A KEY parliamentary committee has very strongly criticised Labour’s regional fire control project, which was overseen by Gloucester’s Labour MP, Parmjit Dhanda, when he served as Fire Minister.

The regional fire control project would see Gloucester’s Waterwell fire control centre closed and 999 calls for fire dealt with be a call centre in Taunton.

The Communities and Local Government committee, which is chaired by a Labour MP, with a majority of Labour members, attacks the project as “inadequately planned, poorly executed and badly managed”.

As the Fire Service Minister from 2007-8, much of the blame must land personally at Parmjit Dhanda’s door. The report quotes a National Audit Office report as stating

“The OGC review of October 2008 found that the project governance structure was cumbersome and the project board was not acting as an effective decision-making forum.

Overall, the project is estimated to be £300m (£5 for every single person in Britain) over budget – with the empty regional control centres costing taxpayers a massive £26m so far.

Last week, Conservatives in parliament uncovered that the Government was spending £54,000 equipping each empty regional control centre with a top-of-the-range cappuccino machine.

Cllr Will Windsor-Clive, Cabinet member for Fire, who submitted evidence to the committee, commented:

“For a Labour-dominated committee of MPs to be so critical of a Labour Government project is simply remarkable.

"Most of this waste happened on Parmjit Dhanda’s watch as Fire Minister – and he continues to cheerlead for this disastrous project.

"The committee only looked at the shoddy way this project has been managed – not the public safety concerns that I and others have.

"I am disappointed that the committee haven’t recommended scrapping the whole scheme, but it is understandable given its political makeup.

"I look forward to the regional control farce in the South West being scrapped by a future Conservative Government.”

Stewart Jackson, Shadow Minister for the Fire Services, said:

“It is the height of incompetence for Labour Ministers to splurge out on £6,000-a-piece espresso machines for fire bosses. Despite a budget of £420 million of taxpayers’ cash, they can’t answer the phones but they can have a nice cuppa.

“Labour’s plan for the regional fire HQs has been dysfunctional from start to finish. Yet again, they have wasted the public’s money on botched and over-blown IT projects.

"We can’t go on like this. Parmjit Dhanda was supposed to be running our fire services, not a branch of Costa Coffee.”