Safety Critical Notice issued for Surrey Fire Control

When I posted yesterday about the problems following the so called "successful implementation of the Fire Control project", I was clearly unaware how bad the situation really was. The FBU safety critical notice, issued late yesterday, shows that West Sussex County Council has made yet another inept decision.

8th January 2020

The Fire Brigades Union demands that Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), immediately suspends the West Sussex control and command function until adequate control measures are put in place to mitigate the safety critical issues that have been identified. These safety critical issues have come to the attention of the FBU since the transfer of the West Sussex control and command function to Surrey on the 4th December 2019. The safety critical issues being encountered pose a significant risk to both public and firefighter safety. The identified safety critical issues are both unacceptable to the FBU and our members in terms of both severity and occurrence since the transfer. The safety critical issues broadly fall into the categories below;

 Surrey Control staff have not be sufficiently trained to carry out their role on behalf of West Sussex
 Multiple technical failures of IT systems
 Severe understaffing
 SFRSs failure to invoke its Emergency Recall to Duty (Whole-time, Mobilising Control and Support staff only)
 SFRS failure to invoke its Degradation Procedure

SFRSs failure and omissions as categorised above have, and still are’ resulting in emergency fire and rescue operational failures as described below;

 crews being mobilised to emergency incidents from the wrong locations causing substantial delays in getting resources to emergencies.
 crews being sent mobilisation alerts, when they are not available to respond
 incident commanders not being able to access safety critical operational information from control

Control staff are under extreme pressure due to these factors, this appears to be forcing them to forgo necessary (and required) rest breaks further increasing not only stress levels, but also fatigue in the workplace.

FBU members and SFRS staff working in the control room are under extreme pressure and suffering stress levels that are detrimental to their mental wellbeing. This has already led to occurrences of work related sickness and multiple reports of staff breaking down in tears both within the control room and at home following their shifts.

This situation is totally unacceptable to the FBU and our members and must be rectified immediately.

Should SFRS not comply with above demands then the FBU believe that the Service shall be contravening Health and Safety Regulations including;

The Working Time Regulations 1998

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974

Management of Health Safety at Work Regulations 1999

Copies of this notice shall be sent in line with FBU protocol to the Health and Safety Executive, FBU regional and national officials as well as FBU members in Surrey.

Copies will also be sent to Surrey County Council, West Sussex County Council, as the Fire Authorities of both affected counties as well as West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. A copy will also be sent to West Sussex FBU officials.

A copy will also be sent to the East Sussex Fire Authority, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, and its FBU officials, as these issues may impact on East Sussex’s decision making in regards to its own mobilising control function.

Summary

 Immediate suspension of the provision of West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service control and command functions until;

o Control staff in Surrey have been sufficiently trained to provide a command and control function for West Sussex.
o Staffing levels in the Surrey Control room are sufficient and do not pose a threat to the wellbeing of those working there.
o Identified IT faults and failings are rectified.
o All control staff and operational Duty Managers are suitably trained and empowered to implement the Emergency Recall to Duty (Whole-time, Mobilising Control and Support staff only) and/or the Service Degradation Policy, on occasions when the agreed minimum crewing level of 6 control staff (which must include 2 supervisory manager roles) is not achieved.

The FBU is of the opinion that Surrey Fire and Rescue Service is inflicting unacceptable and unnecessary levels of risk on the public and employees of the Fire and Rescue Service’s in both counties. Therefore, the FBU believe that the Surrey Control is not capable of safely or effectively carrying out the command and control function on behalf of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service at this time and therefore it should be immediately suspended until these safety critical issues have been suitably resolved.

The FBU are obviously willing to take a full and active part in investigating and mitigating the identified safety critical issues.

Richard Jones
Fire Brigades Union,
Executive Council Member,
South East Region