MPs blazing over £23m fire HQ

A controversial £23 million fire control centre in the West Midlands has been 'inadequately planned, poorly executed, and badly managed', according to a damning report released today.

It also emerged today that the centre, which is not yet taking any emergency calls, has been kitted out with a deluxe espresso coffee machine worth £6,000.

The complex - which is set to bring together fire services from the West Midlands, Staffordshire Shropshire, Hereford & Worcester and Warwickshire - is costing £1.7 million a-year in rent, maintenance and security, despite currently only being used for meetings and training.

All 46 existing fire control rooms in England are being replaced with nine regional centres.

But the report by MPs hits out at the government for its management of the regionalised fire service scheme, raising doubts about whether it could be delivered.

The troubled £423 million national FireControl scheme, aimed at improving efficiency and response times through the use of new technologies, has tripled in costs with forecast savings slashed by around two thirds.

The Wolverhampton site, based on the city's business park off Stafford Road, is not due to come into full use as a fire control centre until 2011, four years after it was built.

It is expected to handle more than 100,000 emergency telephone calls a year and create 130 jobs.

The Communities and Local Government Select Committee today published a report which states: "The Fire Control project has been inadequately planned, poorly executed, and badly managed. The original contract was ill-suited to the nature of the project.

"Costs have escalated and projected savings plummeted. The history of the project is a catalogue of poor judgment and mismanagement."

They today said there were "considerable doubts" as to whether it could be delivered but admitted abandoning it now would actually cost £8 million more than it would to complete.

Committee chairman Dr Phyllis Starkey said, given the investment of public funds already committed and the benefits they would accrue, ministers should press ahead with the plans - provided the project was on track to go live as planned in mid 2011.

Tory shadow minister for the fire services, Stewart Jackson, said each new centre had been given a working £6,000 deluxe espresso machines "in beautiful polished chrome".

The information was revealed after the Tories asked questions of Fire Minister Shahid Malik.

Mr Jackson said: "Labour's plans for these regional fire centres have been dysfunctional from start to finish. Yet again, Gordon Brown has wasted the public's money on a botched and over-blown IT project. They can spend £420 million on the likes of deluxe espresso machines, but can't fix the system to answer the phones.

"This is a scandalous waste of taxpayers' cash. Such money could have been used to help keep council tax down or protect fire stations from closure."

Mr Malik said: "We accept that there have been problems in delivering the FireControl project.

However, through the changes we have already made I believe the project is in a better position than ever before."

It comes just a week after the Express & Star revealed sofas and comfortable chairs are to be removed from all West Midland fire stations and replaced with £72,000 of office-style furniture.Snooker tables and dart boards are also being removed to make the service seem "professional".

Firefighters claim they pay for much of the furniture that is now being removed, and branded the replacement a waste of taxpayers' cash.They say removing the leisure equipment, used during official breaks, will lower morale.