Bonfire night will stretch fire crews to the limit and there are fears they may not be able to cope due to massive cuts in the service's budget. The claims are made today by the Fire Brigades Union.
This weekend crews are expecting their busiest night of the year with a huge surge in callouts due to fireworks related incidents. But statistics collated by the Fire Brigades Union reveal further "real-terms cuts" to central funding for fire and rescue services in England.
In a statement the FBU says: "Funding for 2022-2023 has been boosted by just 1% on last year (2021-22). Inflation is currently running at around 10%. Funding stands at £882m compared to £1,240m in 2013-14 – meaning there has been a huge cut of 29%, or over 40% in real terms."
The FBU says there have also been significant cuts across parts of the rest of the UK. Scotland’s funding is up just £3m since 2013 and Northern Ireland’s is down by £1m since 2012. These will be both significant real-terms cuts.
In Greater Manchester funding in 2022/23 is down by £5.2m compared to 2016/17 - a drop of 9.2 percent. This year funding for the region increased by £600,000 - just one and a half percent. In England as a whole funding has been reduced by £130.9m over the same period, a cut of 12.9 percent.
Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union general secretary, said: “Communities should know that their fire and rescue service is far weaker than it should be. Bonfire night is a massive stress and strain on fire and rescue services and firefighters, and we are hugely concerned as to how a significantly under-resourced fire and rescue service will cope.
"Firefighters are facing a cash-starved service every night of the year: their own wages have been cut by £4,000 since 2009 and this year they received a measly 5% pay offer. We need a properly funded fire service that includes decent resources and fair pay for firefighters, and that reflects the extraordinary job they do and their contribution over the pandemic.”
Oxfordshire, Surrey, Warwickshire and West Sussex brigades are in particular danger of cuts. These councils agreed to reduce central funding in order to keep more local revenue – local revenue which would have been anticipated but then disappeared in recent years due to the pandemic.
Meanwhile on October 31st firefighters and fire control staff were balloted over to whether accept a 5% pay offer from employers. The FBU's executive council is recommending that members vote to reject the offer, which they say represents a significant real-terms pay cut and follows a decade of real-terms pay cuts in the fire and rescue service. The consultative ballot will close on November 14th and rejection does not automatically mean strike action will be taken.
