Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Audited annual statement of accounts 2020-21

The Government has stated that it will revisit the priorities for reform of the local government finance system at some point.  But as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020, it was confirmed that the move to 75% Business Rates Retention would be delayed, the Fair Funding Review would be postponed until at least 2022/23 and the proposed reset of Business Rates Baselines would no longer take place in 2021/22. Understandably, in October 2020, the Government announced that the Spending Review setting departmental budgets would only be for 2021/22. The final settlement confirmed that Government funding would be ‘rolled over’ from 2019/20 with a marginal uplift applied to the Revenue Support grant. Alongside the regular finance settlement, the Government announced the Covid-19 Support Package. For this Authority, the additional government support will fund 75% of irrecoverable losses relating to the collection of 2020/21 council tax and business rates as well as contributing towards the increased costs of providing local council tax support to a higher number of working-age claimants. The Authority also agreed to increase Council Tax by 1.93% in 2021/22, which was within the capped 2% referendum limit. 

As no new capital grants from Government have been announced, the Authority is currently planning to fund the 2020/21 and later years’ capital plan through a combination of revenue funding, reserves or capital receipts.

The Authority has an outline four year Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) contained within the Budget Book approved at the Authority meeting in February 2021. The MTFP was developed in conjunction with the proposals contained within the Safety and Wellbeing Plan 2020 so as to ensure that future plans are funded and sustainable.

The Authority works very closely with its partners to ensure Kent and Medway continues to be one of the safest areas to live and work in England. Careful planning and the ability to adapt and respond to change ensures the Authority is able to face the challenges ahead 
efficiently and effectively. As a result, performance has remained strong and the Authority continues to be one of the best performing authorities in the country.

The most recent Safety and Wellbeing Plan gave an overview of the development of a new suite of corporate strategies and also focused on outcomes delivered for the public.

There were no proposals for any station closures, removal of front-line fire engines, or compulsory redundancies of firefighters contained in the Plan.

The Authority set up and leads the national procurement hub providing officer resource to support national procurement efforts in categories like clothing, property issues and consumables related to Covid-19. Through this hub, more than 3.5m items have been sourced responsibly under the ethos of mitigating modern slavery supply chains.

The Corporate Plan, now known as the Customer and Corporate Plan, which reflects the Authority’s focus on the customer, is the primary planning document for the Authority.  All other documents, including the Safety and Wellbeing Plan link into this document. It was updated in April 2018 to reflect two new outward focused strategies and six internal strategies, all of which link to the Safety and Wellbeing Plan. The new Corporate Plan for 2021/22, along with six new corporate strategies will be submitted to the July meeting of the Authority for member approval. 

The Authority continues to look at ways to operate more efficiently, for example by streamlining processes and making them leaner. The Authority has, for a number of years, made average savings of £2m/£3m per annum, some of which facilitates the funding of increased cost pressures, but other savings are re-invested back into the service to fund improved areas of activity or investment. But the Authority is clear that the requirement to generate savings each year will continue for some time to come. Consequently the Authority is planning to deliver a further £8m of savings over the next four years. The challenge is to make sure the Authority can achieve these savings and still maintain or enhance the services delivered to the public. The Authority will continue to keep the safety of local people, businesses and firefighters as its priority when responding to these challenges.

The Home Secretary in a statement on 16 March 2021 entitled Police and Crime Commissioner Review: Concluding part one, stated that a consultative White Paper on fire services reform will be published later this year. The White Paper will be used to set out a reform agenda in further detail and explore the review proposals on fire governance which could include:

• Consulting on whether to mandate the transfer of fire and rescue functions to the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner mode across England where boundaries are coterminous, unless there is an option to transfer fire governance directly to an elected Mayor.
• Consulting on how to address coterminosity challenges, including the south-west
• Legislating to create operational independence for chief fire offers and clearly separate and delineate strategic and operational planning for fire and rescue.

The current Policing and Crime Act allows for the Police and Crime Commissioner, should they so wish, to take on board responsibility for the Fire and Rescue Service or to be a member of the Fire Authority. The Kent Police and Crime Commissioner has opted for the second option and is now a member of the Fire Authority, with the same voting rights as any other member. 

Following the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, the Government commissioned an inquiry led by Sir Martin Moore-Bick. Phase one of the Grenfell Tower inquiry reported on 30 October 2019 and made a number of recommendations for Fire and Rescue Services. The Fire Safety Act has now received Royal Assent and will amend the provisions of the Fire Safety Order 2005.

The Government announced that the proposal to implement the 75% Business Rate Retention Scheme in 2021/22 has been deferred, a final report setting out the full conclusions of the review into the business rates system will be published in 2021. The Fair Funding review that was to look at how money will be distributed to each Fire Authority is to be postponed until 2022/23 at the earliest. The Government intends to carry out another Spending Review during 2021, although the exact timing has still to be confirmed and it is not confirmed as to whether it will be another one year settlement or a multi-year settlement as preferred by many, as its aids stability in funding. 

The Authority’s well-rehearsed business continuity plans were put into action with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The IT infrastructure supported a seamless transition for many corporate support staff to work from home. Our on-going good relationship with SECAmb meant we were able to offer support early on by assisting in the delivery of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) within and across four counties, training a number of our staff to drive ambulances, wherever possible utilising our on-call staff who have lost primary jobs as first volunteers.  We were involved in moving some vaccine stocks from Doctor’s surgeries, where it was in danger of going out of date to mass vaccination centres so the vaccine was used and not wasted, and have also been involved in the creation of a vaccination centre in Chatham.

Back in March 2020 we made contact with Age UK and other similar charities and offered our help, and also provided support to our local Kent Districts, Medway and Kent County Council. This led to food delivery, prescription delivery, supporting food banks and telephoning and befriending vulnerable people very early on in the crisis.

We have continued to support the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) which co-ordinated the emergency PPE deliveries from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for social care as well as assisting with the identification of PPE supply opportunities to Kent partners which helped other smaller agencies within Kent.

Some colleagues were realigned to supporting frontline activities with partner agencies, which provided additional help and support across the county to communities in need. We reviewed our current projects and prioritised those essential projects that needed to be progressed and deferred those that could wait until resources were available to deliver them. Our capital programme is fully funded from earmarked reserves without the need to borrow, so the Authority had the flexibility to defer the planned replacement of a number of the light vehicle fleet which originally would have been replaced during 2020/21. The impact of Covid-19 lockdown resulted in a number of suppliers closing for a large part of the year, consequently the purchase of a number of vehicles was deferred until 2021/22.

Our core funding is derived from Council Tax and Business Rates precepts collected on our behalf by the Local District Councils and Medway. We are aware that Kent Districts have seen an impact on cash collection for these income streams and as a consequence closer cashflow monitoring has been key for all concerned. 

Whilst the long term economic impact of Covid-19 is unknown, the Authority has commenced some scenario modelling on the potential impact on the Council Tax base for the number of households from which full Council Tax can be collected, to understand how this may affect the Authority’s core funding in the immediate future. In the short term any unexpected shortfall in funding could be met from reserves whilst a longer term review is undertaken to ascertain how any shortfall in funding would be contained.  Likewise the long-term impact on the properties from which Business Rates is collected needs also to be considered going forward.

The Pandemic has meant the vast majority of corporate staff have worked from home since 23 March 2020. Whilst this has brought some challenges, as would be expected, it has worked well and as such it will impact the way the organisation plans to work in the future. Discussions are underway with colleagues as to how the future working environment will look and feel, as a more flexible approach to work will be adopted. Plans are currently being developed to reconfigure some parts of the estate whilst improving other areas, particularly at stations and Headquarters and colleagues will be encouraged to be flexible in their considering their work base. 

The Electronic Communications Code regulates the rights of telecommunications operations to install and maintain their apparatus on public and private land. A consultation on proposed changes to the Code was recently issued, with the objective of ensuring that the UK has sufficiently robust electronic communications networks to deliver the coverage and connectivity consumers and businesses need. However, provisions under the new proposals have the potential risk to impact on training capability, access to and use of sites, land disposal and financial income. The Authority has responded to the consultation and awaits the outcome of the consultation and review.