furthermore provides powers for the government to direct authorities, if essential on the use of their equipment in alignment to ensure uniformity of approach - crucial to national resilience or if it is in the interest of public safety (Janing, 2003, pp: 60).

The Act expands the functions of the training institute to support its evolution into a training institute ...