Fire service needs £1m more a year to break even

A fire service has said it must find an additional £1m a year to "just to break even".

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service said it faced a significant financial challenge after Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service ended a 14-year partnership with the service.

The collaboration was established to save each fire service money by combining efforts and resources.

Matthew Warren, the chief fire officer at Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, said the service made the "difficult" decision to increase its share of council tax by £4.95 to plug the gap created by the end of the partnership.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service shared a control room with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in Huntingdon from 2011.

In 2023 the Suffolk service announced plans to bring fire control back into the county by the end of 2024.

The Cambridgeshire service said the decision to end the joint project, which enabled cross border resource sharing, had been "disappointing" .

For a Band D household in Cambridgeshire, the increase in council tax will make its annual contribution to the fire service £87.21 or about £7.27 a month.

Some of the money will go towards filling the shortfall in control costs and the remainder will help with inflationary costs and improving response times.

Mr Warren said: "Taking the decision to increase council tax is always a difficult one. We know how family budgets are being squeezed from all angles and we certainly don't take the decision lightly.

"Ending our partnership is extremely disappointing for us... our colleagues in the Combined Fire Control have done a brilliant job over the years ensuring residents in both counties receive an excellent service when they need us."

The Fire Authority will decide the final budget at its meeting on 13 February.

Edna Murphy, a county councillor and the chair of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority, said the service had an "exceptional record of delivering a value for money fire and rescue service" and was one of the lowest cost fire authorities in the country.

"We are constantly striving to make further efficiencies from within the service and we will continue to do this, but it is becoming more and more challenging the leaner we become," said Murphy.

"For the past few years we have been fighting the corner for Cambridgeshire, asking for a fairer financial settlement for a fast-growing county.

"After years of making significant efficiency savings from within the service we had become very lean with little left to cut without a significant impact on front-line services."

A spokesperson for Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service said fire services across the country were experiencing budgetary pressures for reasons that included pay increases and inflation.

"It was agreed by Suffolk County Council's cabinet in September 2023 that fire control would be brought back into the county," the spokesperson added.

"We have stated previously that non-delivery and missed milestones by the technology provider, together with its financial predicament, meant that continuing with the existing IT mobilising project under the joint arrangement presented an unacceptable risk to firefighters and the public, and that for us that risk was best mitigated by Suffolk having its own control room using tried and tested systems.

"The safety of the public in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire has remained our absolute priority throughout this transitional period as we establish the new control room and we look forward to its opening in the very near future."

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