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Retained Hours


PhilMc

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Hi Guys,

Can any retained firefighters give me an indication of how the required hours commitment works? I've met up with my potential Watch Commander and he said it would be best to sign for 80 hours a week.  I understand what this means in terms of availability (36 hours at the weekend, 44 to be made up during the week), but how does the reality match the ideal? Does this level of commitment put a real strain on family life?  As I'm a teacher I can only cover evenings and weekends during term time.  School holidays will enable me to help with day cover and so reduce the impact on nights.  Please don't take this as moaning as I've always wanted to be a firefighter and now circumstance has enable this dream to possibly come true!  Any advice will be gratefully received.

Cheers.

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Sit with your WM to discuss your cover and the hours you give. I know of people that put down what the service needed and in reality it wasn't possible and a real stress on the person to try and maintain. Don't put down what you can't do, expect to give what you put down. If I were you I would put evening and weekend in the cover but explain to your WM that during school holidays you will day cover. 

Each service is slightly different. Here (Dorset) we have 90 and 120hr contracts. These are the minimum hours a week you are willing to provide cover. From this you offer to give x number of weekday daytime hours, x number of weekday night hours and weekend hours. 

For example I give 119 hours cover, so I am on a 90hr contract. Out of this I give something like 6hrs weekday day and then evening and weekend cover. But never put down I can do 100% of these. What I give adds up to 90hrs. 

In reality I give 121hrs on a 6 week average, this is due to shorter commute times etc. But I want the freedom of booking off when I want.

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Cheers Mitch.  That's very helpful.  I was just a bit worried that every hour I wasn't working would be taken up with duty.  My partner would, rightly so, go potty at me and the kids would wonder who this stranger was! 

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If you can give weekend cover they should snap you up because few people are willing to give up their weekends. Only thing I would try and avoid is signing away your entire weekend. You will have to sign up to a percentage of the weekend for example where I was retained we had the week broken down into 4 parts. Week day cover, week night cover, weekend day cover and weekend night cover. Out of a 70 hour contract 50 of these would be within the specified times. The remaining 20 whenever you like. If you can't give week day cover they will want more weekend cover so you may end up signing up to give 24 out of the 48 hours on a weekend or more. But the good thing about the retained system is that it works on an average. So if you give over and above your contract one week, you can have some of those hours back the following week. So in theory you could probably have one full weekend in 3 off or there abouts. It probably won't work out that way but that might give you an idea? If you can give week day cover during the school holidays that will probably sweeten the deal too. But like Mitch said don't commit to too much. Better to have a bit of leeway and take home 50 quid less a month than struggle to get your hours in and feel like your pager runs your life.

Its great though. Good luck mate enjoy it.

Edited by JamesL
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The only time that isn't yours is the training (drill) night and when you are on a call other than that any additional work (courses, events etc) are planned in advance. During busy spells it can feel like you are never at home, but during the quiet spells you forget what the alerter sounds like.

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Thanks James! I didn't realise that the hours are based on an average.  That will help smooth the way a bit.  My Dad was a Sub Officer during the 60's to 80's so I virtually grew up in fire stations.  I can't wait to start.  And thanks again Mitch.

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I know up here some are on prime contracts as they call them so have to give a set number of hours say between 9 and 5, rest of the time you could book off.

It does seem to vary from area to area but ask and double check, better to be safe than sorry.

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It definitely depends on individual services and also possibly on individual stations.  As standard, my lot offer 90 and 120 contracts but if the Station is desperate for, say day cover, and you came along offering 40 hours of good solid day cover then a way would be found to take you on.  It is all about recruiting to match Station need.

Make sure you find out how the weekend is defined.  Thirty six hours is restrictive if its defined as midnight Friday to midnight Sunday but less so if it’s 6pm Friday to 6am Monday.

As a teacher, you will also need to think about when you need to book off each morning.  If you need to be at school by 8:30am then you probably need to book off at around 4am, possibly before to avoid being late if you were to be called out just as you came off call.  That might make your 44 hours weeknight cover quite restrictive as well as you need to average something like 10 hours a night.

You May be able to negotiate some flexibility in light of your ability to offer day cover during the usually busier school holidays.

If you can do the hours then as others have said, it is a great job to do.

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Coming from a 100% whole time Brigade, I haven't a lot of experience of the T&Cs in relation to retained cover. However in my current role, I am involved in compiling emergency plans for significant sites in rural areas and I am astonished by the lack of daytime cover in some areas

Frankly I am gobsmacked that any F&RS would turn away anyone who is fit and able to do the job on the ground that they are only able to offer less than a set target of hours -especially if those available hours are in difficult to cover times of the week. I appreciate there are efficiency payback expectations regarding the cost of training versus the hours an individual can 'pay back', but when considering the seemingly huge amount of retain stations that are off the run for so many hours due to lack of cover, it is nonsense not to apply some flexibility.

I note that many (all?) F&RS have pushed recruitment for women, and perhaps retained Mums. By offering a more flexible approach in hours of work, could this band of potential workers be tapped - especially for daytime cover? Expecting a minimum 90hrs cover must bar many hundreds of potential recruits ?

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Messy its a difficult one getting that balance right, different areas have different issues getting persons through the door, it can different from one end of the brigade to another.  Perhaps there needs to be a different approach as the hours thing can be problematic, valid point above there, start work at 0830, you need to think ahead and book off at say 0400.

When I speak to some of my friends in the job the quantity of stations that are OTR during the day can be quite scary, often in large numbers.  One of the other points that has been raised, not sure if its valid elsewhere are that managers who are in post these days often have little of no experience of the RDS system and do not understand and appreciate what is given up to be available and why there can be struggles.

Where stations have surplus RDS or even WDS (lucky if you have that these days) have been putting stations back on the run, costs a bit more money having a bod sat there but could this be the answer, employ one or two at each RDS station between say 9 and 6, they can do the station admin, checks, cleaning and also keep the pump on the run?  Therefore drill nights can be training and not everything that goes with it.

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@Messyshaw I think your idea of targeting mums is brilliant. I just think more in the fit gym goer mum demographic need to be made aware of what being a retained firefighter is and the pay/training available.

One of my gym buddies is a stay at home mum living in a town with a retained station that is recruiting. I told her about what a retained firefighter is and one of her immediate responses was that it would be a great way for her to reenter employment without having to expend great amounts on childcare whilst hubby was at work. 

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In this day and age asking people to commit to a minimum of 90 hours a week is absurd. Especially when you consider that they will almost definitely have to put some of those hours down when there are more than six around and so will not always get on the pump anyway. Yes they can get their turnout/attendance fee but that just becomes a sunk expense for the brigade without contributing to the crewing.

Here the minimum for new starters is 50 hours a week unless it can be demonstrated the hours given will substantially increase crewing, where it sometimes be as low as 30. It's also different here in that we have fixed shifts so we know who is on when, meaning sometimes you only need one extra bod and you are back in business.

Others might disagree but I personally wouldn't book off so early at night even if I have work the next morning. Sooner or later being retained will clash with your day job and there will be the odd occasion where you are tired or late for work. It doesn't happen very often but eventually it does no matter where you put your hours. RDS doesn't exist in a vacuum and there's no point hamstringing yourself by putting down less hours just for the sake of a "once in a blue moon" occurrence.

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For the stations where lower hours are offered has the establishment been increased?

Our establishment hasn't changed from the days of full cover of 168 hours, but of course the hours people can commit to now are much lower. At present we require a minimum of 84 hours from a 120 hour contract. There are no restrictions on when you can book on / off and it does leave gaps in cover particularly day time and weekends. A couple of stations were chosen to run a pilot scheme during a recent recruitment campaign, where you had to commit to providing hours within defined bands, but I'm not sure how successful this will be.

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6 hours ago, Messyshaw said:

Coming from a 100% whole time Brigade, I haven't a lot of experience of the T&Cs in relation to retained cover. However in my current role, I am involved in compiling emergency plans for significant sites in rural areas and I am astonished by the lack of daytime cover in some areas

Frankly I am gobsmacked that any F&RS would turn away anyone who is fit and able to do the job on the ground that they are only able to offer less than a set target of hours -especially if those available hours are in difficult to cover times of the week. I appreciate there are efficiency payback expectations regarding the cost of training versus the hours an individual can 'pay back', but when considering the seemingly huge amount of retain stations that are off the run for so many hours due to lack of cover, it is nonsense not to apply some flexibility.

I note that many (all?) F&RS have pushed recruitment for women, and perhaps retained Mums. By offering a more flexible approach in hours of work, could this band of potential workers be tapped - especially for daytime cover? Expecting a minimum 90hrs cover must bar many hundreds of potential recruits ?

Messy

I don’t think there are many, if any, that would turn away anyone offering 40 hours of cover at times when the station struggles for cover.  I certainly would fight tooth and nail to get such a person employed at my Station and I am confident I would win the argument.  It would raise issues though that would need careful handling.  The Grey Book says the Retaining Fee can’t drop below 75% of the whole rate retainer, no matter how few hours are covered so I would have to placate ffs doing 90 hours of alternate cover (shift workers doing a mix of day and night cover) who would only get the same retainer as the new ff doing 40 hours.

We have looked to the “school gate” for potential recruits and as I said above I would bite hands off for 40 hours of day cover.  The issue is that realistically if Jane (or John) Doe is a stay at home parent, they drop little Jo Doe at school at 8:45 and book on call. They MUST be back at the school gate by 15:15 in order to pick little Jo up from school.  That means that even with a good support network in place they need to be booking off by 14:00 or they risk not having enough time to arrange for someone else to pick up little Jo if a call comes in just as they are booking off. So, 8:45 til 14:00 for 5 days a week is 28 hours.  And that is with a good support network, without one it is nearer 15 hours a week.  That is harder to justify, especially when someone asks how they maintain operational competence.  They may end up doing only 20 calls a year on that number of hours.  With 2 or 3 hours of training per week, 47 weeks a year plus 20 calls, I struggle to even think about arguing they can be maintaining the skills necessary.  You also need to factor in that they may well not be available at all during the busy summer months as little Jo will be on school holidays and need looking after all day.  You can begin to see now that it isn’t perhaps the panacea that some hold it up to be, although it could be a part of the answer.

4 hours ago, OscarTango said:

Others might disagree but I personally wouldn't book off so early at night even if I have work the next morning. Sooner or later being retained will clash with your day job and there will be the odd occasion where you are tired or late for work. It doesn't happen very often but eventually it does no matter where you put your hours. RDS doesn't exist in a vacuum and there's no point hamstringing yourself by putting down less hours just for the sake of a "once in a blue moon" occurrence.

I guess it depends on the day job.  In my line of work, nothing is going to be badly affected if I am a couple of hours late, once in a blue moon.  I just make up the missed hours and the boss is happy.  If you are a teacher, then my guess is the classes would need to be covered causing both hassle and expense.  I can see the Head Teacher getting fed up fast, even if it is once in a blue moon.  And ultimately the RDS is great and it provides some extra cash, but in 95% of cases it is the main job that pays the mortgage so you have to protect that role when the two come into conflict.

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6 hours ago, Matt said:

Where stations have surplus RDS or even WDS (lucky if you have that these days) have been putting stations back on the run, costs a bit more money having a bod sat there but could this be the answer, employ one or two at each RDS station between say 9 and 6, they can do the station admin, checks, cleaning and also keep the pump on the run?  Therefore drill nights can be training and not everything that goes with it.

Even that has to be thought through.  As WM on an RDS Station who is about all day,  I have no issues with my machine being kept available.  I do have issues with them being on full hourly rate whilst I wait about for 50p an hour.  Why not pay one of my guys the hourly rate to stay around instead of them going to do a day’s labouring on a site.  I also won’t be best impressed if someone is sent in on full Pay AND they take Pay out of my guys pockets by doing my admin, checks etc whilst they are there.  Yes you put my machine on, but temporarily I suggest since if you half my monthly pay packet in the process then I won’t be sticking around for long.

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14 hours ago, TandA said:

We have looked to the “school gate” for potential recruits and as I said above I would bite hands off for 40 hours of day cover.  The issue is that realistically if Jane (or John) Doe is a stay at home parent, they drop little Jo Doe at school at 8:45 and book on call. They MUST be back at the school gate by 15:15 in order to pick little Jo up from school.  That means that even with a good support network in place they need to be booking off by 14:00 or they risk not having enough time to arrange for someone else to pick up little Jo if a call comes in just as they are booking off. So, 8:45 til 14:00 for 5 days a week is 28 hours.  And that is with a good support network, without one it is nearer 15 hours a week.  That is harder to justify, especially when someone asks how they maintain operational competence.  They may end up doing only 20 calls a year on that number of hours.  With 2 or 3 hours of training per week, 47 weeks a year plus 20 calls, I struggle to even think about arguing they can be maintaining the skills necessary.  You also need to factor in that they may well not be available at all during the busy summer months as little Jo will be on school holidays and need looking after all day.  You can begin to see now that it isn’t perhaps the panacea that some hold it up to be, although it could be a part of the answer.

Back in the 1960's and 70's the first retained FF into the station manned the watchroom and was paid as a turnout.

If sufficient child carers could be recruited, then one solution to the school gate problem would be to redesign that old system so that one of them remained behind on pay and took care of the problem. I know it presents new problems, but it must be cheaper that WT cover at a RDS station.

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Interesting stuff.

I despair that the Grey book restricts innovative ways of filling gaps in RDS establishment or those giving 90 hrs are disadvantaged by the similar level of allowances offered to those on 40hrs.

I spoke to a chief officer of a FRS with many RDS stations back in the summer who explained his financing difficulties.  He wanted flexibility to change a number of restrictive practices and had rank and file support. But it was financial and fiscal restrictions handcuffing him and not the FBU 

So what would you do , what would you change, to get more RDS bums on seats?

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Kinmel

Interesring idea.  The one left behind wouldn’t be able to actually look after the kids of the others without being a registered childcare provider I don’t think but it could be worth looking into.

Messy

The FBU are fully behind that particular clause of the Grey Book.  It is there to set the minimum Retaining Fee at 7.5% of a WT ffs salary.  For me as a WM on 120 hour contract,  my retainer is (back of fag packet calc) £75 a week or 60p an hour.  For that, I cannot go more than 4 mins from the Station at any time.  That restricts me to 1 corner shop, no park with the kids, no takeaways, I can’t even take the kids to school.  It is hugely restrictive.  

Allowing CFOs to reduce Retaining fees will mean they are paying peanuts.  I have seen requests to pay a figure of 3% of a WT salary for 35 hours of cover.  That would equate to something like £20 a week.  Are you hanging about all day for less than a fiver a day before tax and maybe another £40 a week from training and a call out or two if you are lucky?  You could do one short day a week in Tescos and have the rest of the week free and not have the hassle.  We operate now in a world where there are a lot more part time opportunities available with which we have to compete.

I fully understand money is tight but the figures set by the Grey Book are minimums.  RDS has always been a service provided on the cheap that relies massively on goodwill.  A few services around the country are now realising that if you want people to be at your beck and call for long periods then you need to pay a bit more.  Look at Lancashire who have just agreed increased Retaining Fees so that they can structure them appropriately and offer contracts down to 40 hours but still have it meet the minimum amount set in the Grey Book.

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South Wales have recently begun trialling contracts down to as little as 30 hours. There is a huge amount of flexibility now and we have had people who had left for personal reasons come back on the new lower contracts. Also a  Salary rather than turnout payments and it's one of the most attractive RDS systems in the UK.

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There are countless and various scenarios that could be trialled with the RDS but I think put simply the short answer is pay more. If you want the sort of contracts/shift systems in place that will guarantee 100% availability then the level of pay must increase. And 90 hours minimum cover is ridiculous. I have been on various different contracts ranging from 35 up to 85 and depending on your full time job it can be a real struggle sometimes. A lot of sacrifices are required by the firefighters propping up a failing system in my opinion. There are also no incentives to come back on call to keep pumps on the run if you've already met your hours. I couldn't even take a guess at the number of times I was asked to book back on for a Friday/Saturday night to keep the station/pumps on the run when I had already provided my cover for the week. Do you think a wholetime firefighter would give an extra 6 hours of cover after their shift for nothing in return? Not a chance. Even with specified contracts in place the RDS still very much relies on the good will of the firefighters and their desire to look after their community.

Ps PhilMc bet you didn't expect this can of worms mate xD

Edited by JamesL
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Ha ha, too right James!!  I'd like to thank everyone for their advice.  I'm applying for West Sussex who run a range of availability, from 120 hours to 40, with various core hours.  My potential Watch Manager thought 80 hours would be ok, but I think this was to satisfy the stations need, which is fair enough.  I will possibly ask for the 50 hour cover, which includes 20 hours core from 7am Saturday to 7am Monday, plus a nominated rota day.  As has been mentioned, school holidays will allow me to do extra day cover too.  I'm currently busy working on my fitness, so fingers crossed.  Best wishes to you all.

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9 hours ago, Cardiff_Fire said:

South Wales have recently begun trialling contracts down to as little as 30 hours. There is a huge amount of flexibility now and we have had people who had left for personal reasons come back on the new lower contracts. Also a  Salary rather than turnout payments and it's one of the most attractive RDS systems in the UK.

Same as ours but 54 hrs, and if you'e put yourself available and being paid then the service can use you for other service needs as required (example safety visits )

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