Frankie
I don't know what gave the impression that I don't understand the retained? Everything I have written is from experience, both in my present role as a SM, T/GM at this moment, managing 6 RT and one DC/RT station in a very rural area covering 2,000 Km2. Before joining WT, which I have been for 15 years, I was a RT Ff with 5 years experience. Most, and by no means all, of the RT in my area do CS (note we long ago dropped the F as our strategy is the safety of our community in all areas). None do FS visits, indeed you are the first example I have come across of RT carrying out legislative inspections, many WT no longer do this. If you look you will see me arguing that RT should/can transfer to WT but would do so with some development needs, I gave CS and FS as examples, that was all. Now how does that marry with your suggestion that I have no experience of your role, I rather believe I am well qualified to comment and do so with confidence.
I do believe that the transfer is a viable option and have just seen 4 of my RT staff do just that. Along with another 8 colleagues from around the service they are on a 2 week induction, which includes soem CS and FS input. Fortunatley for me they are also going to carry on some RT commitment as they are form areas where we have diffciulty recruiting, one of the reasons for my suggestion that the transfers may improve RT recruitment is that this having ahppened is giving us another tool to encourage RT staff.
It was me that said bringing the RT in to standby is a waste of money - but if you look you will see that I was refering to staff on the same station as the WT. We utilise next stations for stnadby cover, which obvioulsy means a retained appliance will cover our DC station if both there are out, no problem, not a waste. But if the DC pump is out the RT staff are not brought in, this would be a waste of money. It would also disrupt their full time employment, with many employers unhappy to have their staff brought in to the station just to await further calls and do non-incident work for us while there. One such employer is opposite the station and used to find this very galling when we did it, around 15 years ago.
I agree about the professionalism of RT staff, especially at incidents, but also in other areas. In my experience they are enthusiastic about their role and the service.
You also make, or attempt to make, some point about the 120 v 42 hour duty. I think you were agreeing with me but it wasn't clear. One poster suggested that the WT Ff should be referred to as Part-time because they only do 42 hours and was upset that RT were so referred to by some. I made the entirley accurate response that the 120 hours is on-call and the 42 hours is at work, thus they are different duty systems and made clear what RT should be called. I stand by that and feel it is unquestionable and am glad that you appear to be on my side, thanks!
