Hypocrisy
The answer to a written question from County Councillor Chris Oxlade exposes shocking hypocrisy regarding the issue of On Call
Firefighters. As the Fire & Rescue Authority, the County Council regularly
calls on employers to release staff from their jobs to respond to emergencies
as On Call Firefighters.
Yet the County Council does nothing to ensure that their own
staff are able to respond to emergencies as On Call Firefighters.
Astonishingly, there is no policy on the matter and they only support staff
doing so, “as long as it does not conflict with their main employment”. You
must be pretty dim to think that leaving their main employment to respond to
emergencies is not going to conflict, so instead of supporting On Call
Firefighters, they immediately put a great big obstacle in the way.
They go on to admit that they have no policy to ensure On
Call Firefighters working for the County Council are not penalised financially, or in terms
of career progression. The Council also admits they put no requirement in
contracts with companies, providing contracted out services to the Council, to ensure they also encourage and
support On Call Firefighters.
Asked if the Council ensures that managers actively
encourage employees to become On Call Firefighters, it appears they don’t. All
they say is that internal communication campaigns have “generated little
interest to date either from managers or employees”. Hardly surprising when there is no support or encouragement.
This is yet another example of inept leadership from the
County Council.
Expecting other employers to help them out by releasing staff
to respond as On Call Firefighters, whilst restricting and even preventing
County Council staff from doing the same. With such hypocrisy it is no wonder there is such a shortage
of On Call Firefighters in West Sussex. Shortages that are resulting in
increased response times, which put the public in greater danger.
Cabinet Member Misinformation (again)
At the last County Council meeting, Councillor Dan Purchese asked Cabinet Member Debbie
Kennard to agree that the next Chief Fire Officer needed to have experience of the
fire service. Not only did she fail to agree, she falsely said "we have
other fire officers who did not come up through the ranks". That is not
true, all the officers in West Sussex came up through the ranks.
She also said that they will appoint the best person for the job. Well if she means that, then it can only be someone who has came up through the ranks. A career's worth of in depth knowledge and experience are vital for any Chief Fire Officer.
What will tomorrow bring?
The report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services is due to be published tomorrow. The signs are not good, as the County Council has already transferred £365,000 from reserves to begin
addressing areas identified in the report as needing improvement.
HMICFRS say they expect fire & rescue services to achieve a rating of 'good'. Sadly, with such severe cuts to the service I am not optimistic that West Sussex will achieve that as an overall grade, so the question is will it achieve a 'good' rating in any of the key areas:
- How effective is the fire and rescue service at
keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks?
- How efficient is
the fire and rescue service at keeping people safe and secure from fire
and other risks?
- How well does the fire and
rescue service look after its people?
The categories of graded judgement are:
- outstanding;
- good;
- requires
improvement; and
- inadequate.
Whatever the outcome, we must remember that primary responsibility for any inadequacies rests with the County Council. Staff must not be blamed in the way the Council shamefully tried to do for their failings in Children's Services.
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