Catalogue description Fire Service Department

The responsibility of the Home Office for fire services stemmed partly from the common practice, especially in boroughs, of administering fire brigades as part of the police establishment and partly from its concern with and experience of questions of safety and explosives. The Home Secretary was responsible for approving the provision of fire brigades under the Public Health Act 1907, and during the First World War had powers under defence regulations to establish schemes of co-ordination between fire brigades against aerial attack. These powers lapsed at the end of the war, and the remaining work in connection with fire prevention and fire brigades was dealt with by the Police Division. The Royal Commission on Fire Brigades of 1923 recommended that the Home Office should become the central fire authority for certain purposes, but this was not implemented until 1938. The Local Government Divisions of the Ministry of Health were also concerned.

The Fire Brigades Act 1938 made county boroughs, boroughs, urban districts and rural districts responsible for the provision of an adequate and efficient fire service and invested the Home Secretary with powers of direction, assisted by a Fire Service Commission and a Central Advisory Council. In May 1941 the Home Secretary established a National Fire Service maintained by the national exchequer, and a Fire Service Council composed of officials. At the same time the Fire Brigades Division (K Division), which had been set up in 1936 to supervise the consolidation of fire services, was renamed the Fire Service Department and took charge of the introduction of the National Fire Service. It was divided into two branches, Branch A dealing with peace time fire organisation and general policy and Branch B with emergency fire brigade organisation and supply programmes. Technical assistance was provided by professional fire staff and an inspectorate.

A Home Office Fire Control was established to maintain contact with a regional organisation and to control inter-regional assistance. Until 1941 the regional organisation was based on the delegation of powers to the regional commissioners of the civil defence regions, but thereafter each commissioner was assisted by a chief regional fire officer. Regions were divided after the establishment of the National Fire Service into fire forces under fire force commanders. A regional inspectorate of regional fire offices and fire force commanders was also established.

The powers of the regional commissioners were abrogated in May 1945 and the Fire Services Act 1947 devolved fire fighting functions from the National Fire Service, which was disbanded, to fire brigades maintained by the councils of counties and county boroughs in England and Wales under the general guidance of the Home Secretary. The Act also set up the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council which comprised representatives from the Home Office, local authority associations and trades unions and which provided a forum for discussion on the efficiency and welfare of the fire service. The fire services function continued to be exercised by the Fire Services Department with the assistance of its inspectorate, which came under the control of the Civil Defence Department in 1957; in 1962 the two departments were merged to form the Civil Defence and Fire Service Department. In 1964 those divisions dealing with the Fire Service were transferred to a separate Fire Department and the Explosives Inspectorate was attached to it.