Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-138)
MR DEREK
CHADBON, MR
ROBERT CAMERON
AND MR
ADRIAN HUGHES
30 JANUARY 2006
Q120 Mr Olner: Thank you.
It is useful to get that on the record, Chair, so that we know
what we are dealing with. On the regional control centres do you
think that is going to affect retained firefighters? You have
said before that retained firefighters tend to be fairly locally
based. How are your members going to feel if they are suddenly
dragged some considerable miles away from home?
Mr Chadbon: No, I do not think
so. Retained firefighters are fairly used to reorganisation within
fire brigades. We find that that happens every two to three years.
The officers that we report to and the headquarters that we report
to on a local basis change every time brigades have reorganisations,
which seem to have been fairly frequent over the last few years.
I do not think that regional fire control instead of local individual
brigade control will make a lot of difference to retained firefighters.
It is not something that we have found is a problem. I would add
that a few of us who are a bit long in the tooth were around in
the last big reorganisation of control rooms in 1974 when we went
from over 200 control rooms down to the current numbers and we
heard some of the same concerns raised then but generally they
have not come to fruition.
Q121 Mr Olner: So there
are absolutely no problems as far as you can see? There will be
no impact from regional control centres on rural areas?
Mr Chadbon: No, none at all.
Q122 Mr Olner: You state
in your written evidence that the whole control centre restructuring
project is being adversely affected by the "failure of all
parties to engage in the process". Can you elaborate on what
you mean by "all parties"?
Mr Chadbon: Everybody except us,
I think. There seems to be a concerted effort by other unions,
by Fire Authorities, even within CFOA (the Chief Fire Officers'
Association). I have seen individually many Chief Fire Officers
speak out against regional controls but the Chief Fire Officers'
Association as a professional association has spoken in favour
of them. My understanding is that they do not have the support
of all of their own members and I think this is what has added
to the complications and the difficulties over control changes,
that it has been a process that has not taken everybody along
with it. It seems to me very concerning as to how it is going
to operate. Is it going to work if so many people who are vital
to that process are not keen on the outcomes?
Q123 Mr Olner: So how
can the ODPM convince firefighters of the benefits of regional
control centres?
Mr Chadbon: I think they are going
to have great difficulty because the main opponent, the Fire Brigades
Union, is demonstrating its opposition to any change, any modernisation,
and I do not think controls are any different from that.
Q124 Mr Olner: Can I stop
you there, Mr Chadbon? As I understand it, the Fire Brigades Union
is not the dominant trade union in the control centres.
Mr Chadbon: I do not know. I would
have thought it probably was. I do not know for certain.
Q125 Mr Betts: Can I follow
up on Firelink, which obviously goes hand in hand, I should think,
with the control centres? Have you had any involvement or consultation
in terms of the new communications systems that we are looking
at for the future, because your members are going to have to use
them, are they not?
Mr Chadbon: Yes. The technology
is starting to come on, again, in a brigade that just happens
to be the one that I know well. Norfolk has been at the forefront
of testing out the new arrangements. It is a rural brigade but
they have got most of the technology already up and running and
I understand it is running very well, but our involvement has
been minimal.
Q126 Mr Betts: So you
have not officially or formally been consulted? It is just that
you happen to know about that because your members are involved
in it?
Mr Chadbon: Yes.
Q127 Mr Betts: Have they
been consulted at local level in Norfolk?
Mr Chadbon: No, and to some extent
I can understand why. I think it is an area that our members are
not going to be too bothered about. They just want tools that
work and we do not have members in the control room. The whole
thing on controls and radios has been focused on the personnel
themselves in the control room. It has not focused on the rest
of the people in the Fire Service. There are 60,000-odd people
in the Fire Service and you heard earlier that there are 1,500
in control. I feel very sorry for those people because it has
not been handled in a way that is in their best interests. We
have got consequences for 1,500 people dominating the outcome
for 60,000 people. There is something wrong somewhere.
Q128 Anne Main: Just following
on from that, do you think that on the consultation and, as you
say, listening to people this is a case where the Government is
getting a full picture of what it is really like on the ground
in how to use these things or do you think they are getting selective
evidence which they are forming a view on? Do you feel that we
are getting a rounded picture to make an informed decision on
this? That is really what I want to know.
Mr Chadbon: No, I do not, but
I do not think that applies generally on the reform of the British
Fire Service either. It is not just concentrating on controls.
Q129 John Cummings: Would
you tell the Committee what your assessment is of the CPA process
which has been conducted by the Audit Commission? Do you think
the CPA effectively provide for a Retained Fire Service perspective?
Mr Chadbon: It is an interesting
one. We did an exercise on just one involvement there was by the
retained in the CPA process because, as I say, we tend to get
left out—second-class citizens. The feedback we had from
our members was that in some cases they had been involved on a
local basis and they had seen some good outcomes. In a number
of cases they were not involved. We had a couple of brigades where
the retained who said they were expecting a visit from the CPA
all went on leave on that drill line rather than face up to the
process for fear of getting it wrong. Others in the same vein
tried to have an input into the CPA process but were shouted down
by the brigade officers who were there, who kept intervening and
saying, "I do not think these retained really understand
what you are asking. Let me answer the question on their behalf",
so there was very much a process of stage management as far as
the retained were concerned. My local station were supposed to
produce a station plan for the auditors when they came down. The
evening the auditors came down to the station the station plan
was presented to the officer in charge by one of the whole time
officers who said, "Here is your station plan. Just make
out that you wrote it when the Audit Commission come down".
That was the process that went on. In some it was very good. Some
brigades said yes, it was excellent. They did have a confidential
process. There was nobody else there. In other places it was very
much stage-managed by brigade management who wanted to ensure
that the answers that the retained gave were in accordance with
brigade policy.
Q130 John Cummings: So
is the report worth anything at all?
Mr Chadbon: We think it is. We
think it is a start but we do not think it goes far enough. It
needs to start looking at areas like making maximum use of retained,
having more flexible working arrangements, more flexible duty
systems, ensuring that IRMPs reflect the opportunities that are
there. We are not sure that that is going to happen even under
the new inspection process because at the end of the day the decision
is still down to the Fire Authorities and if they decide to do
what they want then that will be it.
Q131 John Cummings: Are
you satisfied with the arrangements that will take the place of
the Fire Service Inspectorate?
Mr Chadbon: Yes. I think the inspectorate
as it is at the moment has outlived its purpose and has to change.
Q132 Alison Seabeck: Your
written evidence highlights progress in co-responder arrangements
in areas covered by retained firefighters. Many of those are rural
so there is a good chance that you are likely to be first on the
scene and therefore the use of co-responder arrangements seems
to make sense. Could you give us some examples of how that is
working and your wider experience with it?
Mr Hughes: My own station has
been carrying out co-responder duties since 1998 and it has been
tremendously successful. There are widespread benefits to the
community, to the Fire Service and to members of the crew on each
station in doing that. My own service, Mid and West Wales, now
operates 14 co-respondent stations. It is a partnership with the
Ambulance Service. We have a greater understanding, the Ambulance
Service have a greater understanding and the Fire Service directly,
because of co-responder. It is very difficult to quantify success
but I think it is reasonably safe to say that each co-responder
station saves between five and ten lives a year and that is just
the high profile ones.
Q133 Alison Seabeck: Do
the people you are working with who are using co-responders feel
that they are being asked to be an alternative to the Ambulance
Service?
Mr Hughes: Not at all. We are
working with the Ambulance Service in partnership. There is always
a paramedic response immediately, as there would be normally.
We are working over and above that with the Ambulance Service.
It is not trying to do anything instead of the Ambulance Service.
It is very important to realise that. It is an extra level of
service.
Q134 Alison Seabeck: Has
joint working with the rest of the Fire Service, knowing that
there are elements within the rest of the Fire Service which feel
uncomfortable about working with co-responders, inhibited the
retained firefighters from doing this?
Mr Hughes: Oh yes. The Ambulance
Service drive the location of the stations, depending on needs
and their cover, and quite often where they have a gap in the
cover there is a fire station. There have been quite a number
of instances where the Ambulance Service would have liked a station
to become a co-respondent station and, for a number of reasons,
they have decided that they are not going to take part in the
scheme, historically at least, because since the new Fire and
Rescue Services Act there have been a lot of changes. Earlier
on, yes, definitely that was the case.
Q135 Alison Seabeck: So
on the basis of your experience where you can identify a number
of lives saved every year, where co-responders are not being used
you can probably say that there are a number of lives being lost
every year because the Fire Service are not working with the Ambulance
Service in some areas?
Mr Hughes: I think it is safe
to say that about some areas, possibly because the Fire Service
co-responders are only one of a whole range of co-responder schemes
the Ambulance Service utilise. There are instances, which are
quite ridiculous, of a fire station that has not participated
in the co-responder scheme whereas the local postmistress and
a number of local residents have taken up the co-responder scheme,
and when somebody is seriously injured or has a heart attack or
a life-threatening emergency the local community scheme comes
along with better equipment and training than the Fire Service.
It is very difficult sometimes under those circumstances, because
it is subjective, to prove that a co-responder intervention saves
a life. Sometimes it is quite clear but it is a subjective assessment
of the value. I think it is quite safe to say that at least five
and perhaps even ten lives a year per scheme are saved.
Mr Chadbon: There is a pattern
there, I hope you can see, that retained firefighters are community
firefighters living and working in their community. They want
to make things happen, they want to be flexible, they want to
see things happen that are the best for their community. They
have been restricted from doing that in the past because of their
lack of involvement at strategic level. They have been restricted
because of restrictive practices in the Fire Service. They have
been stopped in many places from doing co-responders and other
flexible ways of working. They are not fully engaged in community
safety, so therefore we have a bunch of men and women in the British
Fire Service who are very willing, whose work role is changing
and whose income is changing; generally their income has dropped.
We do not know where that money is going, but we can see great
opportunities for feeding that back into the system for the benefit
of the local community by enhancing the service. This is where
the British Fire Service is getting it wrong at the moment.
Q136 Dr Pugh: Can we briefly
touch on civil resilience? Have retained firefighters been offered
training in the operation on New Dimension equipment? If I could
generalise the question a little bit, how will the new duties
on firefighters under the Civil Contingences Act affect you on
a day-to-day level?
Mr Chadbon: It is a mixed bag.
I would say that generally retained firefighters are not being
used and trained and made operationally responsible for New Dimension
because the Fire and Rescue Service is largely retained. In places
like Lincolnshire and the Isle of Wight, for example, retained
are very heavily involved and form a major part of the resilience
response. In other areas the additional ODPM money has been used
to recruit additional whole time firefighters and build new fire
stations completely for housing and training on resilience where
the alternatives have not been considered.
Q137 Dr Pugh: So it could
be said, say, in an urban area where, because they have an adequate
number of whole time firefighters, that the retained firefighters
in those circumstances could be completely cut out of the loop?
Mr Chadbon: Yes, and it has happened
in a number of authorities. I do not know what my colleague Robert
Hughes' experience is here.
Mr Hughes: If there was an incident
in London we would attend as a support, plus we have had training
on that.
Q138 Dr Pugh: But in the
circumstances there, the specific urban environments we are talking
about where you are not involved to any great extent in planning
for resilience, you would attend but you would be attending in
an untutored or unprepared fashion; is that right?
Mr Hughes: Yes, I would agree
with that.
Mr Chadbon: It is a very mixed
bag.
Chair: Can I thank you very much for
your evidence. It has been most useful.
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