Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1140
- 1144)
WEDNESDAY 24 APRIL 2002
CHIEF FIRE
OFFICER RICHARD
BULL, CHIEF
FIRE OFFICER
PAUL YOUNG
AND ASSISTANT
COMMISSIONER RON
DOBSON
1140. Is that not a key point in the equation,
that there is a gap there where, as you say, you could not have
200 firefighters in London tied up for three months? Is there
not a need then, if the military is to be used in that respect,
to know what the capacity is and to have some mechanism whereby
it can be brought in so that you could withdraw firefighters over
a period of time?
(Mr Dobson) The problem with it is the document Military
Aid to Civil Community that details all the military aid to
civil powers is very clear that the military aid cannot be taken
as a given because it will change on a day to day, week to week,
month to month basis, it will change very frequently. What we
would need to do is to have at least an agreed level of cover
or level of provision that would be available at any time during
the day or night within certain response times in order to plan
on that assumption. At the moment we are not able to have that
because the military availability does change so frequently and,
therefore, we are not able to plan on the basis of having military
aid available.
1141. If you had an assurance that you had that,
that would be helpful?
(Mr Dobson) Yes.
(Mr Bull) Coming back to the issue of CBRN and training
there, obviously we have standing operating procedures and we
have now been included in the loop at the MoD training facility
at Winterbourne Gunner where all police Silver and Gold Commanders
go for training. We have now established a course there for all
senior Silver and Gold Commanders in every fire authority in the
United Kingdom and we are now integrating the ambulance service
into that as well. We have had discussions with ministers about
making that available on a tripartite basis because at the moment
it is ad hoc and there are difficulties and sensitivities
about funding, it is a Home Office fund, and all the things that
go with that that we need to get through. That needs to be made
on a tripartite basis. We also need to ensure then that every
firefighter receives training in CBRN and we have a national college
at Moreton-in-the Marsh which will be dealing with the middle
command levels and then we will have a cascade system down for
the training for fire authorities throughout the UK.
1142. Does that go to retained fire officers
in Devon, for example?
(Mr Bull) I was just going to pick up on that.
(Mr Young) For those Members around the table who
are not familiar with the concept of retained firefighters, in
most rural areas fire stations are crewed by retained firefighters
who have other professions, other businesses, whatever they may
do, but are on call from their home or their place of work to
the Fire Service and respond to the fire station in a very similar
way that lifeboat crews respond to the lifeboat station. Generally
speaking, the level of training that they have in this particular
area varies from one authority to another but in most they are
trained to carry out response to chemical incidents, they do have
the equipment to undertake that sort of activity. Our expectation
would be that we would cascade that further training down to retained
firefighters as well. Interestingly, about 60 per cent of all
the fire stations in the whole of the country are crewed by retained
firefighters and there are about 15,000 retained firefighters
in the UK. How well we can ensure their availability over an extended
period of time, possibly responding to an incident in another
part of the country, is something of an unknown because we have
never faced that before.
Jim Knight
1143. Is it not the case that it is becoming
more difficult to retain firefighters because they are living
away from their workplace, getting co-operation from employers
can be more difficult and generally sustaining the cover with
retained stations is more and more challenging?
(Mr Young) Yes, particularly in those areas which
are in the commute to work radius of large towns and cities where
the majority of the working population may well not work in the
area in which they live and retained, by their very nature, we
rely upon their availability in the area to be on call to the
Fire Service all the time. Many fire brigades around the country
have significant problems in recruitment and retention of retained
firefighters.
Jim Knight: Can I—
Chairman
1144. Gentlemen, thank you. I am opening a meeting
at one o'clock, you can ask them afterwards. Thank you very much
for coming, it was immensely helpful and reassuring. There are
some additional questions we intended to ask, including Mr Knight,
but he has got his quote in for this week's local paper. There
might be additional documents that you think might be helpful,
so if you would not mind because we are not fire specialists but
we would like to know. Thank you very much for coming along and
talking to us.
(Mr Bull) Thank you for the opportunity.
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