Start Of Scottish Consultation

[Madhatter]

So the consultation process has began its very early stages. 

[Messyshaw]

Has a 'review' of fire cover ever led to the status quo remaining in place, let alone an increase of resources?

I predict tears and tin hats in the future north of the border 🙁

And WTF? A fire station with no running water???? I know many remote volunteer stations are badic sheds, but that's ridiculous 😳

[Madhatter]

The “consultation” survey is posted below for anyone who wants to be extremely honest… 

[Br9mp81]

Consultation, doing what we want anyway and blaming the public when it goes wrong

[Keith]

The headline "Bosses consider the future of 356 fire stations" is extremely worrying. I'm guessing that's all fire stations in Scotland. 

[Messyshaw]

I worry about the inevitably of more UK FRS following the model of reviewing cover as the success of CFS reduces call numbers

Providing fire cover isn't all about numbers of customers (like keep a bank open or maintaining a bus service), it's closer to an insurance policy 

How many of us would look at the statistics showing a reduction in fires and as a result, cancel our home insurance? I know I wouldn't 

[Bgjm21]

The thing is north of the border we are attending more incidents than 10 years ago. We also have the largest number of fires and fire deaths per head of population in the uk. The consultation above is using statistics from fires 20 years ago and implying fire cover hasn’t changed… last year we lost 10 W/T pumps and half of our high reaches!

[Matt]

On 30/04/2024 at 06:58, Messyshaw said:

Has a 'review' of fire cover ever led to the status quo remaining in place, let alone an increase of resources?

There was a service in the last year that increased the amount of pumps which was a shock, I cannot find it but think Manchester added 2 back into the equation, Moss Side & Central?

The current RDS system is not working, crewing is through the floor, stations are not in the right places in many locations now as the risk moves as does the population.  The only way around it I can see if many retained stations closing, new day crewed/wholetime opening in newer more appropriate locations.

As for Scotland, bigger isn't always better, they are too big I think, seen it with ambulances services, things start to fall apart, money becomes less.  

We all know the Fire Service is an insurance but those with the money don't see it that way, its scary to see some things these days, you look back 20 years and think that would never happen and its the normal now.

[Kinmel]

The national problem is that in rural areas there are no villagers available to provide fire cover locally during the day and in holiday areas none at all.   Farming is highly mechanised and so those villagers seeking work must travel to find it.   Second homes and AirB&B mean many holiday destinations such as Abersoch in Wales have virtually no actual residents at all.   North Wales theoretically has 54 pumps available, often only 18 pumps are manned and they tend to be clustered in small towns.  In summer some holiday spots are an hour away from the nearest available pump.

The same problem is everywhere, there is a Review in Cheshire seeking a solution to the same problem.

Hence all the reviews.   At the moment in North Wales there is a cohort of 12 "Rural Cover" firefighters, not assigned to any base station, but reporting individually to whichever rural stations need just one or two personnel to make up a crew that da.  That is a crew of 4 with the next pump possibly 20 miles away.   Only Wrexham has a second wholetime pump and that is never at home, always providing strategic cover across the service area.    Last week it spent the whole night 62 miles away from home as the only pump covering 3 retained areas on the west coast. 

Most FRS are reaching the same conclusion -  strategic retained stations must have wholetime cover on a day staffing basis; all those second pump crews of yesteryear could have filled the gap, but government spent that money elsewhere.

North Wales' initial plan was to downgrade it's remaining wholetime stations to day-manning and assign the spare firefighters to  these strategic stations, that won't fly with people being forced to move 60 miles to live in an empty village which speaks another language. 

There is no spare funding for additional parsonnel and only evermore Budget cuts in the pipeline.

The Reviews will seek out the least dreadfull solutions and impose them; they will yet again search for "efficiency" instead of "contingency".

[Matt]

On 01/05/2024 at 23:09, Kinmel said:

Hence all the reviews.   At the moment in North Wales there is a cohort of 12 "Rural Cover" firefighters, not assigned to any base station, but reporting individually to whichever rural stations need just one or two personnel to make up a crew that da.

Becoming common in many areas variations of this, I know Cambridgeshire has 2 roaming pumps that form up at a station at shift change then go off where ever for the time needed.  Some even have whole crew that gets dispursed across various stations.

[Br9mp81]

north yorks have a system of paying the younger retired to spend the day at a rds station to keep it on call, nice work if you can get, **** if your RDS running family life around a pager for pennies per hour

[Kinmel]

One temporary solution  when adjoining retained stations are short crewed is to turnout available retained personnel at 2 stations to a third "strategic" station for a full day's standby.   This works for just a few weeks, then employers complain staff are absent from their real work while not actually attending incidents and threateh to dismiss them.

Local people are also now up in arms that they are being "robbed" of protection, especially if a firefighter who was not available during the morning returns at lunchtime to find the rest of his crew has been sent 12 miles away and so the local pump stays off the run.

It is not a new problem though, my Staff Office was investigating these retained manning shortages when I retired in 1989.

[Messyshaw]

I notice some F&RS publish unavailability figures (and similar data) on each RDS station - but not all.

Wouldn't some transparency help inform locals who might 1) be more minded to sign up, or 2) Make a bit more of a fuss about being robbed if they had this information.

 

I was working on a very large building project where I wanted to re-instate a fire suppression system that had been planned originally but had since been 'value engineered' (cut) by the bean counters.  The location was a bit out of the way. The F&RS published unavailability stats -  with the local RDS station (being 14 mins  away) very unlikely to manage to turn out during the day - and 3 next nearest RDS being unreliable during daylight hours.

I managed to use this information in a business case to justify the sizeable fire suppression I wanted - which now it was to be installed retrospectively would now cost much more.

This is why perhaps F&RS with RDS cover should publish availability figures and its suprising that they are not mandated to do so

[Becile]

@Messyshawthink you'd be quite surprised by whole time unavailability as well as on call. Which is probably why most services quote service figures as opposed individual figure.

[Messyshaw]

I am reminded of how successive governments have cut our military due the thawing of the cold war, but we now find ourselves catching up as geopolitics across world gets more unstable 

OK a clumsy analogy, but I see the same with the UK fire service. Less calls = less FFs and equipment so the politicians say, but will we get caught out as global warming hits us? In many ways, we already are 🙁

 

[Luminoki]

The service that covers my home closed its consultation about cover earlier this year with results due in the coming months

Fire Cover

Of the 8 options, 6 were floated in the last cover review 10 years ago. Also all of the options regard reduced RDS cover ( including total removal or special crewing only ) , with the savings ploughed back into WT cover. 
 

I get why these ideas are on the table, RDS crewing is extremely difficult to maintain, especially in the day eg. Wyre Forest RDS have three appliances to keep on the run. You can also see why some of the options include night only cover. So hopefully people are facing up to the fact that in some cases, crewing an RDS truck in the day is a losing battle

[Kinmel]

During their Consultation, Cheshire FRS did provide detailed avalability data not only for each station, but for every pump too.

Their 2024/28 C.R.M.P. invests in 20 new wholetime posts and offers work opportunities to those RDS personnel no longer required.

I think it should be the starting point for future reviews by other FRS.......    https://www.cheshirefire.gov.uk/news-events/latest-news/have-your-say-on-our-draft-community-risk-management-plan-2024-28/

[Keith]

12 hours ago, Messyshaw said:

This is why perhaps F&RS with RDS cover should publish availability figures and its suprising that they are not mandated to do so

That would never catch on, would scare the horses.