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I make no apologies for the fact that 56% of the recurrent expenditure allocated to Security Branch's programme areas is earmarked for the Police. The Police Force is by far the largest disciplined department; the Police establishment is just over 56% of the total establishment of the disciplined services. Its remit is wide ranging, from dealing with street crimes, to protecting the integrity of our borders on land and at sea, to regulating traffic flow, to tackling complex and sophisticated commercial crimes. I Nor are we believe it represents a fair balance in the allocation of resources. neglecting the needs of the other disciplined services.
Fire and Ambulance Services
The protection of our citizens from fire hazards will be significantly enhanced in the next financial year:
E
by providing 312 additional posts to strengthen the capabilities of 3 existing fire stations and for commissioning 5 new fire stations; and
by providing the necessary resources to put into effect new legislation to improve fire safety in older commercial buildings, which will be introduced soon.
Members have expressed concern on the need to improve our ambulance service, which had fallen short of our performance pledge last year for a variety of reasons, some of which (such as congested traffic and unusually wet weather) are beyond our control. We have taken the initiative to engage a consultant to help us identity means of achieving better results. We have already put into effect those recommendations which require no or limited additional resources, e.g. redeployment of existing resources to meet critical shortages, and transferring non-emergency ambulance service to the Auxiliary Medical Services. Together with a modest increase in additional resources provided in the Budget, these recommendations, when fully implemented, should enable us to respond to 92.5% of emergency ambulance calls within a 10-minute travel time. Recommendations which require additional resources will be examined with vigour to determine how we can achieve the longer- term performance target of 95%; that will be high on my priority list for the coming
year.
I note that some Honourable Members would like us to switch our performance target from "travelling time" to "response time". The strategy recommended by the consultant, with which we agree, is to first reach our longer-term target based on "travelling time" before switching to "response time". Changing to a target response time, by itself, does not improve our services to the public. But in preparation for the time when we are able to make the switch, I have asked the Director of Fire Services to begin collecting data on the current "response time" for the Ambulance Service, so as to provide the necessary information to enable us to draw up a meaningful "response time" target in due course.