Phase 3 – Public consultation
The review of fire service governance in Norfolk was carried out during the 2016-2021 term of former PCC Lorne Green. In November 2018, the decision was taken not to submit a final business case to the Secretary of State for a change in fire service governance for the county. Full details of the review, decisions and outcomes are provided on these pages for information.
The full business case – developed under Phase 2 – was presented to Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Lorne Green in July 2018.
After careful consideration, the PCC was convinced there was enough evidence for ‘A Case for Change’ of governance and on Wednesday 11 July he launched a consultation to give the Norfolk public the opportunity to have a direct say.
The ‘A Case for Change’ public consultation ran for eight weeks, closing to responses at 5pm on Wednesday 5 September 2018.
A total of 7,727 people took part in the consultation, which ran from 11 July to 5 September, with 59% stating they agreed with the PCC’s proposal for change.
Clarity on presentation of consultation responses
All comments and feedback submitted in response to the PCC’s consultation were considered and taken into account by Lorne Green in making a decision on how to proceed. In order to ensure transparency in this process, all comments and feedback have also been made public in the full consultation report.
For the purpose of publishing the consultation responses, it was necessary for some redacting of some individual words and remarks to take place. There were instances in the feedback received where people had included their own personal information – such as names, addresses, email addresses – or other people’s personal information. To protect those details, it is right and proper that such content was redacted from the comments before they were made publicly available. There were also instances where individuals used abusive or offensive language in their responses. The OPCCN will not publish this language – the sentiment of the comment remains, but those words/phrases may have been redacted. The same applies for anything found to be libellous.
If a remark or comment was redacted in the consultation report, that person’s vote and views were still counted and considered.
After careful consideration of the consultation feedback, and having weighed up all the evidence, PCC Lorne Green announced his decision on how he would proceed on 21 November 2018.