Fire and rescue authority

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England and Wales

FOIA Schedule I includes:

14 - A fire and rescue authority constituted by a scheme under section 2 of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 or a scheme to which section 4 of that Act applies

Since 2004, firefighters have simply been employees of fire and rescue authorities, so there's no legal distinction between a fire and rescue authority and a fire and rescue service. This is in contrast to the police situations, where police authorities are separate legal persons from their chief officers.

Section 2 of the 2004 Act allows the Secretary of State by order to make a scheme constituting a fire and rescue authority for the combined area of two or more existing fire and rescue authorities. One such scheme seems to have been made:

Section 4 of the Act applies to schemes made under sections 5 and 6 of the Fire Services Act 1947. Such schemes have been made by the following orders:

In areas not covered by a combined authority, the fire and rescue authority is determined by section 1 of the 2004 Act:

All of these are subject to the Act by virtue of other entries in Schedule I.

Scotland

In Scotland, the arrangements for fire and rescue authorities are set out in the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005. As in England and Wales, the fire and rescue authorities are the local councils but combined fire and rescue boards can be created by order. The councils running their own fire and rescue service are:

They are subject to FOISA by virtue of being Scottish councils.

The combined fire and rescue boards (all predating the 2005 Act, but treated by section 5 as having been created under it) are:

These are subject to FOISA by virtue of being joint boards.

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