Posting a Recruit to a Day Crewed Station

[Luminoki]

With fire services changing staffing types at stations in order to save money, how do the various services fare with recruitment and day crewed stations? It seems to vary from service to service, some provide the housing, others make it rather lucrative financially and some like my mates station pay £200 a month on top and thats it

Do many recruits get posted to these stations or is it a bit of a bun fight for people to get postings there? And whats the policy on posting a recruit to the station even if they dont live there?

[Crog]

No one on my course got posted to one. The course currently running has a few being posted to them. Not sure if they live in the area or not and not sure if they will get the enhanced pay the competent crew at station do.

No housing is provided, bar one station in a very affluent area. I think they get 15% extra a year.

[Matt]

I don't know the ins and outs financially but Lincolnshire have 1 wholetime and 8 day crewed stations and they have just had a course pass out with postings to the majority of day crewed stations.  Some have a pod (house) built on site or utilise old fire stations houses, others have accommodation within the station area that is used unless you already live in the area.

They will spend 4 days on station as such and be available from accommodation during the evening.

[Deano89]

Manchester have posted a lad off my course to one, he was moving from Dorset for the job & agreed to move within 4 minutes. I think it's an extra 20% he gets 

[Luminoki]

A fair few were posted to day crewed stations in H&W but on different contracts that didnt require overnight cover. Since then most of them have moved or got digs in order to crew the trucks at night

[03RPW-6715]

I went to a day crewing station, we got to choose station preferences when we joined, so I chose day crewing to save commuting as I wasn't from the area. The requirement is we have to live in one of the fire service houses (three bed house, subsidised rent/council tax, 20% allowance) and its a self rostering system consisting of 9 staff. If a few people want to transfer on to the day crewing system, an interview process takes place.

[Lee88]

The 3 brigades I’m going for at the minute would mean I would travel and have to stay all week anyway so if I could get on day crewing with housing thrown in it would be beneficial to me to not have to pay any digs. What’s the general feeling from people serving currently would they rather the day crewing or the standard 224? I know there’s a lot of variables I just wondered 

[Luminoki]

Depends what services youre going for? Off the top of my head i know that Cheshire, GMC, Bucks, Lincs and Kent provide housing

[Lee88]

Non of the above lol, north wales, Scotland and Warwickshire. I was under the impression day crewing was where you either had to live 5 mins away or provide a base whereas day crewing plus housing was provided for you 

[Luminoki]

Day crewing does mean responding from your home/base within 5 minutes at night. Day crewing plus is similar but the accomodation is provided for you as you are there for a specified length of time. Its usually within the station or in the grounds

The pros are usually extra money. The cons are that stations that have both systems are usually quiet ( and theres a review of day crewing plus that will probably see the system go bye bye )

[Lee88]

Yeh I thought that’s what it was mate. At this moment in time If I did get in DCP would be most beneficial to me but on the flip side I agree with messyshaw seems medieval and may have undone hard work 🙈

[Crog]

19 hours ago, Luminoki said:

Depends what services youre going for? Off the top of my head i know that Cheshire, GMC, Bucks, Lincs and Kent provide housing

Kent don’t provide housing anymore. One station still has it, purely due to how expensive that area is. All others has either been sold off or in process of going.

[TrainHardFightEasy]

Day crewing is a lifestyle choice. Yes it’s extra money but as a new recruit I would want to work 224 without any doubt. 

[Lee88]

In an ideal world I’d snap the hand of a 224, give me more time to spend on the assessments etc during probation but financially would save me thousands a year on digs doing DCP 

[03RPW-6715]

Lee88,

I have been at my day crewing station for two years, two of us from my recruits course went to the same station and we had more working jobs than most others from our course. We flew through our NVQ probationary folders due to the evidence we had gathered from incidents that we had attended. I probably couldn't have asked for a better station in this brigade for variety of jobs, we aren't massively busy but I suppose like most stations, we have busy and quiet spells. 

[Lee88]

I never thought about it like that mate. Hope your enjoying it! 

[03RPW-6715]

Yeah you can pick up a fair few jobs on day crewing as you can be duty for long periods of time, and yep still enjoying it mate!