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Fire Services: Finance

Volume 470: debated on Tuesday 22 January 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what level of funding was allocated to each English fire authority, in each of the last three years; and how many incidents were attended by firefighters from each authority in each such year. (179608)

The following table shows formula grant allocations for each combined fire authority, metropolitan fire authority and the GLA (fire) for the years 2005-06 to 2007-08. In addition 15 county fire authorities are responsible for providing the fire and rescue service within their areas. Their formula grants allocation covers all the services provided including fire, but the fire element cannot be separately identified. It is for each county to allocate funding between services in response to their statutory duties and local priorities.

Formula grant, 2005-06 to 2007-08

£ million

Formula grant

Local authority

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

GLA Fire

277.288

248.308

254.453

Greater Manchester Fire

78.266

70.085

72.020

Merseyside Fire

52.019

44.198

45.391

South Yorkshire Fire

36.816

33.720

34.333

Tyne and Wear Fire

38.763

33.065

33.937

West Midlands Fire

82.228

76.456

77.397

West Yorkshire Fire

59.788

52.123

53.548

Avon Fire

25.827

23.946

24.388

Bedfordshire Fire

10.905

10.194

10.594

Berkshire Fire Authority

15.041

14.734

15.118

Buckinghamshire Fire

11.028

10.946

11.226

Cambridgeshire Fire

12.721

11.863

12.444

Cheshire Fire

17.008

15.525

16.471

Cleveland Fire

22.863

21.757

21.940

Derbyshire Fire

18.540

16.299

16.920

Devon Fire

22.614

20.469

n/a

Devon and Somerset Fire

n/a

n/a

29.095

Dorset Fire

12.258

10.337

10.733

Durham Fire

13.907

12.258

13.058

East Sussex Fire

15.060

13.524

13.836

Essex Fire Authority

30.815

28.692

29.938

Hampshire Fire

28.522

26.627

27.595

Hereford and Worcester Fire

11.208

9.840

10.355

Humberside Fire

25.427

23.431

24.026

Kent Fire

28.958

27.048

28.111

Lancashire Fire

34.087

30.494

31.965

Leicestershire Fire

17.431

17.082

17.694

North Yorkshire Fire

13.568

12.335

12.712

Nottinghamshire Fire

21.679

20.179

21.073

Shropshire Fire

7.153

6.766

7.195

Staffordshire Fire

17.462

16.125

16.822

Wiltshire Fire

8.845

8.563

9.152

Notes: 1. Decreases in Formula Grant funding between 2005-06 and 2006-07 reflect the removal of firefighter pensions from revenue support grant. 2. From 2006-07 FRAs receive pensions top-up grant to cover any annual deficit in their firefighter pension funds.

Fire authorities also benefited from the following specific grant funding:

£

Type of funding

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

Fire prevention grants

n/a

5,689,926

5,651,208

Fire control

2,272,787

3,620,237

16,983,600

New Dimension

14,106,760

26,015,848

16,706,251

Pensions top up grant: Estimate

n/a

138,937,033

163,155,000

Home fire risk checks initiative

5,000,000

5,000,000

10,000,000

The following table shows all incidents attended by English fire services between 2003-04 and 2004-05, including all fires, false alarms and special service incidents (including road traffic accidents and other non-fire or false alarm related incidents). The table also shows fire and false alarm incidents attended during the 2006 calendar year. Non-fire and non-false alarm data are not available for 2006.

All incidents attended by English fire and rescue services, 2003-04 to 2005-06; and all fires and false alarms attended in the calendar year 2006

All incidents

All fires and false alarms1

FRS area

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006 (calendar)

England

1,016,028

859,800

841,780

689,937

Avon

21,360

17,628

18,723

15,309

Bedfordshire

9,414

7,413

5,930

5,716

Berkshire

14,398

12,121

11,410

9,915

Buckinghamshire

10,999

9,791

9,699

8,242

Cambridgeshire

13,039

11,710

11,886

10,544

Cheshire

17,543

15,242

15,081

13,250

Cleveland

15,594

13,063

13,593

12,479

Cornwall

6,203

5,946

5,690

4,511

Cumbria

8,340

7,567

7,624

6,256

Derbyshire

14,773

12,428

12,826

10,594

Devon

18,308

17,374

16,676

12,114

Dorset

10,282

9,294

9,205

6,718

Durham

11,723

10,421

9,916

9,255

East Sussex

14,648

12,932

12,819

9,819

Essex

27,946

23,265

22,709

18,386

Gloucestershire

8,850

8,402

8,287

6,424

Greater London

181,642

158,756

155,224

106,084

Greater Manchester

64,240

54,052

52,414

47,316

Hampshire

27,138

22,389

22,697

18,717

Hereford and Worcester

10,785

9,016

8,801

7,609

Hertfordshire

14,941

12,000

11,526

9,412

Humberside

22,067

17,330

16,697

13,956

Isle of Wight

1,891

1,643

1,789

1,411

Isles of Scilly

35

26

33

33

Kent

28,916

23,325

23,497

18,919

Lancashire

30,907

26,518

24,995

17,808

Leicestershire

15,236

13,078

12,622

10,511

Lincolnshire

11,420

11,197

10,680

6,702

Merseyside

42,804

34,603

29,854

27,947

Norfolk

11,095

9,610

10,155

9,103

North Yorkshire

10,722

10,347

10,612

8,175

Northamptonshire

12,382

10,537

10,425

8,478

Northumberland

6,126

4,996

4,712

4,381

Nottinghamshire

23,476

18,482

17,757

15,393

Oxfordshire

6,957

6,451

6,469

5,016

Shropshire

7,008

5,880

5,966

5,296

Somerset

7,648

6,069

5,528

4,051

South Yorkshire

30,619

23,217

23,763

21,440

Staffordshire

18,233

15,249

15,672

14,227

Suffolk

9,366

7,803

7,941

7,408

Surrey

17,255

15,113

15,357

12,416

Tyne and Wear

29,533

23,773

23,523

23,602

Warwickshire

9,012

7,864

8,123

7,015

West Midlands

65,635

52,219

50,251

43,755

West Sussex

14,100

12,662

12,269

9,335

West Yorkshire

52,929

43,810

42,489

39,166

Wiltshire

8,488

7,188

7,865

5,723

1 Excluding road traffic accidents and other non-fire incidents. Note: Fire and false alarm data for 2006 are provisional.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will make it her policy to take into account the number of high risk industrial sites in each fire authority area allocating resources to fire authorities. (179620)

The distribution of formula grant takes into account the relative needs and potential to raise income locally (resources) of an authority, relative to all other authorities providing the same service. It also contains a central allocation and a floor damping mechanism.

To reflect needs, the Fire and Rescue Relative Needs Formula (RNF) takes into account the resident population, coastline, deprivation, high risk sites, property and societal risk and community fire safety. The high risk sites element is measured by the number of top tier Control of Major Accident hazards (COMAH) sites per head. The COMAH sites data are sourced from the Health and Safety Executive and for the 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 settlement, the count is as at 1 October 2007.