Plans for the future of the fire and rescue service in Hertfordshire will now go out to consultation – despite concerns that had led to a temporary halt in the process.

The draft of the Integrated Risk Management Plan includes proposals to replace traditional fire engines with ‘rapid’ or ‘intermediate’ response vehicles, reduce crew sizes and consider the relocation of fire stations.

It was due to go out to public consultation this month (December), after being backed by a meeting of the county council’s cabinet.

But those consultation plans were halted when Liberal Democrat councillors took the exceptional step of asking for the decision to be ‘called-in’ – forcing a review of the decision-making.

The Lib Dems had claimed the draft plan didn’t include enough of the background information that underpinned the proposals – failing to show the risk that each proposal would address.

They said that without that information the cabinet’s decision to proceed to consultation did not meet the principles of good decision making.

But on Tuesday (December 11) a meeting of the county council’s overview and scrutiny committee determined that the decision to go out to consultation should stand.

Plans are now being drawn up for that public consultation to begin.

Cllr Terry Hone, executive member for community safety, told the committee the decision not to include too much information in the draft plan was deliberate.

He said it was designed to be a short, stand-alone document that could be easily read during consultation – even by those without significant specialist knowledge.

He said too much detail could have made it harder for readers to see the bigger picture, but that additional documents would be available online for those who wanted to read further.

And chief fire officer Darryl Keen said much of the reference to risk was “implicit” in the document.

“We have tried to write it in a way that assumed a level of engagement and people could understand what we were trying to build towards,” he said. “A lot of analysis is implicit and isn’t spelled out word by word.”

Cllr Hone said the document reflected the uncertain nature of some of the challenges that would face the fire service in future.

Pointing to the impact of population change, he said although there were plans for 100,000 new homes in the county, the specific locations were still uncertain.

At the meeting Liberal Democrat Cllr John Hale had stressed that the concerns that led to the ‘call-in’ did not relate to the proposals in the draft plan, but to the information available in the document.

“The issue is not whether the proposals in the IRMP are the right proposals,” he told the committee.

“It’s whether they contain sufficient information for the reader to judge whether they are the right proposals and therefore to make an informed decision.”

And fellow Lib Dem Cllr Barbara Gibson said: “The things that are missing are the things that make the proposals make sense.”

Cllr Gibson had raised concerns about the lack of detail in the plan at an earlier meeting of the community safety and waste management cabinet panel.

But, she said , those concerns had not been passed on at the meeting of the cabinet.

And that, she said, did not give cabinet members the opportunity to stand back and consider whether they had all the information they needed.

At the end of the overview and scrutiny committee meeting members decided that the decision should stand.

Among them, Conservative councillor Jonathan Kaye said that while it was arguable that there was more information that the cabinet could have had, he thought that – on balance – there was sufficient information for the decision to put the proposals out to consultation.

The two Liberal Democrat councillors on the committee voted against the decision.