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  • Standalone fire and rescue authorities facing £102 million real terms cut due to Government grant reductions, according to modelling commissioned by the National Fire Chiefs Council. Equivalent to loss of 1,500 wholetime equivalent firefighters, with this figure set to rise to as much as 2,300 once London and the county services are factored in.
  • Council tax rises won’t be enough to offset the anticipated cuts, NFCC warns.
  • Demand on fire and rescue services is going up whilst firefighter numbers are falling. Fire and rescue services in England responded to 600,185 incidents in total last year – an increase of 100,000 (20%) compared to a decade ago (2014).
  • Firefighter numbers in England are already down by 25% since 2008 – the equivalent of 11,000 wholetime firefighters.

Fire and rescue services are facing “real and significant cuts” to government grant funding that could undermine their ability to keep communities safe, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) warned today. NFCC also urged the Government to protect fire service funding in real terms and not to rely on council tax rises to plug the resulting gaps in fire and rescue funding, saying that even if all fire and rescue authorities were willing and able to put up their precept by the maximum £5 per year, it would not offset the cuts in full when factoring in the expected rate of inflation and legitimate rises in staff pay.

NFCC says that changes proposed as part of the Spending Review are predicted to result in cuts of over £100 million based on preliminary modelling. The reduction in Government grant funding, combined with proposed changes to how that money is distributed to local services through the local government finance settlement, would significantly weaken the fire and rescue sector, placing lives – particularly in deprived communities – at risk.

The warning comes as the Government moves to determine how funding from the recently announced Spending Review will be allocated to services and as it concludes a consultation on proposed changes to how it distributes local government funding as part of the Fair Funding Review 2.0. Independent modelling commissioned by NFCC shows that the anticipated changes could result in a real-terms cut in grant funding of £102 million for standalone fire and rescue authorities over the next three years – the equivalent of losing approximately 1,500 wholetime firefighter posts – delivering a devastating blow to an already under pressure emergency service.

The modelling also shows that when London and county services are included, this figure could rise to 2,300 firefighters.

National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Chair, Phil Garrigan, said:

“I do recognise the Government has the unenviable task of balancing public finances and they face really tough choices when it comes to funding local services, but we have to confront how precarious a position fire and rescue finances are in right now.

“If I didn’t speak up, I would be letting down the fire and rescue service and, more importantly, the people we serve. I would also be letting the Government down as I would be allowing decisions to be made without highlighting the real and legitimate concerns we have – concerns for the public, and concerns for the safety of our firefighters who risk their lives every day.

“Fire and rescue services cannot continue to be expected to deliver more with less. We are already seeing demand rising, risks evolving, and our remit expanding – from tackling the effects of climate change to responding to increased blue light collaboration – all while firefighter numbers have fallen sharply.

“A failure to recognise these burdens and to forge ahead with the funding proposals as they stand would be incomprehensible. The safety of our communities depends on a funding settlement that matches the reality on the ground, and ensures we have the people, equipment and capability to protect the public.

“We can no longer just roll up our sleeves and get on with it, our silence will put lives at risk. We cannot allow our fire and rescue service to become the forgotten emergency service.”

Fire and rescue services are projected to receive 4.3% of the total funding allocation for local government, down from 4.9%.

NFCC says the impact of these cuts will be exacerbated by changes made to how the money is distributed through the Fair Funding Review 2.0, which will change how the reduced fire total will be shared between individual fire and rescue authorities. Under the new approach, population figures will have a significant impact in determining local allocations. While the population is rising across the country, the Government has chosen not to increase the overall national funding available for fire and rescue services.

According to NFCC analysis, this population-based change will result in a substantial redistribution of existing funds, with big winners and big losers. Areas experiencing faster population growth are set to receive a larger share of the smaller funding pot, while those with slower growth could see further reductions – even if they face higher levels of risk, such as chemical sites, high-rise buildings, often combined with heighten levels of deprivation.

Fire chiefs are urging the Government not to rely on local increases in council tax to offset cuts.

Whilst standalone fire and rescue authorities are expected to be able to raise their precept by up to £5 per year for a band D property, combined with the reallocation of funding under the review, core spending power for many FRSs will not keep pace with inflation or in some cases be frozen entirely.

NFCC is concerned that the uplift is also dependent on local political governance and is not a given. In areas unable to secure such increases, services will face real-term funding cuts.

The threat of further cuts comes at a time when demand on fire and rescue services is increasing, and firefighter numbers have fallen significantly. Data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) shows fire and rescue services in England responded to 600,185 incidents in total last year – an increase of 100,000 (20%) compared to a decade ago (2014). Meanwhile firefighter numbers in England are down by 25% since 2008 – the equivalent of 11,000 wholetime firefighters.

NFCC is calling for:

  • Funding for Fire and Rescue services to be protected in real terms.
  • Uncapped council tax flexibility for all fire and rescue authorities (FRAs), allowing local consultation on necessary increases without costly referendums and consistency in the precept flexibility available to all FRAs.
  • Fire and rescue funding to be removed from the Fair Funding Review until a risk-based model is developed in collaboration with the sector.
  • A dedicated funding system for fire and rescue, comparable to policing, recognising its national resilience role.
  • A full risk analysis before any funding formula changes are made, ensuring no service faces large, destabilising funding shocks.

ENDS

Notes to editors

  • Fire and Rescue services in England are carried out by standalone fire authorities in some areas, and by upper tier authorities in other areas in which fire and rescue is one of a range of local services delivered by the authority. The full impact of funding decisions on London and county services is harder to assess, as their funding is allocated at county level and then depends on local decisions about how much goes to fire and rescue.
  • NFCC commissioned Somerset Council to model the impact of the Fair Funding Review 2.0 on fire and rescue authorities. The modelling is based on a series of assumptions as not enough information has emerged from government yet to fully understand the full impact of the Spending Review and Fair Funding Review 2.0.
  • The modelling looks at both government grant funding and core spending power (grant funding plus council tax). It is based on the assumption that all authorities will increase their council tax precept by the £5 per year expected to be allowed by the Government.
  • The pot of money for local government is going up, but fire’s slice of that pot is shrinking from 4.9% to 4.3% (confirmed here), with more being directed to services like social care. Our model estimates that fire will see a cash decrease. Once inflation and rising costs are accounted for, fire is facing a real terms funding cut of 3.8%.
  • The baseline government funding (Settlement Funding Arrangements – see 2.1 for further detail) for fire and rescue for 2025/26 is £854m (this excludes county councils and London boroughs). The model estimates that this will reduce by £35m in cash terms over the next three years (-3.8% as above). If that figure grew in line with inflation, it is estimated that it would have increased to £920m (an increase of £67m); therefore, the anticipated loss is £102m in real terms.
  • The estimated loss of 1,500 wholetime equivalent firefighters is calculated by taking the estimated cut of £102m and dividing it by the average annual cost of a firefighter (including salary, pension, NI etc, adjusted for inflation). As cited above, the model does not include London and county fire and rescue services because their finances are integrated within wider local authority funding, i.e. their funding is allocated at county level and then depends on local decisions about how much goes into fire and rescue. However, these services together make up approximately one-third of all fire service spending in England. Based on the assumption they could face similar cuts to standalone fire and rescue authorities, then the national firefighter impact would be higher. To account for London and the counties, we have extrapolated the original estimate for stand-alone FRA’s, bringing the total to approximately 2,300 wholetime equivalent firefighters.
  • Funding to fire and rescue services is determined by two considerations:
    • The “relative needs formula” which takes account of the difference in the need to spend on fire and rescue services in different parts of the country. This covers formula factors such as population, coastline, and control of major accident hazards (comah) risk sites.
    • The above is offset by “resource allocation” (which takes account of the relative ability to collect council tax i.e. areas with smaller taxbases are helped more by this).
  • Whilst the Government is not proposing the amendment of the funding formula for fire, it is proposing to use updated data for the relative needs’ formula. Further information can be found here under section 4.9.
  • The Government has only published figures for one part of the funding formula – the ‘relative needs’ part, found here. This shows that fire and rescue authorities in areas with faster population growth will receive a bigger slice of funding. The modelling shows this will mean a significant redistribution of resources amongst fire and rescue services – particularly towards less deprived areas – and areas where the population is growing more slowly than average (e.g. the Northeast) will lose out on this measure. The Government has not yet shown how they will take account of the ‘resource allocation’ part. Based on our modelling, the changes to resource allocation are not enough to undo part 1 of the calculation which has been exemplified. This will result in some authorities having their spending power frozen for three years, whilst others could see their spending power increase by as much as 14%.
  • Even if every standalone fire and rescue authority increases council tax by the maximum £5 a year (this was allowed for in the 2025/26 local government finance settlement and this extrapolation is based on the assumption that will be maintained – though this is yet to be confirmed by government), overall funding will only just keep pace with forecast inflation – rising by 7.7% over the next three years compared to an expected inflation rate of 7.8%. However, approximately 75-80% of fire and rescue budgets are spent on pay. With the possibility of/pressure for above-inflation pay awards in the coming years, services are likely to face a significant funding gap. This impact won’t be evenly distributed. Under the proposals in the Fair Funding Review, some services will see their budgets effectively frozen despite raising council tax, whilst others will fare much better.
  • Fire and rescue services are facing significant funding pressures resulting from a range of issues including the evolving role of fire and rescue services in protecting our communities; responding to an increasing number of extreme weather events; inflationary pressures; responding to emerging technology risks; challenges around cyber resilience; the need for increased but unfunded capital investment in aging estates; a greater role in civil defence; and existing budgetary commitments. Expectations on fire and rescue services have also grown in areas which are not underpinned by a statutory footing but require investment, such as rescues from water, emergency medical response to support ambulance services, and road and water safety messaging.
  • MHCLG data showing the number of incidents for the year ending December 2024, including the breakdown of fire and non-fire incidents and comparisons with 10 years ago can be found here.
  • Firefighter numbers have fallen in England by 25% since 2008, the equivalent of 11,000 wholetime firefighters. FRS workforce stats are available here.  Wholetime is a specific term to FRSs – it means it is their main job and that they are permanently based at a fire station (as opposed to on call).
  • The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) is a charity and an independent membership association and the professional voice of the UK Fire and Rescue Service. NFCC supports fire and rescue services to help them to save lives and keep their local communities safe.