Project part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) within the BSR INTERREG III B Programme

Eurobaltic Case Study Report:

REGIONALIZATION OF FINNISH RESCUE SERVICES

Anna Halonen & Timo Hellenberg March 2006 1

Contents

Eurobaltic…………………………………………………………………...3 Foreword…………………………………………………………………….3 1. Background to the Reform……………………………………………4 2. Reasons and Aims for the New System……………………………4 3. Planning and Implementing the Reform……………………………6 4. Features and Expectations on the New Rescue Regions……….8 5. The Current Situation – Two Years After the Reform……………9 6. Conclusions…………………………………………………………….11 References…………………………………………………………………12

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Eurobaltic This report is a part of a series of reports on the Eurobaltic Civil Protection Project. The Eurobaltic project is part of the wider Eurobaltic Programme for Civil Protection in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). While the project is part-financed by the European Union BSR Interreg IIIB programme, it is also part of the activities of the civil security working body in the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). The Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA) leads the project, and the whole network includes over twenty partners from all the BSR countries, including civil protection authorities, regions and municipalities, scientific institutions and non-governmental organizations. Within the project, Nordregio (Nordic Centre for Spatial Development, Stockholm) and the Aleksanteri Institute (Finnish Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Helsinki) are responsible for research and reports. The reports will cover the whole spectrum of contemporary challenges to civil protection, from the point of view of the EU and the BSR in particular.

Foreword The aim of the Eurobaltic project is to improve abilities in protecting human life and the environment, as well as cultural heritage; to support the sustainable development of Safe Communities in the Baltic Sea Region; and to promote safe industrial development and cooperation on spatial planning and sustainable land use management, thereby also contributing to the mitigation of risks of cross-border effects of accidents. The objectives of the project include enhancing cooperation among Baltic Sea States’ emergency and rescue services; improving their capacity to respond to complex disasters; and promoting cross-border and cross-sectoral cooperation in civil protection at many levels. This report focuses on the regionalization of the Finnish Rescue Services. In the regionalization process the previous system of rescue services run by individual municipalities (of which there were over 400) was changed into a regional system comprising 22 regional organizations. The reform’s aim was to make the use of resources more effective and to improve the quality and the availability of the services. The regionalization process was carried out during 2003, and the new rescue regions started operating in the beginning of 2004. The regionalization project of the rescue services was presented in detail to the representatives of the other Eurobaltic project countries in a seminar that took place in September 2004 in Porvoo, Finland. The seminar was organized by the Finnish Ministry of the Interior, Aleksanteri Institute and the Regional Council of Itä-Uusimaa. The first part of this report is based on the presentations made during the seminar. The second part of the report, which describes the current situation, is based on the interviews of the representatives of the different rescue regions, as well as the Rescue Department of the Ministry of the Interior. We would like to thank all the institutions and individuals who have participated in the Eurobaltic project and in the preparation of this report.

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1. Background to the Reform The need to reform the Finnish Rescue Services was noticed already in the end of the 1980s. In the beginning of 1994, a working group was established by the Ministry of the Interior to study different options for the reform. The working group decided to consider three options: a municipal rescue system organized freely by the municipalities; a municipal system guided by the state; and a state rescue service. The working group proposed to choose the guided municipal system, and this proposal was later discussed in other reports. In the late 1990s, the Government decided that a study would be made of the possibility of transferring the responsibility of fire and rescue services to the state, as is the case with other security authorities. The aim was to find the most effective and economic way of organizing the rescue services. In 1999, Mr Pekka Myllyniemi, former Director General of the Department for Rescue Services, was appointed to prepare a report on the topic. He concluded that transferring the responsibility to the state would be an extreme change, and therefore too risky. However, he noted that the municipal system of that time was not working well, either. Therefore, Mr Myllyniemi suggested the regionalization of the rescue services. In 2000, the Government asked the Ministry of the Interior to draft a governmental proposal on the regionalization of the rescue services. In September 2000, the Ministry of the Interior launched the project for the development of the rescue services in order to prepare and implement the reform. In the beginning of 2002, the new legislation on establishing rescue regions came into force. The regionalization process was implemented in 2003, and the new rescue regions started operating in the beginning of 2004. The previous rescue services system had several weaknesses, mainly due to the small size of many municipalities and the lack of civil servants employed by them. One problem was the financial limitations of small rescue service units, which meant that e.g. the purchase of a fire engine could only be done once every 20 years. In addition, personnel resources were limited, which also meant that there were no possibilities for the staff to specialize. The municipalities cooperated during operations, but there was not enough cooperation at the administrative level, which often lead to the duplication of work. In addition, the level of the rescue services varied considerably from one municipality to another.

2. Reasons and Aims of the Regionalization Project Besides the weaknesses of the previous system, there were also several new challenges that the rescue services had to face, which had to be taken into account in the reform process. Some of the challenges were the result of wider changes in the society, while others rose from more internal causes. Challenges coming from the society included the changed character of risks. In recent times, risks have been getting more dangerous and complicated, covering larger areas, and being also sometimes trans-boundary. At the same time, there has been a change in the structures of the society, e.g. privatization and competition have increased, and there is pressure to streamline the public sector. The regionalization process is connected to the wider assessment and re-organisation of the public services that is currently underway in

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Finland, as well as in many other countries. In this process, emphasis is on one hand in increasing local democracy, but on the other hand in forming units big enough to guarantee effective professional services. Other “outside” factors affecting the reform have been the changes in demography and technological development. The internal challenges to the rescue services included the idea of creating a positive safety culture in Finland, where more emphasis than earlier is put on prevention. In order to achieve this, an extensive network of partners is necessary. The long-term aim is to reduce the number and frequency of different types of accidents and their consequences, as well as to promote safety and manage all kinds of risks. The rescue services’ organization has also to face new challenges in its recruitment and training systems, as well as in the management system and procedures. Other challenges include employment contracts and salaries, the development of the rescue department organization, as well as the development of services. There is also need for the quality control of rescue services. Challenges also come from ever expanding and many-sided tasks and from the aim of ensuring equal services all around the country. One mission of the development project of the rescue administration was that a rescue system would be efficient, economic and working for and among the people. When the reform was being planned, it was known that no further resources – either money or personnel – would be given to the rescue administration. In general, improvement of efficiency can be done by rationalization and/or by making activities more efficient. Rationalization means that same results are achieved with fewer resources. Making activities more efficient means that by using current resources the results will be better. The regionalization process was completed without any cuts in jobs, as it was chosen to make activities more efficient and not cut the personnel. The aim was to improve the efficiency of services with current resources by concentrating the non-daily administrative work to only one point in the region. These included administrative, financial, procurement, planning and maintenance functions. This resulted in local fire chiefs having time to meet people, i.e. do preventive work rather than spend most of their time in administrative duties. By allowing staff to spend more time among citizens and to carry out inspections, provide guidance and organize training activities, the idea was to switch focus from operations to preventive measures. Motivated and well-trained personnel can face the responsibility of managing all kinds of risks. The reform aimed to create an effective and smooth administration and management culture, which encourages personnel in its work. Furthermore, the aims included the promotion of safety, the management of all kinds of risks, and the allocation of enough resources to the prevention of accidents. Emphasis was put on the inbuilt thinking of safety, i.e. getting all citizens to think how they should behave in order to avoid accidents. In addition, the reform aimed to ensure that the resources of rescue organisations (personnel, equipment and premises) across Finland are adequate and well located in terms of risks. It also aimed to ensure that information, data, alarm and telecommunications systems are compatible. In addition, the regional system aimed to make it possible to use rarely needed special equipment and skills, which were previously available only for individual municipalities, across the whole region. Furthermore, the reform aimed to ensure the future of volunteer activities; that personnel performs duties corresponding to their talents and skills; that the management system is coherent from local level all the way up to the national level; that statistic system procedures have accurate and reliable data to support decision-making; and that

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modern planning and development systems (e.g. process management networking and team-working) are widely used in the field.

3. Planning and Implementing the Reform The reform project was started 1st September 2000. The first four months of the project were spent in planning and preparation, as well as in giving lectures on the process and establishing ad-hoc working groups for sub-projects. The regionalization project was divided into six sub-projects that were: establishment of regions; renewal of legislation; prevention of accidents; command and control system; volunteer/part-time rescue services; directing and sharing of information. Among the minimum criteria for establishing a rescue region was the requirement of 100 professionals, out of which 25 to 30 were officers. In addition, the rescue budget had to be 5 000 000 euros per year, there had to be at least 100 000 inhabitants in the region, and one strong rescue department. Furthermore, the regions were not to surpass neither the boundaries of state Emergency Response Centres, nor of provinces. The opinions of municipalities had to be taken into consideration when forming the rescue regions. These criteria were based on statistics and the discussions of the Working Group of the project. The activities of volunteer fire brigades continued as they had been before the reform. The Government decided to divide Finland into 22 regions March 2002. New legislation related to the reform included “Act on Regional Rescue Services”, which requires municipalities to establish and maintain joint regions, and states that municipalities have to agree on administration, distribution of expenses, organizing employment vacancies and other relevant measures. The Act allows the Government to determine the regions. The Act does not specify the activities of the Emergency Response Centres, and is not applied at all on the Åland Islands. The Act came into force 1st January 2002 and all regions had to be operational by 1st January 2004. The Rescue Services Act applies the substance of rescue services. According to it, the rescue service regions take care of prevention, rescue activities and civil defence measures, stressing the importance of prevention. Each region has in addition to a rescue department with full time staff contract-based volunteer fire brigades. The services of rescue system has to equal the regional risks. The regions themselves decide the level of the rescue services they run. However, there are several regulations on technical equipment and systems, as well as on sanctions and the reimbursement of damages. The Decree of Rescue Services defines the duties of various authorities and the requirements for the competence of the personnel.

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Rescue Regions of Finland

Source: Ministry of the Interior

As a part of the project, the rescue services’ scope of prevention activities was broadened from mere fire prevention to all-embracing accident prevention, with its aim, content and measures specified. A study was made on the assessment of measures in fire prevention and a nationwide plan of action was created, together with a manual for guidance and information. One of the sub-projects created was on the command and coordination system for operations in peacetime and crisis situations. The system project included organization of rescue units; regional and national management systems; chain of command, duties and responsibilities; co-operation between various authorities; and data and telecommunication networks. The sub-project on the support given to volunteer and part-time fire brigades included a study on the social effects of volunteer fire service on the society, the operating conditions, as well as its classification and functions. In addition, the study covered support on recruitment and career development, training activities, youth and women’s activities, cooperation between various fire brigades and best practices for the improvement of volunteer fire service. The sub-project on directing and sharing information was targeted at decision makers at various levels, at rescue service personnel and volunteers, and at regional planners and co-ordinators. The channels of information sharing consisted of Internet (including a

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home page, chat rooms and a web for planners), lectures, interviews, articles and special training sessions for regional planners. When the planning phase of the regionalization project was under way, the people responsible for the reform examined studies on organizational reforms and especially on the reasons people find change difficult and often oppose it. This was done to ensure that the implementation phase would run smoothly. The Rescue Department in the Ministry of the Interior toured all the new rescue regions in 2003. The idea behind these visits was to find out how the rescue service personnel had understood the reform and what their thoughts on it were. The Rescue Department’s conclusion was that the overall attitude seemed positive. However, it was mentioned that they had noticed some cases – typical for all organizational reforms - where the personnel was afraid of losing their privileges with the change. They avoided voicing their fears directly, as those privileges had often been “hidden/secret”. For example, the personnel argued that they did not want the municipality to lose its independence, by which they actually meant their reluctance to lose their benefits. It is worth noting that the decision-making during the regionalization process was based on the principle that decisions had to be unanimous. Mr Tero Paasiluoto – one of the representatives of the Ministry of the Interior’s Rescue Department that was responsible for the reform process - argued that a typical organization chart is like the pyramid standing on it base, i.e. the tip is the most important and the customers are somewhere outside the whole chart. He suggested, however, that a good organization is a triangle standing on its tip, and that the customers should be in the highest position, i.e. most important.

4. Features and Expectations on the New Rescue Regions Under the current system, the Ministry of the Interior’s Department for Rescue Services is responsible for running and supervising the rescue services nationwide. The Rescue Departments at the State Provincial Offices are responsible for similar tasks within the provinces, and the Regional Rescue Departments within the rescue service regions. Volunteer, industrial and institutional fire brigades also participate in providing rescue services according to the agreements between the brigades and the region. Rescue departments’ duties include accident and fire prevention, rescue operations in the event of an accident, civil defence work under emergency conditions, and the maintenance of readiness for these duties. In practice, the rescue services have also taken care of half of all ambulance cases. The new system has remained as a municipal one, but the actual rescue activities are no longer run by individual municipalities but by regional rescue services. As stated before, the rescue services are managed by 22 regional entities defined by the Government and run by several municipalities in joint co-operation. The type of cooperation between municipalities is determined by the Act on Municipal Administration. According to the Act, there are two ways to organize regional administration: either one municipality has a contract with the other municipalities for running the administration, or a federation of municipalities takes care of it. Nineteen of the rescue regions are organised around a central municipality, two are directly under the management of the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, and one consists of the City of Helsinki.

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The regions are responsible for all duties of rescue service regulated by the Rescue Services Act. The regions make use of all the resources found within its boundaries, e.g. personnel, real estate, properties, vehicles and material. Duties assigned to regional rescue services are: maintaining a system for performing duties related to rescue services; giving advice and guidance on rescue services and giving expert opinions on related matters; preventing accidents and minimizing damages, as well as carrying out fire inspections assigned to rescue authorities; performing duties related to civil defence and maintaining readiness required for carrying out those duties; coordinating the rescue services’ duties towards various authorities and the bodies participating in these duties; and attending to the training of rescue service personnel. Under the current system, the rescue regions are in principle able to deal with a disaster or a major accident by themselves. A regional rescue department comprises mainly of full-time personnel. The department is supplemented by part-time personnel and supported by volunteer fire brigades under contract. The duties of contractual fire brigades are determined taking into account local needs and the characteristics and risks of the surroundings. Most volunteer fire brigades are general fire brigades whose duties include almost all the tasks of a regular fire brigade. In the future, based on a municipal and regional risk assessment, it will probably be necessary to make changes in these duties. Traditional fire fighting and rescue activities, duties of medical first response units and organisational activities will remain as basic duties for volunteer fire brigades. Networking with regional and local authorities and organisations is evident. When the reform process was started, there were several expectations for the new rescue system. It was anticipated that each region would be independent, needing no detailed instructions from above. In addition, it was expected that there would a big city in every region with sufficient administrative resources, and that the economy of each region would be strong enough to ensure a balanced development for the coming years. Furthermore, it was required that there would be enough personnel to manage all functions in the field of rescue services, and that the rescue measures of a disaster or major accident could be handled with regional resources, including major oil pollutions and leaks of dangerous goods. It was also expected that it would be possible to send a trained fire officer to any bigger accident in a reasonable time. Moreover, the cooperation between rescue units and volunteer fire brigades should be organised and conditions and resources for volunteers should be ensured. In addition, a region should take care of the ambulance service according to a contract with health authorities and maintain a regional civil defence command centre, as well as support municipal contingency planning.

5. The Current Situation – Two Years After the Reform In January 2006 the new rescue regions had been operating for two years, and therefore it is still rather early to evaluate the new system. Hence, it was somewhat surprising that the possibility of having a state rescue service was again brought up in governmental discussions in autumn 2005, as a part of the wider reform of municipalities and service structures. The Minister of the Interior, Mr Kari Rajamäki, argued in favour of keeping the regional system, which also was the final result of the discussions. In his opinion the

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advantages of the state rescue services were not substantially greater than in the current system and changing the system would create many uncertainties. In this debate, also the majority of the rescue regions were in the favour of keeping the regional system, which can be taken as a sign that the reform has been successful at least to some extent. From the interviews conducted with the representatives of the rescue regions and the Rescue Department of the Ministry of the Interior, it became clear that there are some substantial benefits, which can be listed already at this phase of the regionalization process. Under the new rescue services system, the rescue units are able to cross municipal borders and to target their rescue capacity at the needs, and not to follow the previous administrative borders. For instance, in the Varsinais-Suomi Rescue Region there used to be 57 municipalities, each having separate Fire and Rescue Stations. Although the cooperation has intensified since then, there exists still some administrative overlapping between the rescue regions. For instance, the availability of duty officers has lessened within the regions. Another positive issue that was mentioned in the interviews was the new supportive element that has been created as the specialized training office within rescue regions. It aims to organise all internal and external training. In the previous system training was not as coherent and was more spread out among the municipalities. Although there are already clear cost benefits of the regionalization of the rescue services, there are still essential differences in the “materialization” of the benefits of the new system. For instance, the current situation seems to vary when comparing the situation in the large urban centres of Southern Finland to Northern Finland where distances are longer and rescue capacities weaker. It comes as no surprise that the interviewed experts described as “winners” of regionalization the smaller municipalities and cities. The “losers” are the larger urban centres and cities that are obligated to allocate their resources to wider areas. Also the various interests of the municipalities included in the same rescue regions might diversify and complicate the allocation of resources and long term planning in that region. The transformation of the Emergency Response Centre to a governmental system was the issue that many rescue region directors have seen as a dramatic change in the chain of safety. As the ERC system is still under construction, there exist some improvised backup offices within the biggest rescue regions, for which there was need. The aim is to provide 24h backup services for each rescue unit. The regions cannot afford to wait for the level that the Emergency Response Centres will achieve. Apparently, the lack of a clear role for the national ERC system is mentioned as the biggest risk among the operational rescue officers. Some interviewees criticised that the ERC system has focused too much on improving its public image, whereas the focus should instead be on how to enhance the information flow from dispatchers to the Police, the Rescue Units etc. They argued that the ERC should be seen as a body to serve rescue authorities, not as a body in itself. Another problematic issue related to this was the fact that there were several reform processes conducted at the same time i.e. Rescue Services, ERC and communication (VIRVE) reforms. Some representatives argued that the reform process should have been started from the actor i.e. the regionalization of the rescue services and then continued with the 112-reform. The ELS system was launched as a trial version for the large cities. Since then, Pirkanmaa, for instance, has launched its own command and control system. The region has also innovated its own fire inspection system.

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It was also mentioned in the interviews that the command system is under constant development work. The system should be based on risk assessment and lead to information on the object for rescue and safety purposes. The command system should be equal to the ERCs. Another negative issue mentioned was the information flow from the Ministry to the regions, which was seen as still fragmented and insufficient. The problem could be remedied with a kind of national rescue forum to improve the dialogue. The regionalization of the rescue services is not seen as having any particular effect on the comprehensive safety cooperation among the border guard, the rescue services and the military. From the point of view of accident prevention, the new policy focus has been to promote comprehensive safety culture instead of just implementing technical inspections and monitoring. Another issue that came up in the interviews was the situation of the 61 Volunteer Fire Brigades of Finland. The new system has enhanced the role of the Volunteer Fire Brigades as an integral part of the overall national rescue system. For instance, an act on injury treatment has been created and alarm instructions have been streamlined during the regionalization of the rescue services. In the major part of municipalities (except Helsinki) there is only a Volunteer Fire Brigade that has a working contract with the local rescue region. This increases the commitment of the Volunteer Fire Fighters and acknowledges Volunteer Fire Fighting. It is also worth mentioning that the reform process has been rather closely monitored as a survey was made on the situation in 2002 including operations, functional measures, administration and finance. Follow-up reviews will be made in 2006 and 2010.

6. Conclusions This report has described the regionalization process of the Finnish Rescue Services. It has described the background to the reform, and the reasons and aims of the regionalization project, as well as the actual planning and implementation phases of the project. It has also described the opinions and attitudes of the professionals in the field, who have now worked two years with the new system. It can be concluded that there have been some clear benefits from the reform. For example, rescue units can cross the borders of the rescue regions and a system is in place to balance the costs afterwards. The basic challenge remains, however, that the rescue regions are not aware of the availability of rescue units in the neighbouring rescue regions. Regardless of the clear success of the project on the regionalization of the rescue services, challenges still remain. For instance, the work contracts of the Volunteer Fire Brigades need to be re-negotiated by the end of 2006. Also discussion concerning ambulance transportations needs to be tackled. One of the major challenges seems to be also the role of the new Emergency Response System. As a summary note, the rescue leaders in the new rescue regions tend to underline the need for comprehensive and up-to-date situation analysis at governmental level. This could be a joint situation and monitoring system based on multi-agency cooperation instead of the dominant role of the Ministry of the Interior. The indicators could be distributed throughout the country in order to get a comprehensive situation analysis. The rescue regions should be able to

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receive risk information from the government council and to provide information seen as necessary.

References: Paasiluoto, Tero: “Regionalizing of the Finnish Rescue Services – Introducing the Finnish Development Project”, in Eurobaltic Seminar “Regionalization of Rescue Services”, September 2004, Porvoo, Finland Paasiluoto, Tero: “Regionalizing of the Finnish Rescue Services – Reasons and Aims of the Regionalization Project”, in Eurobaltic Seminar “Regionalization of Rescue Services”, September 2004, Porvoo, Finland Partanen, Pentti, Director General of the Department for Rescue Services in the Finnish Ministry of the Interior: Opening speech in Eurobaltic seminar ”Regionalization of the Rescue Services” September 2004, Porvoo, Finland

Persons interviewed: Simo Weckstén; Helsinki City Rescue Department

12.8.2005

Taito Vainio, Jari Honkanen; Rescue Department/Ministry of the Interior

16.1.2006

Olli-Pekka Ojanen; Tampere Regional Emergency Services

1.2.2006

Jari Sainio; South-West Finland Rescue Service

30.1.2006

Pekka Tähtinen; Satakunta Rescue Service

3.2.2006

Seppo Lonka; South-Savo Rescue Service

7.2.2006

Veli-Pekka Ihamäki; Länsi-Uusimaa Department for Rescue Services

6.3.2006

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