Unfair funding of West Sussex Fire and Rescue to be challenged at County Council meeting

Very good to see some County Councillors willing to fight for West Sussex residents and firefighters. Their press release says it all:

Labour challenges unfair funding of West Sussex Fire and Rescue and expresses concerns for its future, as Tory county council warns it intends to cut the service even further

West Sussex Labour County Councillors are challenging the position that West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is a victim of unfair funding from the Tory Government, receiving considerably less than other neighbouring local councils and fire authorities, and being the hardest cut fire authority in England, according to recent figures published by the FBU.  The Labour Group is calling on the Tory-led council to at least maintain its current funding and also for the council to challenge the Government on the unequal funding West Sussex is receiving, and is set to get worse.

At the last meeting of the Environment Communities and Fire Select Committee in September, when discussing the implementation of the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service (WSFRS) Integrated Risk Management Plan, the Chief Fire Officer warned members that the financial strains meant middle management in WSFRS would be having to do this on top of their other roles, and that he would not rule out three member crews in future for fire engines arriving to tackle fires, having decided to move the standard crewing number in West Sussex from five to four. 

The Chief Fire Officer, Gavin Watts, also indicated that the Cabinet Member for Safer, Stronger Communities Debbie Kennard (Con, Shoreham North) would be coming forward with proposals for further cuts to the Service in November, which she subsequently confirmed at the meeting, although as of the date the motion was submitted, this was still not indicated on the council’s Forward Plan of key decisions.

Mr Watts said: “The savings question, I believe we are coming back here in November with thoughts around the savings potential within the Fire and Rescue Service, contributing to the broader whole.”

Labour county councillor Michael Jones (Southgate and Gossops Green) has put forward the motion on behalf of the West Sussex Labour Group, which is printed on the agenda papers for the next Full Council, published today.

• Figures from the FBU indicate that there is an existing gap in the funding provided per person from the Government towards WSFRS, in comparison to the per person funding in all of those Fire and Rescue Services immediately surrounding it.  This gap has grown considerably over the past few years.

• Not only are many of the surrounding fire authorities receiving much higher sums to protect their communities, but with further Government cuts in 2019/20, the gap is set to become far worse, and even more unfair, for West Sussex.  The local government Settlement Funding Assessment for fire authorities shows West Sussex having the largest funding cut in England, in the three years between 2016/17 and 2019/20, of 45%.  The English average is a 15% cut.  By the end of 2019/2020, WSFRS will be receiving less than half the funding of East Sussex Fire Authority, with £6.34 and £12.85 per person respectively.

• WSFRS has already suffered from very deep cuts made to it in recent years by the Tory-controlled council, with £2.5 million and £1.6 million in 2012 and 2014 respectively, making it according to FBU figures the second worst hit fire authority in the proportion of its overall number of firefighters lost in the whole of the UK, with a reduction of 37% of its firefighters, during that time.

• If further savings proposals were to come forward, Labour is arguing that WSFRS is already stretched and doing its best in practice to keep enough engines available.  However, between 7am and 7pm there are rarely more than 15 crews available out of the 35 possible, sometimes as few as 10, and that firefighters are having to work hard to keep such numbers and maintain the resilience of the Service.

• Moreover, cuts are apparently being proposed before the forthcoming HMI inspection of WSFRS, which is not even due to begin until November, and aside from some preliminary feedback expected during the following month, is not due to formally publish its conclusions until its final report, expected in May 2019.

The West Sussex Labour Group is therefore calling on the Tory leadership of the council to protect WSFRS from further cuts for the reasons above, and arguing it is impossible to predict what issues or extra demands the HMI inspection may reveal which will require action, and to maintain the amount of funding WSRFS receives.

The motion therefore calls on the council to:

-       abandon any plans to bring forward further proposals for cuts to WSFRS, as the service has taken as many cuts as it can bear without further compromising public and firefighter safety, and further threatening the availability of crews and appliances at the county’s fire stations.

-       requests the Leader of the council Louise Goldsmith and the Cabinet Member for Safer, Stronger Communities Debbie Kennard to jointly write to the relevant Government Minister on behalf of the council, challenging the inequalities in funding for WSFRS and calling for it to be raised so that it is in line with the funding that other neighbouring fire authorities receive, per person.

Speaking about the reasons behind the motion, Cllr Jones said:

"Our firefighters in West Sussex risk their lives on a regular basis, and they deserve more than just being offered up for more savings.  This is already the second worst hit Fire Service in the country.  Too much has already gone.  The facts are staring the Tory leadership in the face, but they seem to ignore them.  It’s not just a question of letting our firefighters down if there are more cuts, although that is bad enough, if they are coming out and not able to tackle fires as effectively as they otherwise could, then public safety is at stake.”

Labour Group Leader Sue Mullins (Northgate and West Green) agreed with Cllr Jones, adding her own concerns about the future of WSFRS:

"There’s a grimly familiar theme emerging here, where when we look at the finer details, things aren’t as satisfactory at the county council as they are painted to be, and once again the people of West Sussex are the ones losing out as this Government fails to put their interests first.

“Unfortunately they have a Tory leadership at the county council either too embarrassed, or worried about party reputation, to speak out when these things happen, and Tory MPs who are strangely silent when it comes to their constituents being short-changed.”

Good points and very worrying points at County Council meeting

The Select Committee meeting last Friday discussed the Action Plan for implementing the Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP). On the positive side was the assurance that representative bodies would be involved in the work streams associated with the plan. 

Also welcome was the establishment of a task & finish group to look at On Call Firefighter recruitment and retention. Long overdue, this was first proposed by a County Councillor around three years ago, but the suggestion was arrogantly rejected. It was disappointing that the Cabinet Member tried to stop it this time, but the Chief Fire Officer welcomed it and the Select Committee agreed.

Most worrying though is pushing through a reduction of standard crewing from five to four, and plans to look at ways to cut minimum crewing of On Call crewed fire engines to just three firefighters. 

Vanishing Crew

Officer-in-charge, driver/pump operator, plus

"Officer and driver have specific tasks. It is the crew in the back that fight the fire and carry out rescues."

The Cabinet Member, Debbie Kennard, claimed that the IRMP “was very clear” about standard crewing changing to four, which is not the case. It is only mentioned on page 75 of the IRMP and that did not make it clear it was a cut from five. The public could have assumed it was an increase from 3 to 4. With no detail and no reference in the document to the implications, the public have been denied the full facts and the opportunity to consider and comment on this retrograde step.

Standard crew cut from 5 to 4

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer harked back to when he was a firefighter at Crawley and said that standard crewing on one of their fire engines was four (it was five on their other whole-time crewed fire engine). That suggests he does not understand the full implications of the proposals. He was in the fortunate position at Crawley of arriving at any building fire with nine firefighters on two fire engines. 

At most of the County’s other stations, with whole-time crews, they would arrive with just five firefighters on one fire engine. The second crew to support them would be five, ten or even fifteen minutes away. Cutting those crews to just four will make life more difficult and dangerous for them. Firefighters have accepted crewing with four, when another fire engine on that station is crewed with five, and in exceptional circumstances, but forcing them to always crew with just four is unreasonable.

Minimum crew may drop from 4 to 3

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer also mentioned that On Call stations used to be allowed to respond with just three firefighters, but said it was stopped because four were needed to use some equipment, such as the main ladder. That was a factor, but the main reason it was stopped was that the Chief Fire Officer considered it to be unsafe and risked putting firefighters in an invidious position. In a rescue situation, it was felt unreasonable to force them to choose between having to wait for back up, with a strong likelihood that the victim or victims would not survive, and ignoring procedures to take exceptional risks to try and rescue people.

Such potential dilemmas have not gone away, technology cannot remove those dilemmas, and there is no justification for returning to an unsafe system. These crewing cuts also ignore the extensive work done on task analysis, which identified the minimum numbers required to initially attend an incident and operate effectively and safely.

Real life scenario posed - CFO evades specific answer

Councillor Michael Jones posed a scenario where a crew of three arrive at a house with flames coming out of a downstairs window and, in the crowd, a woman says that her child is somewhere in the house upstairs. He asked if the Chief Fire Officer would expect his crew to attempt a rescue wearing breathing apparatus, or attempt a rescue without breathing apparatus, or do nothing until another crew arrives five, ten or fifteen minutes later?"

His answer, "that is why we've got to do the piece of work", and he also said he didn't think it helpful to speculate on scenarios. I am not surprised that he ducked that question. It is difficult to see anyone, who might face a potential Health & Safety Executive prosecution, approving procedures that would permit either of the two rescue options with a crew of three. He may not want to speculate in the meeting, but I sincerely hope that any review properly considers all potential scenarios. 

Crews of four less effective, less flexible and less safe

The Chief Fire Officer said that they would send more fire engines when there were not enough firefighters on the first one, but the need identified by task analysis is for enough firefighters to be present to carry out simultaneous actions. So when the answer is five, you need five on the first fire engine to arrive, not four, with the fifth firefighter arriving on another fire engine several minutes later. When that happens, the fifth firefighter's task or tasks are not done or are delayed. At best that slows firefighting or rescue, at worst, key actions have to be delayed until help arrives, or safety is compromised, or both.

The Chief Fire Officer spoke about preferring more fire engines crewed with four, to having less fire engines available with crews of five. That may look better on paper, but in practice it is not. With crews of four you often have to send more fire engines to get the total number of firefighters needed at an incident, than you do if they are crewed by five firefighters. That reduces operational effectiveness and cover for other incidents.

Just 10 fire engines available

Consider what happens when there are just ten fire engines available in West Sussex. Sadly, that is sometimes the case. The difference in crewing significantly affects the number of incidents that can be dealt with at the same time. One of the challenges for the service is that several incidents can occur at the same time, so that must be considered when planning resources. For safe and effective action a building fire needs a minimum of nine firefighters and a vehicle fire needs a minimum of five.

Crewed by five firefighters they can deal with:

5 Building fires or 10 vehicle fires

Crewed by four firefighters they can only deal with:

3 building fires or 5 vehicle fires

Crews of four, instead of five, make the service less effective, less flexible and less safe. These are some of the unintended consequences that Councillor Simon Oakley wisely said must be considered.

Will the Cabinet Member listen to the real experts?

Finally, when asked about safety, the Cabinet Member said that she relied on experts. Now that is fine, if she is listening to the real experts - the firefighters who respond to emergencies on fire engines every day. Those who face the danger, know the demands first hand, and suffer the consequences of inadequate resourcing. Their representatives have already said the proposals are unsafe. 

Sadly, I fear she means the very senior officers, for whom rolling up to a serious incident on the first fire engine is a distant memory, and who are under Council instructions to cut spending on front-line resources. No matter how sincere they are about keeping people safe, without adequate resources that becomes impossible.

Why are West Sussex MPs allowing the Government to penalise their constituents?

Latest figures show that the Government give more money to fund fire & rescue services in neighbouring counties than they give to West Sussex. It was already unfair in 2016/17, but it is set to be grossly unfair by 2019/20, with a 45% funding cut for West Sussex compared to a cut of just 17% for Hampshire.

Figures for 2016/17 show that East Sussex received £15.83 to protect each resident, whilst West Sussex only received £11.60, a quarter less. Previous cuts have caused West Sussex County Council to close fire stations, cut eleven front line fire engines, a quarter of whole-time firefighters and nearly half the on call (retained) firefighter posts.

In 2019/20 the Government will give East Sussex £12.85 per head 

West Sussex will get just £6.34 per head.

The Government require West Sussex County Council to provide an effective fire & rescue service, but with less than half the money given to East Sussex that will be impossible. Not only ludicrous and unjust, but it will inevitably cost lives.

I am sure some will have read of County Council Leader Louise Goldsmith’s sleepless nights, as she makes significant cuts to essential Council services. I fear her insomnia will only get worse, unless the County’s MPs do something to correct this injustice. 

Independent modelling of the last round of fire service cuts in West Sussex predicted the result would be, on average, an additional death every other year and extra property damage every year. How many more lives and how much more property will be lost, if they are forced to cut the fire & rescue service even more?

I have written to my MP, Gillian Keegan, to ask why West Sussex is being treated so badly and have asked what action she will take to have the imbalance corrected. I await a reply. 

If you live in other West Sussex constituencies, you might like to ask your MP why the Government consider your life to be less important than the lives of people in neighbouring counties.

Arundel and South Downs - Nick Herbert (herbertn@parliament.uk), 
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton - Nick Gibb (gibbn@parliament.uk), 
Crawley - Henry Smith (henry.smith.mp@parliament.uk), 
East Worthing and Shoreham - Tim Loughton (loughtont@parliament.uk), 
Horsham - Jeremy Quin (jeremy.quin.mp@parliament.uk), 
Mid Sussex - Nicholas Soames (nicholas.soames.mp@parliament.uk) 
Worthing West - Peter Bottomley (bottomleyp@parliament.uk)

Fire & Rescue funding figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Deception, neglect of duty and more cuts from West Sussex County Councillors

Council Leader Louise Goldsmith

No apology from Louise Goldsmith for misleading Councillors

At the recent County Council meeting, Louise Goldsmith was rightly challenged on her false claim, at a select committee meeting, that “there are 35 fire engines ready to go out today”.

Councillor Michael Jones pointed out that a fire engine is only ready to go out when there are firefighters available to crew it. He said that the Integrated Risk Management Plan showed that, at the time she made the statement, it is likely there would have been less than 15 fire engines ready to go out.

Integrated Risk Management Plan 2018-22 (page 43)

He added that the document also showed there can be as few as 10 fire engines ready to respond, because of a lack of firefighters. In her bumbling response, during which she talked about ‘firemen’, not firefighters, she failed to apologise for misleading the committee. She then proceeded to blame the public for not coming forward to be on call (retained) firefighters, or “temporary firefighters” as she called them.

Now I have yet to find the section in the Fire & Rescue Service Act that says a fire authority can opt out of their statutory responsibilities, if the public are not attracted by the Council’s offer - You provide us with an average of 4,500 hours on call and we will pay you 52 pence an hour for your trouble! The County Council has a legal duty to provide an efficient fire & rescue service, but they are clearly failing to do so.

Louise Goldsmith’s appalling excuse - “if the retained people are not coming forward, they are not coming forward”, is simply an unacceptable neglect of duty.

County Councillor David Barling

More false claims from David Barling

It was even more astonishing when former Cabinet Member David Barling attempted to help his Leader by claiming there had been “no deletions of firefighter front line posts”. Not only did he vote to cut front line firefighter posts, including the deletion of all the on call firefighter posts at Crawley, he was the Cabinet Member that implemented the cuts. Louise Goldsmith then supported his misleading statement. It matters not if this was the result of deliberate deceit or simply incompetence, it is unacceptable.

These are the true figures:

	Wholetime	On-call (Retained)
2004	401	398
2018	319	213

(Source - Home Office and WSF&RS documents)

Louise Goldsmith and David Barling owe Councillors and the public an apology for continuing to mislead and make excuses. They also need to take urgent action to ensure proper protection for West Sussex residents all day, every day and they need to do it before lives and property are needlessly lost.

More cuts on the way

With Government reducing further the money they give the County Council, it seems that more fire & rescue service cuts are on the way. How much the service will have to cut and where the axe will fall has not been publicised. All we know for sure is that cuts cannot be made without further damaging the already fragile protection offered to residents.

It really is time that Louise Goldsmith and her Cabinet Member colleagues told Government that enough is enough. If they were truly concerned about protecting West Sussex residents that is what they would do, but as both the Council and Government are in Conservative hands, they prefer to put party preferences before public safety.

Surrey take over

There have been suggestions that a solution would be to merge West Sussex and Surrey’s fire & rescue services. Unfortunately, I think any savings from economies of scale may well be short lived, as the underlying problem is the inadequate and reducing funding from Government.

Surrey has a bigger population than West Sussex and relies more heavily on wholetime fire cover. There are 40% more wholetime firefighters in Surrey than in West Sussex and 56% less on call firefighters. Wholetime firefighter costs are the biggest cost, so cuts impact them the most, which is why wholetime crewed appliances are regularly taken off the run in Surrey.

I can see why a merger would benefit Surrey, but cannot see any benefit for West Sussex. Surrey County Council seem even less concerned with public safety than West Sussex, so allowing Surrey County Councillors to have a say on fire cover in West Sussex is not a wise move. My fear is that council tax payers in West Sussex would end up paying more to improve fire cover in Surrey, whilst cover in West Sussex deteriorates.

It is bad enough that the second wholetime crewed pumps at Crawley and Worthing are often moved to different parts of West Sussex to fill gaps in fire cover. A merger could see them spending nearly all their time providing cover in Surrey. West Sussex firefighters could also find themselves travelling long distances to help crew fire engines at Surrey stations on the fringes of London.

It would also significantly reduce the say that West Sussex residents would have on the running of the fire & rescue service, especially if representation on a combined authority reflected the respective populations. That would not be a merger, but a Surrey take over.

Such a merger won’t avoid cuts and could make things significantly worse.

May 2018 Update

Say ‘NO’ to the Integrated Risk Management Plan

Say 'NO' to the consultation questions to protect our fire & rescue service

A Life & Death Consultation

West Sussex County Council has launched a consultation on their plans for our fire & rescue service for the next four years. The consultation, available on the Council's website, closes on 28 May 2018. As is all too common, the questions asked seem innocuous and people may be tempted to say yes, but you need to look at the detail behind them.

1. Do you agree with priority one: Reduce the number of emergency incidents and their consequences through the continuous improvement of prevention, protection and response activities.

More dangerous cuts

Hidden in the detail behind this question are proposals to cut the number of firefighters on fire engines from five to four and even to send some fire engines out with less than four firefighters. Both of these proposals will increase the consequences of emergency incidents, not reduce them as claimed, and may well cost lives.

A fire engine crew consists of an officer-in-charge and a driver, who have specific tasks at emergencies, plus two to four firefighters who take the direct action necessary to rescue people or fight the fire. Standard crewing in West Sussex has, for very good reasons, been five for many years, but now, without justification, the County Council want to cut it to four. That means the firefighters who carry out the actions necessary to rescue people or fight the fire are cut by a third.

It also makes no sense when it will mean having to send extra fire engines to incidents to ensure there are enough firefighters to safely protect the public and to take effective action. That will inevitably mean it will take longer to get the required number there and is a waste of limited resources, especially at times when only 10 fire engines have crews.

Crews of less than four are dangerous for the public and for firefighters

This is because they cannot use the main rescue ladder (it takes four to lift it), and they cannot use breathing apparatus. Any such move is not aimed at improving the service, but can only be intended to massage the response times and mislead the public in to believing that they are being met. On paper they may improve, but it won't help the public if a vehicle arrives with an inadequate crew that can do very little until help arrives from the next town.

It also puts an unreasonable pressure on firefighters to ignore safety procedures in order to help the public. Firefighters, with protective clothing and firefighting equipment, will be expected to standby whilst members of the public, without protective clothing and firefighting equipment, may be risking all to carry out a rescue. No self respecting firefighter would do that, but cowardly senior managers, who put the firefighters in that position, will be able to discipline them for ignoring procedures.

Crewing with four, instead of five, is a less safe system of work.

Crewing with less than four is simply dangerous.

Review the emergency response standard

If this review was about improving the standard then I would welcome it, but I feel sure that what lies behind this proposal is an attempt to lower the standard. The service will be allowed to take even longer to reach emergencies, so that they can then say they met their targets. 

The County Council has already given the fire & rescue service generous targets that they should be able to meet nearly 100% of the time. However, the Council has also cut resources and fails to employ enough firefighters, which is why targets are often missed. 

Most of the county has targets of 12 or 14 minutes for the first fire engine to arrive, but in Hampshire it is 8 minutes across the whole county and in Surrey it is 10 minutes. There is no excuse for longer response times in West Sussex, after all, fires don’t burn any slower here and West Sussex lives are just as valuable as those in neighbouring counties.

Waiting  ever longer for help to arrive

Automatic fire alarms are suspected fires and must be attended

West Sussex County Council want to revise the response to automatic fire alarm (AFA) calls to reduce the number of attendances when there is no fire. After years of the eminently safe policy of encouraging people to fit automatic fire alarms, to evacuate when they operate, and to wait for the fire service to arrive, fire & rescue services are increasingly putting the public in danger by expecting them to search to see if there is a fire.

Despite examples of people being killed as a result of such policies, it seems that West Sussex are also considering not attending all AFA calls. So, whilst trained and equipped firefighters stay on their fire stations, untrained members of the public will have to fend for themselves. 

One recent sad example was in Plymouth, where two separate callers reported a fire alarm sounding, but the fire service did not attend. Around 90 minutes after the first call, a third call resulted in fire crews arriving to find a fire in the house next door to the original caller and the occupier dead in her bedroom. Shamefully, Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service put the blame on control staff, even though it was the service's policy that was the root cause of this tragedy. 

Around one in ten calls originating from automatic fire alarms are to fires that need firefighters to deal with them. Many others are to fires that have been put out before firefighters arrive and wrongly get recorded as false alarms. West Sussex must continue to treat automatic fire alarm calls as suspected fires and respond accordingly. To do anything else is inviting more avoidable tragedy.

2. Do you agree with priority two: As part of West Sussex County Council, the fire service must work with local communities, districts and boroughs to keep West Sussex safe?

The details in the plan may well lead to fire service resources being diverted to help other departments and organisations meet their obligations, whilst undermining effective response to emergencies and effective enforcement of fire safety legislation. We have already seen the Crewing Optimisation Group, which is supposed to be there to increase the number of fire engines available each day, being diverted on to community work. There is little evidence that such work has positive benefits, but there is clear evidence that inadequate crewing of fire engines results in longer response times and more deaths and property damage. West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service must focus on fully meeting their statutory responsibilities before considering taking on non-statutory work.

3. Do you agree with priority three: Collaborate with emergency services and other local and national partners to improve the service to the public.

As with question 2, this may well lead to fire service resources being diverted to help other organisations meet their obligations, whilst undermining effective response to emergencies and effective enforcement of fire safety legislation. Priority must be given to properly meeting the statutory requirements of the Fire & Rescue Services Act and the Civil Contingencies Act, before volunteering to take on the responsibilities of other services, such as those of the National Health Service. This also hides the potential for cuts and more expensive collaboration failures, such as the joint mobilising system with East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service. The system is several years overdue and must have cost a significant amount of money. Exactly how much is not known, as they have refused to disclose details, by hiding behind the legal proceedings exemption in the Freedom of Information Act.

4. Do you agree with priority four: Develop and maintain a workforce that is professional, resilient, skilled, flexible and diverse.

Once again we have statements about what will be done to develop staff and to improve diversity and inclusion. Similar statements have been made previously, but the Council is still failing to provide sufficient numbers of properly rewarded staff to ensure a quick and effective response to emergencies and to carry out an adequate number of fire safety inspections.

In particular, Retained (Part-time) Firefighters are being neglected and the Council is failing to attract and retain enough of them. They frequently use the excuse that it is a national problem and that social and economic changes have made things worse. Yet, if that is true, then why are things worse in West Sussex than in neighbouring fire & rescue services and worse than the average in England? 

And why has East Sussex manged to increase their Retained Firefighters by 14%, since 2009, whilst in West Sussex Retained Firefighters have decreased by 31%?

Source: Home Office Fire Statistics Table - Staff in post (Full time equivalent)

Retained Firefighters - Just 52 Pence Per Hour

Of course, one of the contributing factors may well be that they are only paid 52 pence an hour for providing, on average, 4,500 hours of cover over and above the time they spend on their full-time job. There are many other factors and it is high time that West Sussex County Council set about identifying all of them and then started fixing them.

5. Do you agree with priority five: Provide customer-focused value for money services.

West Sussex County Council has not been providing a value for money fire & rescue service, it has been providing a slightly cheaper, but much less effective service. For over 60 years the County Council, the Home Office and several Chief Fire Officers agreed that at least 46 fire engines were needed to protect the area that is now West Sussex. 

Despite more emergencies, more complexity and more responsibilities, the Council has cut that to just 35, which is inadequate. The failure, on occasions, to crew more than two thirds of those fire engines is nothing less than irresponsible neglect of duty on the part of the County Council. This plan will make a poor service even worse. 

People don’t want value when it comes to life saving services. 

They want a quality service that responds quickly and effectively when they are in trouble. 

The County Council is failing residents.

6. Are there any other comments you would like us to consider relating to the Integrated Risk Management Plan 2018-22?

The priorities should be:

No more fire engine of firefighter cuts.

Fire engines to normally be crewed by five firefighters, with an absolute minimum of four.

At least 30 fire engines available around the clock.

No reduction in response standards.

Fire alarm calls to be attended and treated as potential fires.

April 2018 Update

ARE MORE CUTS ON THE WAY?

My lack of recent blog updates is, sadly, not because things have improved, but because I have been rather busy. The threat to our fire & rescue service has not gone away, so I watched last Friday’s Environment, Communities and Fire Select Committee with interest. They were discussing a report from the Chief Fire Officer on the draft version of the 2018-22 Integrated Risk Management Plan.

IMPROVED SCRUTINY

I would like to start on a positive note, as a key procedural change is that debates on fire & rescue service matters can now be viewed online, both live and via recordings on the County Council website. The level of scrutiny and transparency seems to be improving and, as that was a weakness when fighting off the Police & Crime Commissioner’s takeover bid, it must be welcomed. However, as Councillor Michael Jones questioned at the meeting, it is not yet clear if the improvement will be sufficient, but it is clearly a step in the right direction.

There are also signs that improved openness and genuine consultation may replace the secrecy and sham consultations we have seen in the past. Readers may recall concerns being voiced about times when more fire engines were unavailable than were actually crewed. The response from senior officers and councillors at the time was denial and attacks on those who revealed the information. The information originated from concerned firefighters and WSCC then took action to restrict firefighter access to the crewing information and they also threatened disciplinary action.

ONLY 10 FIRE ENGINES AVAILABLE OUT OF 35

On Friday, new Chief Fire Officer Gavin Watts showed the meeting this slide, which shows that the availability of fire engines is even worse than we believed. I welcome such honest transparency, as Councillors cannot begin to fix anything if the extent of the problem is hidden from them, but the situation is shocking. Previously, when the number of fire engines was cut from 46 to 40 and then to 35, we were told that the changes would help ensure that at least 30 fire engines would always be available. Now we see that as few as 10 can be available, which is bad enough, but coinciding with times of greater demand should alarm everyone.

Deputy Chief Officer Neil Stocker told Councillors that there is a national problem of attracting and keeping Retained Firefighters. There is, but that must not stop efforts to find  local solutions. He also said that people not working in the communities where they live is a major factor undermining good daytime cover. Yet the chart shows that daytime cover is worse on Saturdays and Sundays, so there must be other significant factors affecting availability. Perhaps things such as revised contracts and other management decisions that have previously been criticised by Retained Firefighters. 

RETAINED FIREFIGHTERS – JUST 52 PENCE PER HOUR

Neil also highlighted how Retained Firefighters give an average of 4,500 hours of cover on top of their day job, and earn just 52 pence an hour for providing that cover. Relying on some people volunteering to serve the community for such little reward is not good enough, and it was therefore pleasing to hear some Councillors support that view. Among them Councillor Heidi Brunsdon, who said that more must be done to provide tangible incentives such as tax breaks, family breaks etc.

I have spoken about the crewing crisis in the past and sadly this chart confirms that West Sussex County Council is not meeting their legal obligation to provide an efficient service. The legislation does not say fire authorities only have to provide an efficient service when they have enough Retained Firefighters, it is a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year requirement.

It is ludicrous that a service, which several Chief Officers, Councillors and Government Inspectors have previously agreed needed 46 front-line crews to protect the people of West Sussex, can now be left with just 10 to protect more people and to deal with more incidents. When asked if the service was adequate, the Chief Officer spoke about resources being moved around to maintain cover. That is true, but it is patently not adequate or effective cover.

This situation has deteriorated over several years, yet Government and Fire Authorities have failed to take meaningful action. Lives and property are at increasing risk and concerted action must be taken locally and nationally.

IMPROVEMENTS OR MORE CUTS

The draft Integrated Risk Management Plan will be out for public consultation in May and it is important that people read and comment on it. Whilst I don’t question the sincerity behind the strategic priorities, I see little hope of them being delivered, especially with regard to emergency response. Sadly, we have seen in the past how so called 'improvements' are actually cuts that lead to a slower and less effective response.

Councillor Daniel Purchese said of the IRMP, "there is potential for some serious cuts that the public might easily miss". I have to agree and concerns include:

Standard crewing cut from five to four – not an improvement and it will not, as claimed, reduce the consequences of emergency incidents. When you realise that the driver and officer-in-charge have specific functions at incidents and that it is the rest of the crew that undertake the critical sharp end stuff, such as attacking the fire, it amounts to cutting that capability by a third on every incident. It is also not an efficient use of resources, as more fire engines have to be used to get a safe number of firefighters to incidents, which leaves less available for other emergencies.

Looking at crewing fire engines with fewer than four firefighters ‘when necessary’ – this is simply unsafe for firefighters and the public. Other fire authorities have been pontificating about how they can use technology to safely crew with less, but there is no evidence that this can be achieved. No technology is a proper substitute for a trained firefighter. There have already been incidents, where this concept has been experimented with, and the result has been small fires developing in to serious ones as a direct result of inadequate crewing.

A review of response standards – sounds OK, but as the service can’t meet the generous standards now, there is a serious danger that standards will be cut and a proper response will take even longer to arrive. It may then look better on paper, but the reality for the public will be worse.

Review the fleet of special appliances - these have already been cut to the bone and this opens the door to more cuts and reduced effectiveness.

Revise our response to automatic fire alarms – this increases the risk of an inadequate response, or no response, to actual fires. Nationally there have been several examples of serious fires being attended with inadequate resources, because of such policies, and I know of at least one example of a fire death that resulted from not attending an automatic fire alarm call. Not forgetting Grenfell of course, where policies had removed an aerial appliance from the response. Had that been on the initial attendance, more lives could have been saved. There might even have been no deaths, as the aerial appliance might have enabled them to stop the devastating external fire spread.

COUNCIL LEADER COMPLAINS ABOUT GOVERNMENT FUNDING

Of course the underlying problem is inadequate Government funding for the fire & rescue service. You know things are really bad when Louise Goldsmith, WSCC Leader, feels compelled to criticise the Government on their funding of councils. She said in January that “It is wrong for us, and county councils across the country, to continue to have to be reliant on taxing our residents in the current piecemeal way”. For once, I have to agree. 

ARE THE IRMP FIGURES ACCURATE?

I mentioned improved openness earlier, so I was rather disappointed to see that the fire death figures quoted in the draft IRMP differ from the national figures.

National figures are usually more accurate, as they check fire & rescue submitted statistics against other sources. It is always worrying when locally published statistics do not reflect official national statistics, so I hope that accurate figures will be published in the consultation copy of the draft IRMP.