A Comparative Appraisal of Recent and Proposed Changes to the Fire and Rescue Services in England and Scotland

Abstract

The regimes for developing policy, delivering services and providing assurance to the public for Fire and Rescue Services in Scotland and England have diverged significantly since 2010, facilitated by the devolution of responsibility for local public services to the Scottish Government. This divergence has generated an opportunity to compare two service regimes that for over a hundred and fifty years shared the same antecedents and history. Previous studies have individually explored the antecedents and the first five years of the development in each of the two countries between 2010 and 2015 (Taylor et al 2018, Murphy and Ferry 2018). This chapter presents a comparative appraisal of more recent and proposed changes to the fire and rescue services in England and Scotland and brings the narrative up to 2018. The catalyst for this new appraisal has been the publication of a series of key policy documents in both countries, which suggest it is both timely and opportune to undertake a further comparison of the two countries arrangements.