Fire Brigades Union says fire crews 'dangerously under-resourced' after Staffordshire on-call decision

Last month, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service(SFRS) announced plans to adopt a pilot scheme which sees crews of three on-call firefighters responding to some incidents, a move which it says has reduced response times since the start of the trial in June 2023.

SFRS says the smaller crews can attend less serious incidents such as a bin or car fire, or support other crews at larger incidents.

However the Fire Brigades Union says the smaller crews are unable to operate breathing apparatus, or to respond to high-risk incidents, and has described a public consultation process on the changes as “misleading” and "deeply flawed”.

The union says that during a trial of the policy, 130 Staffordshire firefighters signed a letter in opposition to the changes, citing concerns that teams of three do not have the capacity to safety respond to high-risk incidents. 

Now, the union is calling on SFRS to reverse the decision to press ahead with the scheme.

"Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service are putting public and firefighter safety on the line by sending on-call firefighter crews out in crews of just three in a fire engine," said Martin Starkey, Fire Brigades Union brigade secretary for Staffordshire.

“When a fire engine arrives at an incident, you expect the firefighters on board to have the resources to help, but a crew of three has to wait for back-up. 130 firefighters involved in the trial made their opposition to this policy loud and clear.

"A crew of three firefighters is fundamentally incapable of safely responding to high-risk incidents upon arrival. The public consultation cited to support this reckless policy was deeply flawed, with only 1,500 respondents answering a question deliberately framed to elicit a specific answer. Such a low level of participation cannot be taken as evidence of any meaningful support for this dangerous approach.

"Staffordshire fire and rescue service must put firefighter and public safety first and reverse this decision.”

At the time of publication Staffordshire Fire and Rescue had not responded to a request for comment, but in a statement last month said that the policy had improved their average response time due to them being able to send smaller crews, instead of relying on the next nearest fire engine with a crew of four firefighters. 

They added that the new policy only applies to on-call firefighters, with full time fire engines will be crewed with four firefighters as an absolute minimum. The FBU says it considers crews of five firefighters to be the safe working standard. 

In the statement, Deputy Chief Fire Officer Glynn Luznyj said: “We will always strive to have at least four firefighters on a fire engine, however having a minimum of three on-call firefighters available to respond as an extra resource means that they can attend incidents quicker than the next nearest fully crewed appliance, which may be several miles away. Time is critical at emergencies and having firefighters arrive earlier can help limit the escalation of an incident.

“We recognise that at some incidents they will not be able to fully resolve the incident by themselves but they can make important interventions in the time that the public would normally be waiting for a full crew to attend.

"There have been some concerns raised by the representative bodies and so we have listened to these concerns and made changes to the incident types that crews of three can attend. We’re confident that we now have a new policy that improves response times, maintains firefighter safety and also increases on-call firefighter morale.”