UNION chiefs say they don’t agree with fire brigade bosses’ claims that their emergency cover review will only have a 0.1 per cent impact on services across Lancashire.
Originally the review had suggested adding 25 firefighters to the roll call, requiring an extra £215,000 of investment.
But because of what brigade chiefs described as a “shifting financial position”, its plans will now generate savings of around £400,000.
Fire service chiefs insist though the new arrangements “are not a cost-cutting exercise” and are designed to ensure “an effective and efficient response to fires and other emergencies at all times”.
But a letter by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), responding to the review, says a shift to flexible day crewing in Penwortham and St Annes amounts to a loss of “night-time fire cover”and adds it does not “recognise nor concur” with the assumption of a 0.1 percent impact as a result of the overall package of measures.
Three current day crew plus (DCP) stations – Morecambe, Fleetwood and Skelmersdale – will move to ‘wholetime’ operations, with the number of firefighters based at each rising from 14 to 24.
However there will be reductions in firefighter totals at Hyndburn, Lancaster and South Shore, and numbers will drop from 14 to 13 at eight other stations - Darwen, Nelson, Rawtenstall, Bacup, Bispham,Fulwood, Ormskirk and Leyland.
Fire bosses say changes to its staffing establishments are “in line” with those adopted by many other brigades nationwide.
But the FBU’s letter declared there was “no definition of resilience or flexibility [that] these proposals comply with” – and also warned of the negative impact of having six firefighters per watch at some four-watch stations and the potential to have to use overtime to cover staffing shortfalls as a result of leave or sickness.
Deputy chief fire officer Steve Healey told the fire authority he found the last-minute correspondence “disappointing” and claimed it contained “a number of inaccuracies” – most notably, he said, the assertion the emergency cover review involved “job losses”.
“I’m at a loss as to where that has come from,” Mr. Healey said, contending it was “quite an achievement” to increase the firefighter staffing establishment within the changes that the fire authority was being asked to approve.
He said while the FBU contested the 0.1 percent impact of the proposals, they had not “[come] up with any alternative view”.
Fire authority chairman, Tory county councillor David O’Toole, said people would “make their own conclusions about the [FBU’s] letter”, but described the emergency cover review as “extremely thorough”.
Labour fire authority member County Cllr Nikki Hennessy said it would have been preferable to receive the letter “a couple of weeks ago”.
She added that fellow Labour members would have been unable to vote “for any loss of fire station[s] or appliances or job losses”, but that it was up to the service itself to decide on duty systems and how to make them work.
The authority was warned it may be necessary to revisit some of the proposals depending on the final funding settlement for the service, which was received in the days after the fire authority meeting.
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