The Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Cheshire has welcomed today's announcement by the Home Office that local emergency services will have a duty to work more closely together, to improve their efficiency or effectiveness.
Minister for Policing, Fire, Criminal Justice and Victims, Mike Penning, said "We believe that better joint working can strengthen the emergency services, deliver significant savings and produce benefits for the public."
Mr Penning also called for emergency services to share control rooms, saying "This is about smarter working. It simply doesn't make sense for emergency services to have different premises, different back offices and different IT systems when their work is so closely related and they often share the same boundaries."
The Government also announced today that they will legislate to enable PCCs to take to take responsibility for their local fire service, where a local case is made, and create a single employer for police and fire personnel.
In response John Dwyer said "I welcome the Government's announcement today (Tuesday, January 26) to provide a statutory 'duty' for emergency services, and primarily police and fire, to work more closely together with the aim of encouraging greater operational collaboration.
"The Home Office has recognised that a 'one size fits all' approach is not the right way to go forward, and that a 'duty' to collaborate will enable Police & Crime Commissioners to work closely with colleagues on fire authorities and ambulance services to agree local solutions that are best for local people. The key is to build strong and effective working relationships between the emergency services, and it is what we have done here in Cheshire."
"It's why our ground-breaking plans to bring police and fire closer together are some of the most advanced in the country. The programme will establish a single, shared headquarters by 2018 and create a single employer for support functions for both services.
"We estimate that the move will produce combined annual savings of over £1.5 million. But it won't just be more efficient – both organisations recognise that closer collaboration will make us more effective, making Cheshire residents safer."
