Fire chief: Crew cut is the best way to shave £4 million from budget

As reported by the Advertiser last month, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue is proposing reducing the number of firefighters riding on each engine from five to four as it battles to balance its budget.

Fire authority members forced fire chiefs to open out consultation over the attempts to make savings to all options amid safety fears about reducing crew sizes and appealed to the public to come forward with other ideas on how to make ends meet.

The Fire Brigades’ Union has branded the proposed cuts “absolutely unthinkable” and insisted five is the “minimum” number of firefighters needed to safely tackle a blaze and to rescue a member of the public trapped inside a burning building.

Secretary Neil Carbutt said crews were “already stretched to their limit” and cutting crew sizes would “leave fire engines short-staffed, damaging the ability of firefighters to keep the public safe”.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said the only alternative to making the crew cuts \_ which it pointed out has already been adopted by many other fire services \_ was to reduce the speed of its 999 response during the night-time period from up to half of its fire stations.

The organisation faces “cost pressures” of up to £4 million, due to no longer being able to use a way of staffing fire stations called Close Proximity Crewing and because it may have to meet a significant, national shortfall in pension contributions.

Deputy chief fire officer Alex Johnson said: “We’d rather not make any changes at all, but have a duty to match our resources to local risk and to manage the service in a financially responsible way.

“We face cost pressures of up to £4 million and the extent of the savings required is inevitably going to mean changes to the way we provide our 999 service to the public.

“We think it is better to reduce the number of firefighters on a fire engine, than it is to slow down our response times to some of our communities by reducing the number of fire engines which are immediately available.

“Now we are publishing our draft plans and invite the public to share their views on them.”

All fire and rescue authorities must provide a plan which sets out the steps they will take and resources they need to deliver public safety, reduce fires and save lives.

This is known as an Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP).

It must be publicly available, reflect consultation and demonstrate the most up-to-date analysis of local risk.

l You can share your views until August through an online survey, at www.syfire.gov.uk/haveyoursay, or in writing to IRMP Consultation, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue, 197 Eyre Street, Sheffield S1 3FG.