Anti-terror planning 'poor' - MPs

Fire services played a key rescue role during the 2007 floods, the MPs said

Fire services are not properly prepared to deal with a major terrorist attack or disaster, an influential group of MPs has warned.

Staff are confused about who can order the deployment of emergency equipment, the Public Accounts Committee said.

The MPs also condemned management of the £330m project designed to bring the response up to scratch in England.

Ministers said the investment had improved ability to respond to large-scale emergency events.

The cross-party committee was reporting on the New Dimension improvement programme, put in place by the government in the wake of the 11 September attacks on the US in 2001.

They said it had been left vulnerable to an £867,000 fraud and that the £12m spent on consultants was too much.

But the committee's Tory chairman Edward Leigh said the capabilities brought by the scheme were welcome and had proved useful for incidents such as the floods of summer 2007.

Many Fire and Rescue Services are remiss at planning for catastrophic incidents, especially at a regional or national scale Edward Leigh

However, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) needed to "get a grip" on many aspects to ensure co-ordinated responses to "catastrophic incidents".

"It is not comfortable to contemplate the alternative," he said.

He said the DCLG held no comprehensive data on the availability of emergency equipment or which firefighters were trained to use it.

"The command and control arrangements are uncertain, with an unacceptable level of confusion among local Fire and Rescue services about who makes the decision to deploy the equipment," he said.

"And many Fire and Rescue Services are remiss at planning for catastrophic incidents, especially at a regional or national scale."

Excess costs

The committee found that up until 2005, the procurement of new vehicles and equipment was conducted "poorly".

In 2004, "weak financial controls" allowed a £867,200 fraud by a member of DCLG staff to remain undetected for nine months. Only £160,000 of that money was later recovered.

Some £12m was spent in the last four years on consultants who helped turn the project around, according to the MPs.

However, "weak oversight led to costs in excess of those contracted for and the expected skills transfer to departmental staff took longer than expected".

A DCLG spokesperson said the New Dimension specialised equipment had already proved its worth, "most notably at the Buncefield oil depot fire in 2005 and during the summer floods of 2007".

"It also includes a dedicated national co-ordination centre which tracks New Dimension equipment and arranges for its deployment," she said.

"The government will carefully consider the conclusions and recommendations that the PAC report makes and indeed has already taken action broadly in line with some of those recommendations."