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Chief Fire Officers' Association responds to Fire Brigade Union's criticism of FireControl project
The Chief Fire Officers' Association (CFOA) has welcomed the report by the Fire Brigades Union on FireControl, released last week, and called it a "thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to an important debate" as well as issuing a full response outlining their position.
The Fire Brigade Union (FBU) had criticised many aspects of the FireControl project, including the rising costs and constant delays to its implementation, as cited in a news story from last week. The Association has responded to this report and the following is the full statement issued by the CFOA on November 12 in response to the FBU.
The Chief Fire Officers' Association (CFOA) welcomes the report by the Fire Brigades Union as a thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to an important debate. The Association also believes that one firefighter death is too many and has consistently argued that the lack of central risk-critical operational guidance represented a risk for all Fire and Rescue Services and their staff. We note with satisfaction that this pressure has now prompted Government to develop a new process for this important issue.
The Association recognises, also, the increasing pressure on all fire and rescue services as a result of constrained resources and significant growth in the service's responsibilities, such as responding to terrorism and flooding for example. The development of better prevention and community safety approaches have made huge inroads into the unacceptably high level of death and injuries to the public to the extent that we now have the lowest figures for fifty years.
The Association does not accept that this success has been at the expense of firefighter safety, nor do we view the changes in recent years which have sought to create more flexible working arrangements as a direct cause of firefighter injuries or deaths. Whilst these changes may have been resisted or seen as controversial they did not seek in any way to compromise firefighter safety. As ever, we remain willing to work with the Fire Brigades Union, and others, to see whether further improvements can be made.
Running a fire and rescue service will always be a matter of judgment about the degree to which we can reduce and eliminate risks to the public whilst securing the safety of our staff. In that respect we are no different from any other public service, though the operational environment is clearly more dangerous than most. We recognise also that the balance of resources in individual fire and rescue services is a matter for local fire authorities and based on local circumstances.
Simply returning to national prescription of fire cover standards is not the answer. But there are undoubtedly areas where operational risks to firefighters are the same wherever you are and it is for this reason that we have pressed so hard for the reinstatement of national operational guidance. We will work with unions, Government and others to ensure this is re-introduced and maintained.
