Consultation outcome

Enabling police and crime commissioners to sit and vote on combined fire and rescue authorities

• From: Home Office
• Published: 27 November 2017
• Last updated: 19 August 2021 — See all updates

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

This consultation has concluded

Read the full outcome

Government response to consultation on enabling police and crime commissioners (PCCs) to sit and vote on combined fire and rescue authorities (FRAs)

PDF, 220 KB, 16 pages

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Inquiry report (accessible version)

HTML

Inquiry report

PDF, 374 KB, 22 pages

Government response to inquiries (accessible version)

HTML

Government response to inquiries

PDF, 94.1 KB, 2 pages

Letter to Cleveland (accessible content)

HTML

Letter to Cleveland

PDF, 130 KB, 2 pages

Letter to Dorset and Wiltshire (accessible version)

HTML

Letter to Dorset and Wiltshire

PDF, 117 KB, 2 pages

Detail of outcome

The government has responded to the independent inquiry into the objections of 2 combined fire and rescue authorities (FRA), Cleveland and Dorset & Wiltshire FRA, who disagreed with the government’s proposal to amend their combination schemes to enable a PCC to request to sit on the FRA with voting rights.

Jim Barron CBE was appointed as an independent person to consider the objections of FRAs, the position of other relevant stakeholders such as the PCCs and the government’s position and to then come to a judgement on the strength of objection. The inquiry concluded that the objections presented did not carry sufficient strength to prevent the provisions from being made. As such, the schemes should be amended to enable the PCCs to sit on the authorities as a member with voting rights, where the FRA agrees.

The government has carefully considered the outcome of the inquiry, and has decided to insert the relevant enabling provisions to both combination schemes, in addition to amendments to the combination schemes of FRAs who were supportive of the proposal.

You can download the inquiry report and government response, including further clarification to the 2 FRAs to address their arguments regarding political balance, extending the right to a PCC to appoint a deputy, and membership allowance.

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Original consultation

Summary

We are seeking views on the proposal to vary the combination schemes of combined fire and rescue authorities to implement the ‘representation model’ of the Policing and Crime Act 2017.

This consultation ran from
midday on 27 November 2017 to 11:45pm on 15 January 2018

Consultation description

These provisions will enable police and crime commissioners and combined fire and rescue authorities (FRAs) to consider the ‘representation model’ as an option for promoting greater collaboration between the 2 services. As required by the 2004 Act, before such amendments are made to a combined FRAs combination scheme, we are conducting this consultation to seek views of affected stakeholders.

Documents

Consultation document

PDF, 202 KB, 15 pages

Published 27 November 2017
Last updated 19 August 2021 + show all updates

1. 19 August 2021

   Accessible HTML versions of 'Inquiry report', 'Government response to inquiries', 'Letter to Cleveland' and 'Letter to Dorset and Wiltshire' added.

2. 26 November 2018

   Final outcome section amended to include, the Inquiry report, government response to inquiries, letter to Cleveland and letter to Dorset and Wiltshire. The final outcome details section has also been amended to reflect this.

3. 12 June 2018

   Added the response to this consultation.

4. 27 November 2017

   First published.