LFB Annual Leave

[Sam94]

Hi guys, 

Had a quick question, as it never really crossed my mind! With the 2-2-4 pattern, how does annual leave work for LFB??

[Jet]

It is managed on watch and is organised by seniority where there is an impasse between two people that want the same period off. 

You generally have two tours off in the summer and one in the winter. You then have an additional tour off known as ACAS and then you have 8 PH days and 5 extra days that are meant to be taken as and when they are available. They changed it not so long ago so you can actually split up all your leave and take it as individual days.

For two appliance stations you are normally allowed 2 FFs off at any one time, sometimes it will be 3 at certain periods. You can also request ‘leave over the top’ which is when they hand out unused allocation depending on current staffing across the brigade. 

Generally it is quite flexible in LFB whereas now am I simply told when I am having my time off and I can only ask for it to be moved in extenuating circumstances. Either that or I have to find someone with the leave I want that also wants what I have! 

[Sam94]

 I'm sure that makes more sense in practice!!

Lol thanks Jamie

[Jet]

Put it this way, I rarely struggled to get time off I wanted and never failed to get it off when I was absolutely desperate! Had the odd PH request turned down but compare that to where I am now where I’ve managed to have one in almost a year!

[Carefree]

Unless you are at a HVP station, whereby 99% of over the top leave gets declined

[Jet]

I was HVP trained at my first station @Carefree (Bow) but we were just support station so not sure if that made a difference? Again didn’t really struggle then and that was before the big closures (us being one of them!)

[Carefree]

Bow Red Watch standby’s were regulars at my station back in the day, good lads.

We gained two or three Ff’s from Bow when it closed who are still there now on our white watch.

We’ve found that the problem of being declined over the top leave has only been a recent thing, maybe the last year or two.  Before that I’d say we used to get granted OTT leave 80% of the time, these days it’s very rare, strange.

[Noddy]

Sam, put slightly simpler, our current conditions give uniformed personnel 33 days annual a year.  So, working 2,2,4 means when you are on leave for a tour of duty (4 shifts) you end up being off for 12 days and in summer, if you take 2 consecutive tours off, you are off for 20 days (but only use 8 annuals).