Is governance and accountability in English Fire and Rescue Services becoming an increasingly wicked issue for the government or just a political blind spot?

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Murphy, P. ORCID: 0000-0001-8459-4448 and Lakoma, K. ORCID: 0000-0002-2583-3813, 2023. Is governance and accountability in English Fire and Rescue Services becoming an increasingly wicked issue for the government or just a political blind spot? In: International Centre of Public Accountability (ICOPA) Workshop, Durham University, 11-12 December 2023.

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Abstract

Previous studies have shown that both traditional hierarchical forms of public administration and the adoption of NPM approaches have significantly failed to effectively address a wide range of wicked problems not least because these problems are inherently complex (Head and Alford 2015), are often dependent on contextual circumstances and are inevitably politically contentious. In response, governments and local Authorities are increasingly looking to post-NPM reforms as a possible basis to address or at least mitigate these problems.

This study investigates the governance and accountability of English Fire and Rescue Services, which appear to be an increasingly intractable and wicked issue for the UK government since 2010. It looks at the governance reforms that have dominated UK government’s policy agenda both before and after the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 and the Policing and Crime Act 2017. This period post-dates both the general election, which brought Conservative led governments dedicated to NPM based reforms, but also devolution of Fire and Rescue services to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where governance changes in the service have been much more limited and governments have been prepared to consider alternative approaches based on the ideas of NPG.

The explicit objective of both previous and recent legislation has been to improve the governance and accountability of Fire and Rescue Services and to encourage closer collaboration between the three ‘blue light’ services (ambulance, police and fire services) in order to improve their economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Previous governance and accountability arrangements have however repeatedly been criticized as being inadequate (Audit Commission 2008, Conservative Party 2010, 2015, DCLG 2011, NAO 2015, PAC 2016, May 2016, Redmond 2019, 2020, Home Office 2020, 2022). The outcomes of the government’s attempts to improved governance and accountability as a result of the 2014 and 2017 legislation has proven by its own admissions, to disappointing (Redmond 2019, 2020 Home Office 2020). Nevertheless, the government continues to pursue its reform agenda through the latest White Paper on Fire Reform (Home Office 2022), which focuses again on governance as one of the three specific areas the government wishes to address.

The purpose of this paper is to review the implementation of the previous two Acts, the government’s reforms and the proposed reforms. The research adopts an exploratory approach and is primarily based upon secondary documentation and archival sources. We draw upon government legislation, ministerial statements, parliamentary committee, audit, inspection, and other publicly available reports to highlight the key issues that have been part of the agenda to-date.

We argue that the Fire and Rescue Services’ governance and accountability issues have become akin to a wicked issue as the government continues to implement a reform agenda based upon the principles of NPM that, to-date, has proven to be ineffective. We argue that governance and accountability issues in Fire and Rescue Services need to be addressed through a number of solutions previously discussed in the wicked issues literature, including collaborative working and new models of leadership. Some of the proposed solutions are based on NPG approaches that have been acknowledged in the devolved administrations.

Item Type:

Conference contribution

Creators:

Murphy, P. and Lakoma, K.

Date:

December 2023

Identifiers: