Hypocrisy alive and well in West Sussex

When anyone uses just two years’ data to report an increase in calls, or slower response times, West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service protest that it is not 'accurate or transparent'. So surely they would never do that?

Wrong! In the report to the County Council Select Committee, that is reviewing the effects of Future Fire and Rescue 2 (last year's cuts), over 70% of the statistics used by the Chief Fire Officer only compare 2014/15 and 2015/16. Disappointingly, they still claim that the 2015/16 ‘improvements’ endorse their changes.

To add to the inaccuracy and lack of transparency, they have previously protested that the figures for 2014/15 are unrepresentative, because industrial action reduced crewing and increased response times. To add to that, the freeze on vacant posts ahead of Future Fire & Rescue 2 will also have had an adverse effect on performance in 2014/15.

So I actually agree with West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, their figures in this report are neither accurate nor transparent.

Another accusation they regularly regurgitate is ‘selective use of statistics’, but that is exactly what they have done in this report. You will remember the phantom ‘move a fire engine from Horsham to Littlehampton’ plan, when all they did was remove 23 firefighters from Horsham and increase the number at Littlehampton by 16.

There are several paragraphs about the effect of the change at Littlehampton, but there is absolutely no reference to the effect at Horsham. Presumably they have selectively excluded that data, because it would show a significant deterioration on second appliance response times in the Horsham area.

They also show how the availability of the first appliance at Littlehampton has improved from 92% to 100%, but don’t explain why the 2014/15 figure was not representative. The honest answer is that Future Fire and Rescue 2 has not made any difference to long term availability, as their figures for four years show.

Note: 2014/15 figures abnormally poor as a result of industrial action and the freeze on vacancies.

I also fail to understand why cutting the turnout time at Littlehampton for night calls by four minutes (day calls had already been cut), has only improved the average attendance time by just 28 seconds.

Among the many other inadequacies in the report, I must just mention the revised day crewing model at Shoreham, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and East Grinstead. Now this report is supposed to be reviewing the expected outcomes, which we were told would be a change to the delivery of community safety and ‘no change to emergency response’.

Now looking at other sections in the report, you might expect to see response times, availability figures and community safety statistics for at least 2014/15 and 2015/16, but no. Once again selectively omitted. Well here are the appliance availability figures, which strongly suggest that instead of no change’ to emergency response times, they must have got worse:

Note: 2014/15 figures abnormally poor as a result of industrial action and the freeze on vacancies.

We can only hope that, at today’s Select Committee meeting, County Councillors see that the report is a travesty and that they postpone discussion until they get a detailed and accurate report.

You can read the full ‘report’ via this link - Impact of Future Fire and Rescue 2

Water Carrier move from Littlehampton to Petworth

This was announced as a benefit to Petworth and the surrounding area but, like a Trojan horse, looks can be deceiving. Moving it from a station with a good crewing record to one with crewing difficulties makes no sense.

If Petworth firefighters respond to a fire in their area and decide a Water Carrier is needed there will be no firefighters left at the station to crew it, so one will have to be sent from Burgess Hill or from Hampshire or Surrey.

This Water Carrier, accompanied by Petworth’s fire engine, will attend incidents across more than half the County, which will then leave Petworth without a fire engine.

It also appears that most incidents requiring a Water Carrier are nearer to Littlehampton than they are to Petworth. That will increase response time across much of the County. This 'Water Carrier locations and incidents' map shows known incidents for 2013 and 2014.

When Petworth are attending incidents in their area, the Water Carrier will not be available for calls in other areas. Littlehampton has three times as many firefighters as Petworth, so is clearly better able to crew both their fire engines and the Water Carrier.

It now seems that they are so concerned they will not have enough firefighters to crew the Water Carrier and the fire engine at Petworth, they have said they can take both, even if the fire engine goes with less than the minimum crew of four! That is disgracefully putting firefighters in greater danger and ensures they will not be able to operate both vehicles properly.

An open letter to County Councillors

Dear County Councillor,

 

At last week’s County Council meeting Cabinet Member David Barling helpfully pointed out that, “It is often about what they don’t tell you that you need to focus on”. He is quite correct that there were a number of extremely relevant things that you were not told.

 

You were told that the changes were developed by a professional team, but you were not told that they were only allowed to come up with changes that also saved £1.6 million pounds. So not the best protection for the people of West Sussex, not fit for the next decade, just the best they could come up with on an inadequate budget. You were also not told that hundreds of professional firefighters say it is wrong.

 

When Mr Barling mentioned fewer incidents, he did not tell you that the number of incidents has never been a key factor in determining the number or location of fire engines. When West Sussex had 6,000 incidents there were 45 fire engines, yet when there were over 15,000 incidents there were just 46 fire engines. When incidents dropped back to around 10,000, fire engines were cut to 40, and now that incidents are between 9 and 10,000, they will be cut to just 35. Ten less than when far fewer incidents were dealt with.

 

He did not mention that the key factor  in determining the number and location of fire engines  is response times. When fire engines were cut from 46 to 40, response times went up and West Sussex residents in desperate need now have to wait, on average, 30% longer for help to arrive than those in East Sussex. Further cuts will increase this significantly.

 

When Mr Barling said that there is a problem with keeping retained firefighters, he did not say that the Deputy Chief Fire Officer has stated this is not a problem. Lee Neale is on record as saying that the retained establishment is continuously monitored and maintained at the appropriate level. He has also said that WSFRS had twice as many applicants as retained firefighter vacancies.

 

You were not told that some people applying to be retained firefighters have been turned away, even when their local station has crewing problems. This is because the County Council has barred the service from recruiting enough firefighters to properly crew all stations. This has resulted in the ridiculous situation of some stations having 14 firefighters to crew one fire engine round the clock, whilst others have to struggle with just 7.

 

Mr Barling said that the fire engines being removed were used irregularly by retained firefighters. You were not told that this was because of inadequate crewing levels and that they were actually required much more frequently. Fire engines had to be called from other areas to cover for these crewing failures, which reduced cover in those areas and increased the response times significantly.

 

Mr Barling even added Horsham to the list, but did not tell you that this fire engine was crewed by wholetime firefighters and attended 626 incidents in 2013/14.

 

You were not told that experience has shown that when retained stations are cut from two to one fire engine, the availability of the remaining fire engine suffers. This is clearly evidenced by East Preston and Lancing, where the first fire engines were close to 100% availability, but are now only available for 56% and 73% respectively.

 

You were previously told that the new retained contract would improve firefighter and fire engine availability. You were not told that the contract was untested before being introduced and that it has actually resulted in a dramatic drop in availability.

 

You were not told that the new wholetime crewing system has not been trialled or tested and that there is no evidence to support the claim that this will not reduce performance.

 

Mr Barling said that the new ‘super-duper’ 4x4 vehicles will enable ‘our people’ to get off road, but he neglected to say that they already had 4x4 vehicles at those stations and could get off road now. He did not tell you that the so called ‘high tech equipment’ could not in any way replace a proper fire engine. He also neglected to say that a previous new ‘super-duper’ 4x4 vehicle, trialled at Midhurst in the 1970s, proved to be inadequate. There is no evidence that this will be any different.

 

Mr Barling said that the fire service had listened to the people of Littlehampton and were improving the service they receive (4 minute better response time at night). He did not mention that they did not listen to the people of Bosham, East Preston, Findon, Keymer and Lancing in 2010, and are not listening to the people of Crawley, Horsham, Midhurst, Petworth and Storrington now. All of whom have, or will have to wait longer for help to arrive on many occasions, both day and night.

 

When Mr Barling mentioned the Horsham fire engine being removed, he did not tell you that this will result in a 4 minute increase in response times in the area both day and night. Worse still, the second fire engine will often not respond at all. It will be crewed by retained firefighters who, in 2013/14, were only available for 52% of the time.

 

Mr Barling also rather bizarrely claimed that ‘every second, every minute’ the fire authority is moving fire engines around to areas of greatest need. Not only is that a gross exaggeration, but the movements that do take place are not to meet demand, but to areas where inadequate crewing has meant several fire engines are not available. Covering up failures instead of properly resourcing the service.

 

The most serious omission was that Mr Barling did not tell you that all the national and local evidence shows that these cuts will increase response times, increase deaths and increase property damage. Clearly an increased risk for the public and firefighters and certainly not a service fit for the next decade.

 

Some of you have opposed these cuts, but for those who have not, it really is time to put your residents’ safety before your party politics.

 

Yours sincerely,

Tony Morris 

Stubborn County Councillors press on with dangerous cuts

It was disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that at today’s meeting of West Sussex County Council there were more false claims and deception about the fire service. Councillor Michael Jones had submitted an amendment that would have reversed the fire service cuts, but it was voted down.

I also understand that there were written questions submitted to the meeting about the fire service, but we did not get to hear them. They used meeting procedures to first move the written questions further on in the agenda and then excluded them completely, because of ‘a lack of time’. Even shabbier was refusing to allow responses to the written answers at the next meeting.

David Barling, the new Cabinet Member for Resident’s Services, said in his response that it is often about what they don’t tell you that you need to focus on. Well let us do that.

1. When Mr Barling told the meeting that professional fire officers had come up with the changes, he did not say they could only come up with changes that also saved £1.6 million pounds.

2. When he claimed that the Chief Fire Officer rejected his ‘offer’ of having that money back, he did not say it would be professional suicide to accept it.

3. When he tried to justify cutting fire engines to just 35, by saying there were less calls, he did not say that fire engines were only increased by one to 46 when calls increased from 5,000 to over 15,000. He also did not say that, whilst calls have only dropped back to just under 10,000, fire engines have already been cut to just 40.

4. When he said the Water Carrier from Littlehampton, where crewing is not a problem, would move to Petworth, he did not say that when it goes out on calls there will be more occasions when Petworth does not have enough firefighters left to crew their only fire engine.

5. When he said that these were not cuts, but a service for the future, he did not say that in future more people will have to wait longer for the fire service to arrive and firefighters will have to wait longer for assistance.

6. When he said it would not be done if they thought there was a risk, he did not say that all the evidence showed that more lives will be lost and property damage will increase.

Yes, you did get one thing right Mr Barling, we need to focus on what you did not say.

BBC South News coverage

I have emailed the BBC as they are still falling for the consultation deception about 'Horsham's 3rd fire engine moving to Littlehampton'. Of course it is actually one of the five being cut.

Interesting that all of the people they interviewed in Midhurst said the cuts were wrong. As one lady said 'they take no notice of what we say, and they just do it anyway'.

WSFRS had fed them the number of times the 2nd at Midhurst turned out this year, but not how many times it was needed. That of course is higher and the failure to get a crew on occasions directly results from their deliberate under crewing (establishment 15, just 3 more than a 1 pump station) and the new RDS contracts.

Lee Neale had the gall to mention the predictive data and then claim people would be safe. Of course he did not mention the additional and unnecessary death every other year and the £80,000+ of additional and unnecessary property damage that are predicted.

He also did not mention that fire deaths were falling in the UK, but that they have risen every year in West Sussex since he and Sean Ruth joined WSFRS in 2009! He mentioned the changes being based on professional judgement, so the increase in fire deaths must just be a coincidence then I suppose.

Other people's comments on the cuts

For those who are not on Facebook, I thought you may like to see some of the comments made by other people. Many of them are or were in the service so they know how bad the cuts will be:

"One other issue I will add to your list is the apparent gagging of our serving firefighters. It appears that they have been told/warned by officers not to comment. That cannot be within the spirit of free speech or human rights, they also contribute to the tax pot, so why shouldn't they have their say?"

"They are increasing crewing at Littlehampton but failed to disclose at the meeting how much it was going to cost to upgrade the facilities. Littlehampton has plenty of retained and the wholetime personnel would be better being positioned where there is a shortage. The money being wasted by modifying Littlehampton could be used to save services elsewhere. The fire brigade employed an outside consultation company to work on the cuts and obviously they found in favour of the brigade who was the paymaster!! Why if we are trying to save money didn't they do it in house?"

"The outside consultation company, used invited audiences and asked loaded questions to lead to the audience to agreeing to the proposed cuts !! The invited audience were paid £40 each to attend the meetings!!!!!"

"I have just read some of the cabinet papers on the cuts, one of the reasons given to remove appliances from Midhurst, Petworth and Storrington is that the second appliances are often unavailable. What the CFO and DCFO have failed to inform councillors is that this is because of the lack of a robust recruitment system over the past two decades. Recruitment has been left to local firefighters without much resource. No WSFRS Management team, do not blame our frontline firefighters, YOU are to blame for appliances not being available."

"The Conservative administration's idea of democracy does not extend as far as allowing scrutiny committees to actually vote in favour or against the decision."

"Terrible outcome. The councillors are a disgrace. I thought the chairman may have not supported the cuts but that was not to be. I wonder if he would have voted differently if his house had been lost when we attended and put out a bathroom fire years ago !!!!"

"Don't you know that they don't care because they will always give a reason 'it wasn't their Service's fault', when somebody dies. It has happened after closures or changes from being 24/7, and when RDS pumps aren't available anymore." 

"Unfortunately Tony the chief fire officer doesn't care about West Sussex or its residents. It's a shame he is just a hatchet man who is going to use West Sussex as a stepping stone to new heights. If he was a West Sussex resident things would be different."

West Sussex fire service cuts must be referred to the full Council

Reckless and Foolish

The fire service cuts decision must not be left to one man. Such a crucial decision must be debated by the full County Council. The people of West Sussex deserve to know which of their representatives will vote for slower response times, more deaths and more property damage, and which of them will vote to protect the people of West Sussex.

Lionel Barnard is clearly receiving some very poor advice from his officers and it is beginning to make him look foolish, as well as reckless. Among the ridiculous statements he has been prompted to make about the fire service cuts are:

‘All 800,000 people in West Sussex knew about the consultation’. Utter nonsense. Even if the proposals had been included in the County Council’s “West Sussex Connections” newspaper, which it should have been, it would still not be true. It is becoming clear that very few people knew about it.

‘I’m sure that if people had seen any dangers they would have replied’. The consultation document deliberately omitted the dangers and falsely claimed ‘no reduction in performance’, ‘improves flexibility’ etc. It even included blatant lies, such as ‘moving a fire engine from Horsham to Littlehampton, when they were actually cutting a fire engine and crew. The dangers were deliberately concealed.

‘We had a thousand replies, which is not as many as you might expect’. Yet, he then went on to say he did not have an expectation, which makes no sense. 1,000 replies is actually a very high figure for a County Council consultation and shows how deeply concerned people are.

‘The types of incident crews respond to has changed’. They have not, West Sussex firefighters are still responding to fires, road crashes, floods and a variety of other emergencies, just as they have done since 1948. The proportion of each may have changed, but all of them still require the speedy response of one or more fully crewed fire engines.

‘This is about improving our service’. Do his advisers really think the public are that gullible? A service that will take longer to arrive at many incidents, that has fewer fire engines to attend major incidents or multiple calls, and that will see more fire deaths and property destroyed is most definitely not an improved one.

‘This is about building a fire service that is fit for the 21st century’. No it is about slowly dismantling a vital public service, making it less fit than it was in the 20th century. Resources will be the worst since before World War 2.

‘Prevention is the name of the game.’ Chief Fire Officers and Councillors have been saying that for many years. My Grandfather was saying that in the 1920s, my Uncle in the 1950s, so the only change is who is saying it. Prevention has always been part of the service’s work, but it can never replace an effective response.

‘I’ve taken the decision that I have because the evidence is there to support it’. What Lionel Barnard claims to be supporting ‘evidence’, is nothing more than wishful thinking and illusion. The most striking evidence is that fire deaths have been increasing in West Sussex, that the proposals will result in more deaths, that response times will increase, that they have been failing to crew stations properly, and that more fire engines will be under-crewed or unavailable in the future.

Finally, the figures don’t add up. Between the consultation closing and the Environmental Services Select Committee meeting the saving claimed for cutting fire engines at Midhurst, Petworth and Storrington dropped from £41,400 to just £21,000 each. The extra cost of changes at Littlehampton was £382,102, but by the meeting that had changed to ‘awaiting the costings’. Other costs resulting from the changes have not been determined, so to cut services when the real savings are unknown is reckless.

The first duty of government is to protect their citizens. County Councillors must not neglect that duty, they must refer the decision to full council.

Web: wsfrscuts.blogspot.com 

Facebook: West Sussex Fire & Rescue Stop the Cuts