Fire stations could shut during the day
Inverness Courier 26/08/11
SOME fire stations could be shut during the day as senior officers grapple with a growing shortage of retained firefighters.

The dramatic move is being considered by Highlands and Islands Fire Board members who will today be told that it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain round-the-clock cover by local units across the region.

Chief fire officer Trevor Johnson will stress that while every station should be capable of responding at all times, in reality this is not always the case.

"Ultimately, this would necessitate declaring to communities that their local station was not available during defined periods," Mr Johnson states in a report.

"In applying this approach, each location would require to be considered on an individual basis, balancing benefit against the cost of provision."

Even busy frontline stations are having difficulty recruiting, with both Beauly and Drumnadrochit units amongst many that are currently unavailable at times because of a shortage of crew. Nairn often only has sufficient personnel to crew one of its two appliances.

If the local unit cannot turn out, the nearest available appliance is mobilised as soon as a 999 call is received.

Although retained firefighter recruitment is an issue nationwide, it is particularly acute in the Highlands and Islands where Inverness is the only full-time station. The board is today expected to commission a report on its next step, but convener Richard Durham favours being open about the difficulties it faces.

"We are struggling to have enough people to keep all our units," he said. "If you think about it and you are in a community and your local unit can’t do it, you would much rather know that than not know it.

"In essence, as time goes by we are finding it more and more difficult to maintain fully-crewed retained units."

Most retained firefighters have full-time jobs and must be available on call for either 90 or 120 hours per week. In return they receive a retainer of about £3000.

Many units have a particular problem maintaining week day cover as people increasingly work outside their own community, while local employers may be unwilling to release staff to answer emergency calls.

The Beauly fire unit has been running a recruitment campaign to try and bolster its numbers and watch manager Malcolm Hannah believes contracted hours could be reduced to make the job more attractive.

"I am on call 24/7 and my contract is for 120 hours per week, which is the same for most of the crew," explained Mr Hannah, who works as a full-time store manager and has been in the fire service for 27 years.

"For somebody to give 90 or 120 hours is a big, big commitment. It does put a lot of people off, it affects your family and social life. If they cut it down to 50 hours a week it could help. We could then have people in for a Monday and Tuesday or a weekend and give the rest of the crew time off."

The 10-strong village crew answered more than 150 calls last year.

"If a station can’t get a crew to turn up during the day what can you do?" continued Mr Hannah, who held interviews with three applicants last night after a recruitment drive which included a prominent banner in Beauly Square. "At the end of the day it is peoples’ lives and we are a community fire service."

Calum MacNeill, Fire Brigade Union’s regional branch chairman, acknowledged it was possible a fire or other serious incident could occur close to a retained station when there were insufficient crew available to respond.

"The harsh reality is that the fire service will do the best it can but by the time other crews get there the incident will have had a greater impact," he said.

He suggested the union would support the brigade if, as a last resort, it decided to shut some stations for part of each day.

"If the service has done everything it can to try and recruit people and the fact is that people aren’t coming forward from the community to join then ultimately we can have no gripe with the service saying it can’t provide fire cover at all times because you can’t fly people in to answer fire calls,"

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