§ Mr. HepburnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Arson Control Forum new projects bidding exercise. [160690]
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienI am very pleased to announce today the award of £1 million of grants by the Arson Control Forum to fire brigades in England and Wales for arson reduction initiatives.
The Arson Control Forum was established last year with the aim of reducing the incidence of deliberate fires by 30 per cent. of the 1998–99 baseline by 31 March 2009; the desired outcome is to cut maliciously set fires from the current figure of 77,900 to 54,500 during this period. To achieve this aim, the Forum has been allocated a budget of £3.5 million over the three year period from April 2001. Some of this money will be used to fund research into the causes and prevention of arson, but most will be used to fund local fire brigade anti-arson initiatives. The size of the budget available to fund local projects this year is £1 million.
79WThe Chair of the Forum, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services, Graham Meldrum, wrote to all Chief Fire Officers inviting bids to be submitted to the Home Office by 31 March 2001. By the closing date for the exercise, we had received a total of 44 bids from 40 brigades, totalling £1,609,320.
The bids were evaluated in accordance with Home Office procurement guidelines. All bids were carefully considered and we have agreed to wholly or part fund 25 of the 44 received, amounting to £996,664. Those bids that were successful met the following criteria:
- They had to show they had a good understanding of the scale of the arson problem in their area;
- They had to propose a solution which was geared to addressing the problem they had described;
- They had to say how the project would be managed;
- They had to say how they would measure success; and
- They had to show how the project would provide value for money.
Projects supported by the Arson Control Forum Brigade £000 Description of project Avon 40,000 Vehicle arson reduction scheme Bucks 8,000 Vehicle arson reduction scheme Cheshire 40,000 Support to police involvement in arson reduction Cornwall/Devon 58,000 Arson Task Force Cumbria 36,000 Arson audit scheme Derbyshire 34,000 Arson Reduction Co-ordinator Dorset 62,000 Vehicle arson reduction scheme East Sussex 10,000 Young offenders project Hampshire 30,000 Collaborative data sharing project Kent 80,000 Vehicle arson reduction scheme Lancashire 50,000 Arson Task Force Leicestershire 38,000 Arson Task Force Lincolnshire 20,000 Provision of IT system to support arson reduction London 59,000 Arson Task Force Luton and Beds 60,000 Arson Task Force Merseyside 35,000 Arson counselling scheme Mid and West Wales 108,000 Arson Task Force North Yorks 30,000 Arson Task Force Northumberland 21,000 Arson Reduction Co-ordinator Shropshire 50,000 Arson Task Force Suffolk 1,000 Provision of IT system to support arson reduction Tyne and Wear 60,000 Arson Task Force West Midlands 15,000 Hydrocarbon detector dog West Yorks 38,000 Schools arson audit Wilshire 13,000 Rural arson awareness scheme Total 996,000