NORTH Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner is asking city councillors to back her plan to take over the fire and rescue service.

PCC Julia Mulligan will speak to York councillors next week about her plan, asking for their views on whether police and fire should work more closely together, or be merged.

The commissioner wants to take on legal and overarching responsibility for the fire service, leaving it with its own budget and Chief Fire Officer.

The North Yorkshire Fire Authority, however, want to go down a “representation” route whereby the PCC would get a seat on the fire authority, and become one of 17 voting members.

City councillors are hearing about the plans because York and North Yorkshire councils are both “upper tier” authorities in the area, and have the power to demand an independent assessment of the plans from the Home Secretary before anything could go ahead.

A report prepared ahead of a meeting on Monday shows that while the PCC sees several benefits to her plans - like data sharing, rationalising back office operations, and rolling out the “fire responder” role in rural areas, those plans would leave City of York with less influence over the local fire service. At the moment, City of York has four seats on the fire authority, which would be scrapped under the PCC’s plans, while the work of the two city councillors on the Police and Crime Panel would have to increase as it took over fire and rescue as well. A public consultation is also running at the moment, via the website www.telljulia.co.uk, and the council report raises concerns that people will not have time to read the full background documents and respond properly by the September deadline.