Alarm Bells Ringing: Introduction

Abstract

Theresa May in one of her final speeches as Home Secretary before becoming prime minister, laid bare what she considered to be the major inadequacies in the performance management regime for fire and rescue services. ‘There's no independent inspectorate; no regular audit of performance; and only limited available data on performance over time or between areas’. Based on her earlier reforms to the police she therefore proposed a series of reforms that have now been implemented. This chapter introduces her reform agenda and its antecedents. It also makes explicit the assumptions upon which the authors build their evaluation of the relevant reforms.

Citation

Murphy, P., Lakoma, K., Eckersley, P. and Glennon, R. (2020), "Alarm Bells Ringing: Introduction", Rebuilding the Fire and Rescue Services, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-755-820201002