Regional Management Boards were introduced in April 2004 to reduce the challenges, both operational and organisational, that individual fire and rescue services working in isolation may not have the capacity to provide the most efficient, effective and economical response to.

There are six key areas of work that should be dealt with through Regional Management Boards. They should:

• Integrate common and specialist services, e.g. fire investigation.
• Put in place effective resilience plans for large scale emergencies.
• Introduce regional personnel and human resource functions.
• Develop a regional approach to training.
• Establish regional control centres.
• Introduce regional procurement within the context of a national procurement strategy.

Further information can be found on the Department for Communities and Local Government website at www.communities.gov.uk and selecting the Fire and Resilience Section

Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service is part of the South East Fire and Rescue Service Regional Management Board along with eight other Authorities (East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Royal Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex).

In January 2006 the South East RMB agreed to form the South East Fire Improvement Partnership, as part of the Improvement Work stream. A website has now been launched from which details of regional working are available. From this site you can also download all agendas, papers and minutes from RMB meetings.

Click here to go to this site