HAMPSHIRE FIRE BRIGADES UNION

No To Four Riders

HFRS are preparing to slash the front line service we provide to the public under the guise of ‘Efficient and Flexible Crewing (EFC).

The Senior Management Team are not only trying to deliberately deceive its own staff, but they have also ignored those who will be affected the most by these cuts - the public.

Consultation

HFRS are currently engaged in a six week consultative period with its staff and rep bodies discussing the proposed decision to crew fire appliances with a minimum of four riders.

This is where the deceit starts.

During these discussions it was stated by senior management that the minimum crew for Hampshire retained pumps will be four riders. This is a welcome improvement from the current dangerous practice of allowing 3 riders on an appliance when there is a shortfall in crewing. A practice which does not happen in other brigades. However when management were asked about the rumours that all pumps, both wholetime and retained are to be crewed with a maximum of four riders, there was no immediate denial. Nor has there been any such denial since these meetings . It appears that this consultation is nothing more than a sham and was rushed into being with very little notice to whole time staff. It seems to be a tick in the box exercise to show that some form of consultation has taken place to enable there to be little opposition when the act of crewing with a maximum of four riders is adopted as policy and enforced.

The meeting I attended showed that those present realised there was, at best, misleading terminology, and at worst, what felt like a deliberate concealment of the truth. I have to give praise to those retained members that attended the meeting they questioned management and were not fobbed off easily. They gave dozens of reasons for not crewing with just 4 riders. They also gave many advantages for crewing with at least five riders.

For the service, well it was fortunate that there were some senior managers present to toe the corporate line. It felt to those listening like a script was being played out.

What remains is that the majority of front line firefighters have not had a say and will not have a say, that is if service delivery has its way.

Service delivery will have it that the policy regarding four riders on a pump emanates from the Efficient and Flexible Crewing project.

This is not true and very deceitful, as the FBU were told very early on and before the EFC project was established, that the four rider policy that the service wished to adopt had been agreed at the Regional Control Convergence (RCC) Project.

Even the EFC project leader Dan Tasker thought that the four rider issue came from the RCC project. After all this is where the nine fire and rescue services in our region decide policy on how many riders they use to crew an appliance.

As of this time no other service in the southeast region feel that it is safe practice to ride with four riders 100% of the time with the notable exception of - you guessed it – Hampshire.

If this has come from the EFC project panel, where are the meeting and discussion notes?

There is a suspicion, without trying to sound conspiratorial, that in the time it took for the FBU to get proper representation on the EFC project panel, that the four rider issue had obviously been discussed and decided upon.

The service try to justify crewing with four riders by saying that it is common practice to crew with 4 riders, therefore why do we not accept that as policy?

The fact is that the FBU have for many years stated that ALL pumps should have a crew of five riders. The service have had in place a policy which states that pumps should be crewed with 5 riders 75% of the time and only ride on minimum crewing on a maximum of 25% of occasions. Management will have us believe that it is firefighters fault that we ride on 30% of occasions with 4 riders as we want to take time off for leave, courses and occasionally, we go sick.

It is up to senior management to manage crewing figures. There has to be a recognition that as they throw more and more specialist courses at us that this will take us away from our watch duties as we train to achieve these higher level skills.

Crewing with 4 riders is not the answer to this and neither is it the answer to firefighters having time off.

We have a right to our leave and to blame junior officers for not managing crewing shortfalls is buck passing of the highest order by senior managers.

Is 4 riders safe?

Rapid deployment

Technical bulletin states that rapid deployment should only be used occasionally, if we ride with 4 on a pump we will be initiating rapid deployment on every occasion when one pump arrives on its own. This is not safe. The Entry Control Officer (ECO) was introduced to monitor and protect breathing apparatus crews. The ECO was introduced following several incidents of fire deaths and injuries of crews. The ECO is invaluable and to deprive a breathing apparatus (BA) crew of the safety net that a ECO affords them is gross negligence. The ECO is there for the welfare of the crews, they check the sets, the PPE, air pressure, record the information for time of whistle, they have dedicated communication with radios and most vitally they have no other job on the fireground apart from being the ECO, The reason for this is as any real firefighter will tell you, is that the most dangerous part of a fire fighters job is when that fire fighter is in BA.

The service say they can replace the ECO’s job with technology. A rapid deployment board that when a BA tally is entered it starts a clock. But how does it check PPE or air pressure and what does it do should it have a mechanical fault or if the battery should run out.

The short answer to this is that it will let down the fire fighter it is supposed to be protecting, something a human fire fighter ECO will never do. By letting down the firefighters it puts their lives in mortal danger.

This is not the FBU being drama queens. this is the truth.

The service say that they would not reduce standards by riding with 4 riders, well having no ECO is certainly a loss in standards.

They say they could remove the following out of service orders.

.and leave it to the OIC to risk assess. How do you risk assess if you have no policy or guidance?

More and more often we are attending as the first resource to a RTC incident. The ambulance service are on many occasions not there. It is often the fire service that takes on this role and now we will have one less to do all the jobs required at these incidents, and this assuming that there is only one casualty.

By being under resourced we open ourselves up to many dangerous situations. OICs may get tempted to take chances or short cuts as may firefighters themselves. All firefighters know that the first ten minutes of any fire are the most crucial and potentially the most dangerous. That is why a greater degree of control is needed.

That is why we need that fifth rider

It is all very well to sit behind a desk creating policies that will place young and in some cases inexperienced firefighters into a dangerous situation as a means to save money. But do not think for one moment that the FBU will sit back and allow it just to happen.

Firefighters deserve better

The public deserves better

Think again on this misguided and foolish policy

© Hampshire Fire Brigades Union 2001-2009