Online survey gives chance to have a say on future of West Midlands Fire Service

The consultation comes in the form of an online survey, with the deadline to receive responses by January 10.

Participants are asked questions relating to the services fire crews provide, how they are accountable and how they are funded.

People from across Wolverhampton, Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley, Birmingham as well as Coventry and Solihull are invited to take part.

The survey is available here

They will be first asked where their nearest fire station is and to answer some basic questions about themselves including their name, age, gender, ethnicity and their religion or beliefs.

The five-question survey then goes on to ask whether participants think the service should protect its target of aiming to respond to fires within five minutes.

In order to help achieve this, the survey asks whether the participants would agree to to a £5 a year maximum contribution to the service through an increase in their council tax.

The survey then goes on to give participants four options for how the service is to be run and made accountable for its work since the introduction of the West Midlands Combined Authority in May 2016.

Option one suggests that a 'reformed fire authority' be created, 'but with fewer councillors and a focus on increased efficiency and scrutiny'.

Option two would see the service 'governed by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), who is a single elected individual'.

The survey states that this could mean disbanding the fire authority and instead having a chief fire officer who reports directly to the PCC or a chief constable who could 'lead' both the police and fire services, or the fire authority remains and a PCC sits on it.

Option three is for the service to be governed by the Mayor as part of the WMCA. This directly elected official would be responsible for the handing down of powers and money from government to the region. Option four would see a combination of two or more of the region's fire and rescue services, with a reformed fire authority representative of the larger area, with the aim of achieving a more consistent delivery of prevention, protection and response services.

Those completing the survey are then asked to rank what they think are the most important parts of the service's work. The options are – providing value for money, ensuring safety, working with other organisations, as well as providing more scrutiny, accountability and transparency.

Whether the service should look at finding other ways to bring in money outside its government grant and council tax funding is also asked as part of the survey.

The survey ends by asking whether the fire service's funding should be linked to business rates collected by West Midland's councils or whether it should come from a totally new and separate grant.