Scotland's fire and rescue meltdown: 'Job losses have left service on 'the bones of its a***'

Staffing levels with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) have slumped from 8313, when it was split into eight regional fire sections, to 7292 in 2020/21 after the 2013 merger to a single service. The number of frontline firefighters has slumped from 1086 to 836.

Some 53 people died in fires in Scotland during the 2020/21 Covid pandemic year - nearly double that of the previous year. Some 44 of those were in homes. The ten-year average for fatal fire casualties is 44.

During 2020/21 the fire service dealt with 25,147 fire incidents, a rise of 2.6% on the previous year with 4,661 of those home fires.

A dossier that has been presented by the union to ministers also shows that response times to incidents have already risen from seven to eight minutes in five years with union leaders warning that in being able to deal with emergencies “every minute counts”.

“It has created a safety issue, that is clear. The nature of the industry is if response times go up the consequences of that is significant,” said Fire Brigades Union Scottish secretary John McKenzie. It is really straight forward, if you cut jobs, you will impact on the service, if you impact on the fire and rescue services you are increasing the risk to people’s lives, and that is it.

“For the type of incident our members respond to a minute is the difference between being able to get a fire under control and not getting it under control. It is the difference between being able to save someone’s life and not being able to save someone’s life. “ The FBU’s dossier shows that in 2012/13, before the move to a single service, fire and rescue’s resource budget stood at £290.7m and ten years later, at the latest announcement it stood at £294.2m - just £4m more.

“The Scottish Government’s budget allocation to the fire and rescue service in the last decade has had significant cuts to it,” said Mr McKenzie.

“The service is on the absolute bones of its a*se. And we can’t do the job properly now. It would decimate the service if the budget freeze is realised.”

It comes as firefighters have warned of possible strike action after reacting angrily to a 2% pay increase offer during the cost of living crisis.

The Fire Brigades Union in Scotland has confirmed that industrial action including strike action is on the cards after unanimous rejection of the pay offer.

It comes as the Scottish Government indicated at the end of May that it is to freeze funding of policing, the fire service, early years learning and local government, for the next five years, to plug a deep hole in its budgets.

Kate Forbes, the Scottish finance secretary, said the cuts – estimated to total about 8% in real terms – were needed to greatly increase spending on health by £7bn, social welfare by £6bn and on climate action, including investing £1.8bn in low-carbon homes.

The FBU has also raised concerns over a “clear reduction” in home fire safety visits from 71,048 in 2013/14 to 69,236 before the pandemic and 20,175 in 2020/21 during the Covid crisis.

Non-domestic fire safety audits have also dropped from 8,206 in 2014/15 to 7,261 in 2019/20 and 3,292 in 2020/21.

The union has said that if prevention and protection is a strategic priority then firefighters must see these trends reversed.

The SFRS admitted in January to a “significant backlog” in building maintenance with more than one third of the country’s fire station over 50 years old.

The SFRS said the average age of its buildings was 41.5 years, with 35% over 50 years old and and one per cent dating back more than 70 years.

It suggests that some 125 of the nation’s 356 fire stations were more than a half a century old.

The oldest fire stations include Kirkcaldy, Fife, which will be 84 years old in April and was modernised 32 years ago.

Mr McDonald said the union has told justice secretary Keith Brown and community safety minister Ash Regan that if the budget freeze remains it will “decimate the fire service in Scotland”.

“We have already seen in the past ten years if you cut jobs, response times go up. Not only is this an impact on firefighters, it has an impact on the Scottish public,” he said.

It comes at a time when firefighters across Scotland were drafted in to drive ambulances because of high levels of demand and staff shortages caused by the pandemic.

They volunteered to take on additional work supporting the Scottish Ambulance Service and the wider National Health Service during the pandemic. An agreement collectively bargained for by the FBU allowed firefighters to carry out extra tasks including acting as volunteer drivers.

The union warned Mr Brown in a letter: “Any increased response from firefighters to critical incidents impacts Scotland’s communities, however statistics consistently show that it is our most deprived communities, and vulnerable people, who are disproportionally most at risk from dwelling fires.

“If our industry is to achieve the aspirational vision set out by Government in the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland document, then this cannot be done with the backdrop of real terms funding cuts. Instead, our service requires sustained investment to address both the current and emerging risks that Scotland faces.”

The 20% most deprived areas of Scotland have a home fire rate 4.6 times higher than the 20% least deprived and just over double the national average.

Although public spending a head for Scotland is £2,200 more than the UK average, Scottish ministers have faced a significant shortfall in their budgets. Last December that was forecast to reach £3.5bn, partly due to miscalculations about underperforming Scottish tax revenues and the impacts of the Covid pandemic and Brexit.

The gap has since grown with the surge in prices and inflation driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring energy prices.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC), an independent financial watchdog, said the devolved government’s emphasis on health, poverty and climate meant spending on all other areas would fall by 8% in real terms by 2027 thanks to surging inflation and rising costs.

Opposition parties have said in the wake of proposed cuts that the parlous state of Scotland’s finances raised fresh questions about the wisdom of pursuing a second independence referendum next year. The spending plans set aside £20m for one.

The FBU in Scotland rejected what is a 2% pay offer made as part of a UK-wide pay negotiation machinery involving 49 fire and rescue services across the UK who make their decisions based on budgets set by UK Government and the devolved nations.

Mr McKenzie has said the offer was “insulting” when placed against an inflation rate that is now over 9%, with prices rising at their fastest rate for more than 40 years.

The concerns over the pay offer are echoed across the UK where between 2009 and 2021, firefighters’ real pay has been cut by 12%, or nearly £4,000.

“As much as I recognise there is a fair amount of funding from the UK government that has a big impact on this that is not a free pass to the Scottish Government in terms of funding the fire service,” said Mr McKenzie.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The people of Scotland are well-served by the officers and staff of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), who work alongside partners to make communities safer.

“We have supported SFRS with substantial budget increases in recent years, with the annual budget for 2022-23 now over £45.3 million higher than it was in 2017-18.

“The number of firefighters per head of population is also higher in Scotland than in other parts of the UK with figures from March 2021 showing 11.8 firefighters per 10,000 population in Scotland compared to 6.2 in England and 10 in Wales.

“Firefighter pay is negotiated through UK wide collective bargaining arrangements, which includes SFRS as the employer. The Scottish Government is not part of these arrangements and the allocation of resources and responding to incidents is a matter for SFRS."