In addition to this, the service has invited MPs to visit fire headquarters in Huntingdon to discuss the budget cuts further, either on an individual basis or in a group.

AS you are aware last week our senior management team and the chairman of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority met with MPs at the House of Commons in London to discuss the service’s budget cuts programme. In the interests of transparency, we will be publishing a set of notes from this meeting on our website www.cambsfire.gov.uk once these have been signed off by MPs as a true record of the meeting.

The meeting was extremely constructive and had a number of positive actions points, namely that MPs offered their help in assisting Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service in exploring further ways to collaborate with other fire and rescue services. In addition to this, the service has invited MPs to visit fire headquarters in Huntingdon to discuss the budget cuts further, either on an individual basis or in a group. As part of this visit, we will be providing MPs with all the information that we have based our decisions on, along with a verbal explanation of how this information is calculated and what it can tell us, within the legal boundaries of the Data Protection Act, which we must adhere to.

We very much look forward to the visit and the opportunity to show MPs – in practical terms – the cost-cutting measures that we are implementing in order to identify savings of �4.2million and the recommendations that we will put forward if this figure increases to �6 million.

CHRIST STRICKLAND

Deputy Chief Fire Officer

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service