The term “emergency” is defined, for the purposes of this Bill only, at Section 56. Other functions Section 10 Directions relating to particular fires and emergencies Part 5 – Water supply (Sections 37 to 42): imposes duties on fire and rescue authorities and water undertakers to ensure an adequate supply of water for fire-fighting activities. The Bill does not extend to Northern Ireland. PART 1 FIRE AND RESCUE AUTHORITIES 1 Fire and rescue authorities

Training centres, re-enacts provisions in the Fire Services Act 1947 that allow a fire and rescue authority to establish training centres for its staff. Section 19 Charging The Bill does not repeal the provisions of the Fire Services Act 1947 as they apply in Scotland, which will remain in force. The only exceptions to this are the pension provisions in Part 4 of the Bill and consequential provisions, which do extend to Scotland as pension policy is a reserved matter and not a devolved issue. The Bill, therefore, repeals the existing pension provisions in the 1947 Act, and in turn extends the replacement provisions, to England, Wales and Scotland. This Section re-enacts the power in the Fire Services Act 1947 that determines the arrangements for appointing inspectors of the Fire and Rescue Service. Equipment etc Section 28Directions as to arrangements under Section 16 re-enacts provisions in the Fire Services Act 1947 that provide the Secretary of State with the ability to require fire and rescue authorities to enter into contractual arrangements under Section 16 (or to vary or cancel any such arrangements). The Secretary of State can exercise the power on his own initiative or where one of the authorities has asked him to intervene, but the power must be exercised in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Before issuing a direction the Secretary of State must give the fire and rescue authorities affected the opportunity to make representations to him and he may hold a public inquiry. Supplementary Section 18 Training centres This Section applies a power equivalent to section 230 of the Local Government Act 1972 to all fire and rescue authorities and not just those to which section 230 applies. The power could, for example, be used for collecting incident by incident information on primary fires (those involving property, rescues, casualties or fatalities), the number and location of fires and the number of fire-related casualties and fatalities. Section 26 Inquiries Because of the extra resources needed for the secondary functions, shortfalls appeared in budgets with increasing problems. To resolve the problem with budgets the fire service started to lobby the government for a new fire services act which would include provisions for all the secondary functions. The result is the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 and it is now law. The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 Chapter 21 Section 26 re-enacts in an amended form section 33 of the Fire Services Act 1947. The Secretary of State will be able to hold a public inquiry into the performance of a fire and rescue authority or its handling of a particular incident. Section 27 Inspectors

Section 1 defines what is meant in the Bill by “fire and rescue authority”, which can differ in constitution from area to area. The establishment and membership of metropolitan county fire and civil defence authorities is dealt with in section 26 of the Local Government Act 1985 (c. 51). The London Fire and Civil Defence Authority became the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (c. 29) – see section 328 Section 2 Power to create combined fire and rescue authorities Section 3 Creation of combined fire and rescue authorities: supplementary Section 4 Combined authorities under the Fire Services Act 1947 This clause re-enacts provisions in the Fire Services Act 1947 which enable the Secretary of State to prescribe the circumstances in which a fire and rescue authority or a Scottish fire authority may provide information to a person who has opted or transferred out of any pension scheme for fire-fighters. It also re-enacts the existing provisions about charging for administrative expenses. Section 35 Preservation of existing pension scheme Clause 45 sets out the powers and the obligations of an employee of a fire and rescue authority who has entered a place under clause 44 to gain information or investigate the cause and progression of a fire. The powers and obligations are similar to those applicable to investigations under health and safety legislation. Section 46 Powers of entry: notices Initially there were no problems as the secondary functions called for little resources. By 1970 the secondary functions were demanding more resources, especially fire safety. With the introduction of the Fire Precautions Act the staff in fire safety departments grew considerably. Fire safety officers were required to ensure that all premises met the required fire safety standards. This was achieved by conducting surveys of the premises, re-inspections and finally issuing a fire certificate, this proved to be expensive, because of the human resources needed.Fire fighting re-enacts the existing statutory duty for a fire and rescue authority to plan and provide arrangements for fighting fires and protecting life and property from fires within its area. A fire and rescue authority is required to secure sufficient equipment etc. and training to discharge its duty in normal circumstances. A fire and rescue authority must also put in place effective arrangements for receiving and responding to calls for help and for obtaining information to exercise its functions; the latter might include, for example, information about the nature and characteristics of buildings within the authority’s area or availability of and access to water supplies. Section 8 Road traffic accidents Power to respond to other eventualities; and other services. replaces section 3(1)(e) of the Fire Services Act 1947, and will provide fire and rescue authorities with discretion to equip and respond to events beyond its core functions provided for elsewhere in the Bill. A fire and rescue authority will be free to act where it believes there is a risk to life or the environment. This would allow, for example, specialist activities such as rope rescue. A fire and rescue authority will be able to exercise the power in support of another fire and rescue authority – for example, under a reinforcement scheme (see Sections 13 and 14). Section 12 Other services work in partnership with their communities and a wide range of partners locally and nationally to deliver their service Subsection (3) enables the Secretary of State to make regulations providing for uniformity in fire hydrants and the distinguishing notices and marks indicating their location. This re-enacts section 14(6) of the 1947 Act. There are four key responsibilities for FRAs that they must ensure that they make provision for including:

Part 6 – Supplementary (Sections 43 to 53 and Schedules 1 and 2): concerns the powers of fire and rescue authority employees to undertake rescue work and investigations, as well as a number of consequential provisions and repeals, including the abolition of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council. This clause re-enacts section 32 of the Fire Services Act 1947 and provides that no member of a police force (i.e. a police constable) may be employed as a fire-fighter. If an off-duty police officer were employed by a fire and rescue authority, for example as a retained (part-time) fire-fighter, difficulties might arise at the scene of a fire or other emergency due to confusion over which employer had the primary claim on the officer’s services. PART 5 WATER SUPPLY Section 37 Duty to secure water supply etc Should any negotiating body be set up under these powers, subsections (4) and (5) would prevent the body being undermined by negotiations being held in another forum. Subsections (5), (6), (7), (8), however, would allow the statutory body to make arrangements for some conditions of service to be negotiated locally either in their entirety or within nationally agreed parameters. Section 32 Guidance This section will give combined fire and rescue authorities the powers which are already available to county fire authorities, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and metropolitan county fire and civil defence authorities under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972. PART 2 FUNCTIONS OF FIRE AND RESCUE AUTHORITIES Core functions Section 6 Fire safety An Act to make provision about fire and rescue authorities and their functions; to make provision about employment by, and powers of employees of, fire and rescue authorities; to make provision about education and training and pension schemes; to make provision about the supply of water; to make provision about false alarms of fire; to provide for the funding of advisory bodies; and for connected purposes.Sections 44(3) and (4) were repealed on 20 February 2007 [2] by section 6 of the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006. Section 32 would allow the Secretary of State to issue guidance to negotiating bodies. Any negotiating body, whether established voluntarily or under Section 31, would be required to have regard to the guidance. Pensions etc Section 33 Pensions etc The main purpose of this Act is to deliver a modernised Fire and Rescue Service that responds to the particular demands of the 21st Century and repeals the Fire Services Act 1947. It will give effect to the majority of proposals that require primary legislation in the White Paper ‘Our Fire and Rescue Service’, published on 30th June 2003. The White Paper was a Government response to ‘The Independent Review of the Fire Service’ carried out by Sir George Bain and his team, whose report was published on 16th December 2002. Overview Access to the water supply is by connection to a fire hydrant. Hydrants may be fitted by a water undertaker at the request of a fire and rescue authority. Clause 41(1) requires a water undertaker to mark the location of every fire hydrant with a notice or distinguishing mark and under subsection (2) the costs of doing this can be charged to the fire and rescue authority in whose area the hydrant is situated. This re-enacts provisions in section 14(3) of the Fire Services Act 1947. Subsection (6) makes it an offence to damage or obstruct a fire hydrant. Under subsection (7) a person guilty of an offence under subsection (5) and (6) is liable on summary conviction to a level 2 fine. Subsections (5), (6) and (7) re-state section 14(5) of the 1947 Act.