The South East Fire & Rescue Services' Regional Management Board was established in 2004 by the nine fire and rescue Services in the South-East; Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Royal Berkshire, Surrey & West Sussex. Its membership comprises the Chairman or Portfolio Holder of each Service.

The Chairman of the Board is appointed annually and is currently Councillor Judith Heathcoat (Oxfordshire). The Vice-Chairman is Councillor Dr Paul Bryant (Royal Berkshire). Clerking services are provided by East Sussex. Meetings of the board are held every three months at locations announced on the SEFIP website

Aim and Priorities
In the current financial environment, we need to work together more than ever. All fire & rescue authorities are under some form of financial pressure, as is the whole of the public sector. Therefore we want to work together where this makes economic sense.

The government expects regional management boards to have clear aims and priorities, and for its projects to be costed effectively. The increased expectation on RMBs to deliver is explicit in the National Framework. In response to this, the Board has agreed the following aim for the region:

'Through working together more closely in the region, deliver effective and efficient fire & rescue services to the public, and to support each other to ensure all fire and rescue services improve their performance.'

To support this aim, we have four priorities:

• to work together to manage emergency mobilising effectively and efficiently;
• to generate collaborative efficiency savings and return on investment for constituent fire & rescue authorities;
• to work together either as a whole or in sub-regional clusters to drive improvement, and to support each other through peer review;
• to actively promote the successes of the Board to key stakeholders and to lobby key stakeholders to improve national fire & rescue policies and processes.

These priorities underpin all the work that will be progressed in the Regional Management Board Business Plan 2010/13.

For details of other responsibilities and for more information on the work of the Board in the South East region, please visit www.sefip.gov.uk/rmb