Cuts cost lives

Denise Christie, Scottish Secretary of the Fire Brigades’ Union, said the controversial creation of a single nationwide service in 2013, coupled with austerity, has led "to the worsening of response times, increased fire losses and increased deaths". She hit out at what she said was a "national scandal" where cuts to services have led to people in some parts of Scotland having to wait far longer than others for a fire engine to arrive.

"The Scottish Fire and Rescue Services own statistics show that since the creation of SFRS [Scottish Fire and Rescue Service] in 2013, fires and fire deaths are on the rise," she said. “It should be a scandal that fire service response times are getting worse. The FBU believes that the real reason for the slower response times are due to the continued cuts to the Fire and Rescue Service." She said firefighters were "continually being asked to cover shortages with overtime" and that cuts put lives at risk.

Christie said: "The FBU believes this has led to a postcode lottery of local standards. The lack of underpinning national standards has led the fire and rescue service down a very dangerous road. It is a road that has led to the worsening of response times, increased fire losses and increased deaths. Firefighters are continually being asked to cover shortages with overtime and feel morally obliged as they are not prepared to see fire cover being compromised."

She added: "The primary purpose of the fire and rescue service is the prompt and efficient mobilisation of firefighters in response to a fire or other related incident, in order to save life and protect property. Yet response times have worsened significantly since the introduction of the Scottish Fire and Rescue service in 2013. The time an emergency call being received and a fire engine arriving has risen slowly upwards."

Christie said the "grinding process of cutting firefighter jobs are the central causes of the problem".

She claimed that 700 jobs had been axed since the merger of eight regional services into a nationwide service in 2013. "It has been reported that between 60 and 100 fire appliances are unavailable every day due to insufficient firefighters to crew them," she said.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16063588.Firefighters__39__leader_says_cuts_and_a____postcode_lottery____has_led_to_deaths/