Rules that on-call firefighters have to live near stations could be relaxed

The change is being considered as one of a string of recommendations to come out of an on-call sustainability review, carried out in response to concerns about dwindling availability.

Chief fire officer Simon Hardiman said that while the service was still performing well in terms of both availability and response times, he did not want to wait until it was too late before addressing the emerging downward trend.

The review, which was the first of its kind in the country, was undertaken as a piece of academic research by Steven Sadler – one of the service’s own on-call firefighters and the UK’s leading expert in the field.

It resulted in a 200,000 word report and 12 recommendations, which Mr Hardiman said the service was now taking action on after seconding a member of staff in January to oversee their implementation.

Mr Hardiman said it was vital to secure the future of the on-call element of the service, which operates out of 22 of the county’s 23 fire stations. Only Telford Central is manned by whole-time staff.

At any given time there are around 310 firefighters on-call across the county, resulting in just over 90 per cent availability of fire engines.

Mr Hardiman said: “That’s one of the best availability rates in the UK – last time I checked the only service that was in front of us was the Isles of Scilly.

“We are really proud of the availability we have got, but we are aware it is starting to decline slowly.”

Mr Hardiman said the report highlighted some areas the service was already aware of, such as its strong retention rate, which Mr Hardiman put down to a positive workplace culture.

He said: “There are different elements – there’s recruitment and there’s retention.

“We will continue to recruit, that goes without saying, but we are putting a lot of effort into retaining the people we have already got.

“Our retention compared to the UK average is high. On average across the UK an on-call fire fighter stays with the service for about eight years. In Shropshire that’s between 11 and 13 years.

“For every on-call firefighter we introduce it costs the organisation £28,000 to train them. So the more people we retain, the better use of public money.”

On-call firefighters sign up either to an 80-hour or 120-hour-a-week contract, but often end up going above and beyond this to ensure cover is available.

Mr Hardiman said: “We have got some really good people, and good will comes massively into this.

“What’s evident is that a lot of our staff have been doing more than their contracted hours.

“What we need to do as an organisation is recognise how we can reward that good will.”

The review’s recommendations included re-visiting contracts, making better use of data around resignations, reviewing training, and implementing a new rota system.

It also recommended better recognition for more senior firefighter roles, and incentivising on-call firefighters to step up and take on extra responsibilities.

One of the biggest changes recommended by the review was the ‘widest possible pool’, an approach aimed at opening up the possibility of becoming an on-call firefighter to more people.

The report said the five-minute turn-in time should be assessed at a station-by-station level, with a view to increasing the time limit in some areas.

Mr Hardiman explained: “We have a response standard which is that we aim to have a fully-equipped crew at an incident in an urban area within 10 minutes, town and fringe 15 minutes and rural areas 20 minutes, and we look to achieve that in 85 per cent of incidents.

“Our response standard is at about 94 per cent, so we are out-performing expectations.

“Widest possible pool is now looking to increase the turn-in time from five minutes to a more accurate turn-in time that still won’t affect the response standard.

“In Albrighton, for example, there are 796 people within five minutes of the station.

“If we were to increase the turn-in time to six minutes, that would take it to 885, and if we increase it to seven minutes that goes to 1,002 people.

“We have got quite a small community there in quite a small area, so we are not going to miss that 15-minute response standard.

“I would rather have a fire engine available in six minutes than not at all.”

Mr Hardiman said there would not be a blanket approach, with each station to get a “bespoke” turn-in time.

The changes could also present other opportunities, tying in with ambitions for the service to better represent the communities it serves.

Mr Hardiman said: “We are always looking to diversify our workforce, so we get more skills, breadth of knowledge and life experience.”

To that end, the stations at Oswestry, Market Drayton, Wellington and Tweedale have been identified for targeted recruitment campaigns.

Employers in those areas will also be approached to discuss how they could support employees to become on-call fire fighters.

Mr Hardiman said this was aimed at addressing the current problem of on-call availability being highest during the night, when there are fewer incidents, and lowest during the busiest times of day while on-call firefighters are tied-up at their main jobs.

Some of the “quick-win” recommendations in the report have already been acted upon, while others, such as the widest possible pull, will take longer to get right.

It is hoped that the majority of the recommendations will have been adopted by the end if the current financial year next April.