Fire Services Act 1947

19 Fire brigade establishments to be determined in accordance with approved schemes.

(1) The establishment of members of a fire brigade of different descriptions and ranks, and of fire stations and equipment of different descriptions, to be maintained by a fire authority in pursuance of the foregoing provisions of this Act shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of a scheme made by the authority under this section (hereafter in this Act referred to as an " establishment scheme ") and for the time being in force.

(2) An establishment scheme shall provide that the chief officer of the fire brigade to which the scheme relates shall be directly responsible to the fire authority maintaining the brigade or to a committee thereof.

(3) An establishment scheme shall be submitted to the Secretary of State, and shall come into force when approved by him, either as submitted or subject to such modifications as he may direct.

(4) An establishment scheme may be varied by a subsequent scheme made in like manner and subject to the like provisions as the scheme varied.

(5) If as respects the area of any fire authority—

(a) before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-eight, or such later date as the Secretary of State may in special circumstances allow, no establishment scheme has been submitted to the Secretary of State, or

(b) at any time it appears to the Secretary of State that the establishment scheme in force is not satisfactory,

the Secretary of State may, after affording to the fire authority an opportunity of making representations to him, make a scheme.

(6) The provisions of subsections (1), (2), (4) and (5) of this section shall apply to a scheme made under the said subsection (5) as if it were an establishment scheme submitted to and approved by the Secretary of State.

(7) In the case of a fire authority, other than the London County Council, which is the council of a county, the foregoing provisions of this section shall have effect subject to the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act.

(8) The Secretary of State may, for the purposes of his functions under this section, hold such public local inquiries as he thinks tit; and if in connection with the making of a scheme under paragraph (b) of subsection (5) of this section the fire authority so requires, the Secretary of State shall cause a public local inquiry to be held before he makes the scheme.

(9) The provisions in that behalf of the Second Schedule to this Act shall have effect for the purposes of this section in the case of fire authorities constituted by combination schemes.

(10) In relation to any period before the appointed day the foregoing provisions of this section and the provisions ancillary thereto of the said First and Second Schedules shall apply with the substitution for references to a fire authority of references to an authority which on the appointed day will become a fire authority.