asked Her Majesty's Government:

What assessment they have made of the effects of proposals to shift the functions of 46 fire and rescue centres to nine regional command centres in addressing emergencies such as major flooding. [HL440]

The case for FiReControl was made in an independent review of the FRS control rooms conducted by Mott Macdonald in 2000 and was subsequently revisited following the tragic events of 9/11 in 2001. Recent events have strongly reinforced the need to move to an integrated, resilient network of regional control centres.

The FiReControl project will enhance the capability of the fire and rescue service (FRS) in England to deal with major emergencies such as natural disasters, industrial accidents and terrorism. The capacity of the network, and the way it will operate, have been designed specifically to deal with surges in demand similar to those which occurred during the recent floods.

Our analysis has shown that the current 46 control rooms have limitations. They use different technologies so cannot communicate seamlessly with each other; they do not have access to each other's information so can deploy resources only within their FRA area; also they can take messages and pass them back only if other control rooms are overwhelmed. Under the new arrangements, these problems are addressed and regional control centres will be able effectively to mobilise resources anywhere in the country.

The nine new resilient regional control centres will be fully networked, using the same IT system and will be able to:

back each other up and share the call load among regional control centres when there are particularly busy periods, such as during major flooding;

deploy the most appropriate resources regardless of which regional control centre answers the call;

locate the caller (whether on a mobile or landline) which will save time;

use satellite positioning equipment to tell control operators which fire appliances, with the right equipment on board, have the shortest travel time to an incident; and

use new in-cab displays so firefighters have constantly updated information including a map showing the quickest route to the incident; details of known risks and hazards; and the location of the nearest hydrants.