A GOVERNMENT computer crash at the Department of Work and Pensions highlights the folly of plans to regionalise emergency fire control rooms, says a union leader.

Fire and rescue services in the North-East will be among the first in the UK to switch to regional control centres.

Control rooms serving the region's four brigades are to be closed and replaced with a modern centre at a location to be decided.

But the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) says the move will make the 999 service more prone to catastrophic failure.

The collapse of the Department for Work and Pensions benefits computer follows continuing serious problems with tax credits, which are also computer-related.

FBU warns that if regionalised emergency control computers collapsed, instead of not getting benefits or a tax credit the public would not be getting a fire service.

Union general secretary Andy Gilchrist said: "There is almost no support outside of Whitehall for plans to close every emergency fire control room. We all know it will be a financial and technological disaster, yet ministers want to press ahead.

"If you rely on a single computer and communications system for fire controls and axe almost all of the back-up controls you are heading for disaster.

"There is no question this will cost lives because computers and communications can and will fail."

Fire chiefs at Cleveland Fire Brigade, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service, and Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service aim to ensure the transition to regional control centres is achieved by the end of 2006.

But Mr Gilchrist said: "The public will be held in call waiting queues listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons while the room fills with smoke.

"The current fire controls systems needs some updating, not decimating. The Government is heading for a financial and technological disaster but they are refusing to listen to anyone."