FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS > Control

Regional Fire Controls

(1/5) > >>

Midland Retty:
What do you think about Regional Fire Controls? Post your poll / vote here.
The options on the poll dont allow you to expand on why you may or may not like the issues of Regional Controls in detail, but you can expland by posting a comment in the main thread below.

This is not a barbed question and I have no motives, other than curiosity, to find out what people think about Regionalised Fire Control Centres

afterburner:
a wee bit difficult this one Retty. My memory of the superb service consistently delivered by a Brigade level control room colours my opinion in comparison with some unknown outcome. The fears of service 'drop' are easliy counted, but whether these fears would actually affect the primary functions will only become clear once one (or several) of the Regional Controls becomes operative.
I have this horrible worry that we won't know for sure until after the 'lick and see' exercise. 

Mr. P:
I understand 'they' are looking having a 'supersize' one at Waterbeach, Cambridge.

Mike Buckley:
When I was in the service I was project officer on the upgrading of the brigade's control room in one of the shire birgades, in fact the project came up with the solution that enabled regionalisation of control rooms.

One of the factors that we looked at was the efficiency of the control staff, I am not referring to how well they did their job which in line with all the control staff I have worked with, was of the highest standard. It was the number of calls handled per operator. We established the minimum number of staff we needed to be on duty which was three. One to handle the incoming call, one to handle the radio and one to supervise. Working on the usual crewing formula that allowed for leave, training, meal breaks etc. we needed 5 per watch. I worked out a comparison between the number of calls handled per operator in our brigade verses the number of calls handled by a operator in London and not surprisingly the London operator handled far more calls than ours did. We did look at several solutions to this one was to combine our control with that of the Ambulance service and another was to combine with neighbouring brigades. The reason these initiatives failed was political the chief officers did not want to lose 'their' control rooms, the ambulance service failed when a chief officer went on record stating that the fire brigade should take over the ambulances. The system we deployed was capable of doing both these roles and for a period we did work an arrangement with another brigade where our emergency control would be set up in their control room and their control could run our brigade whilst our staff evacuated to their control to take back the function. It worked in exercises, fortunately it never had to be put into action for real.

The principal is sound and there are obvious financial advantages for non metropolitan brigades.

The argument about local knowledge is a red herring in that ever since the days of phoning or running to the local fire station controls have always relied on some type of database whether paper or computer based to mobilise the correct attendance. Mistakes have happened given the number of 'High Streets' or 'Church Lanes' they are inevitable but these happen regardless of the size of the brigade.

What does concern me is the reason and the way the regionalisation project is being run. The background seems to have more of a political agenda rather than the practical one and the government's track record of this type of project is not good.

Psuedonym:
All current staff have to sign the OS Act, the political agenda remark is extremely relevant. There is another element which is to be based within these centres which makes them a convenient and secure regional base for them. Sorry guys I've been told more but best not expand.
The Control Centres are all built except the London unit which has just been begun construction. They are all the same size i.e. no supersize units and all currently manned only by the facilities company and security staff. By the time London is handed over the others will be due a refurb.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page