Firefighters warned "lives of the public and lives of firefighters" are at risk due to a revised operating model in Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service's control room.
Callers are often "terrified and screaming" when they dial 999 to report a fire, according to one fire control officer, but the team often has other tasks to complete on shift. Some are assigned to the phones while others handle radio messages, coordinating with fire teams, other emergency services, and even housing associations.
The team has also acted as fire control for "specialist capabilities" like evacuating casualties and firefighting during marauding terrorist attacks (MTA), flood response, and mass decontamination across the country since 2016, when Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (MFRS) became the lead authority for National Resilience on behalf of the Home Office.
With the number of fire control officers reduced from six to five on the night shift, firefighters worry it could put lives "in very real danger".
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MFRS has increased the overall number of fire control officers from 32 to 33, with the ability to increase staffing "by alerting retained staff", who are paid an extra 10% for this commitment, at "any time, day or night, should demand increase". The service's spokesperson said "fire Control staffing arrangements are based on demand for emergency calls", with the service being "twice as busy during the day than it is at night".
The fire control officer told the ECHO that, while they do receive fewer calls at night, these tend to be more serious as there are fewer people awake and about to spot fires and report them, leaving them to grow. The team has to take every call seriously, with Lee Hunter, chair of the Fire Brigades Union's (FBU) Merseyside branch, saying: "You never go to a false alarm. You just come back from them."
But when they turn out not to be a false alarm, it brings greater risk to the firefighters responding, and puts greater pressure on the time control officers have to communicate with them and the public. If fire control officers are too tied up with 999 calls to answer radio messages from response teams, and "we came to the very real possibility that a firefighter was injured at an incident", said Lee, who was once trapped under a collapsed ceiling, "that firefighter is in very real danger - we need the assistance immediately".
MFRS's staffing arrangement "very much mirrors" the arrangement in fire stations, according to the service's spokesperson, who said it allows "for more training and exercising to take place". They added: "The introduction of the station manager role, which constitutes an increase in fire control numbers, with specific responsibility for the management of the control room will ensure Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is able to respond to all foreseeable risk."
However, Lee said the reduction of staff at night goes against a 2012 collective agreement between the fire service and the union. He also said the people recruited to two additional posts MFRS "built into" the control room "for operational resilience during periods of high demand", were hired on "unagreed contracts" the local union branch feels "do not meet" agreed terms and conditions of employment.
The fire service insisted no existing members of fire control staff have been or would be compelled to "change their contract of employment on the basis of the revisions to the operating model". A spokesperson said the new contracts for new hires allow the service "to flexibly manage staffing to meet the predictable demands for staffing numbers at any time whilst also supporting the delivery of high quality training for staff and establishing career progression opportunities".
But Merseyside FBU representatives are considering balloting hundreds of members for industrial action short of a strike over this dispute, which has been running since March, as well as what they feel is an "unagreed expansion of the role" of firefighters in responding to "marauding terrorist attacks, flood response and emergency medical response". This is separate from a national ballot of thousands of firefighters and control officers for strike action over a pay dispute.
Lee, the Merseyside branch chair, told the ECHO: "If we don't take action now, we're giving them a blank check, they can then just decide they're going to impose whatever they want, because that's what they've tried to do so far, just ride roughshod. directly over the top of our members and plough on with whatever scheme they think they want to impose next. But our members are saying 'No, these are terms and conditions, you can't just rip them up'."
The union representative said some roles beyond firefighting - and the training, equipment and pay they receive for them - have been a matter of dispute for the FBU nationally for years. In April this year, firefighters in London and Manchester reached agreements with their respective fire services for "the provision of appropriate training and equipment", including ballistic helmets and goggles, according to the FBU
But Lee said the Merseyside fire service "decided to unilaterally impose" new conditions on new hires. Although "they have not yet been enforced", Lee described them as "a sword of Damocles hanging over our members". An MFRS spokesperson said: "Our contracts, which have been in place since 2016, do capture the Service's desire to protect the public during flooding, terrorism and through medical intervention, notably when asked to assist by our other emergency services, but this has always been thus.
"As a Service we are at a loss to understand how this would put the public at greater risk – but to reassure the reader, our firefighters who do amazing work in our communities train extensively for such incidents and we always put their safety and that of the public at the centre of everything we do."
They added: "MFRS has robust and rigorously risk assessed arrangements, including training and equipment, in place for dealing with all types of incidents, including those which may be terrorist related. Merseyside does have a specific MTA team who are trained to operate within the area of highest risk, this team has provided cover for Manchester during recent times and continues to cover the North West region.
"For terrorist related incidents which do not require the deployment of a specialist capability this incident type would be responded to as per our longstanding procedures, in effect non-specialist firefighters would not be deployed into the highest risk zone until specially trained officers from Merseyside Police had deemed the area safe. This has been the case for many, many years- the service's response to the Liverpool Women's Hospital attack is the most recent example, demonstrating the manner in which both specialist and non-specialist crews are utilised highly effectively at such incidents."
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