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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Operational => Topic started by: guest28 on May 23, 2005, 12:45:28 PM
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im a wholetime firefighter serving in bristol who is relocating to the south east ( wifes job).
eventually im goining to need to transfer into a local brigade , id prefer to continue working in a city brigade but have heard mixed reports on london such as poor moral, excesive discipline, a bullying culture and general disinterest from the fellas themselves.
id especially appreciate any info from firefighters who have transfered into london on the brigade culture and frequency of working jobs, im told they are few and far between although this seems improbable, compared to other brigades.
thanks
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id just like to add that the reports ive been given have all been from firefighters who claim to have enjoyed their time in the brigade but who have transfered out of london for various reasons so perhaps the views are not entirely without bias or resentment.
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Poor morale - Yes (is Avon different?)
Excessive discipline - No.
Bullying culture- No and if you say it again I'll punch yer face in!!
General disinterest. - Yes
Working Jobs. - Depends where you're located. We've many quiet Stations and a few really busy ones
The job is changing rapidly. London, perhaps, will be more PC than your old Brigade. Minorities seem to have a unbalanced influence in all matters and those who try to redress the balance are branded racists, sexist or some other type of 'ist'
LFB's latest IRMP is about to be implimented which is closing a west end station and moving 10 others from areas where rescues are often made (inner London), to areas where fire deaths occur - the suburbs (where many of the victims are dead prior to us turning out). The net result will be more fire deaths
New Dimension is huge in London. We are getting about 60 new dimension vehicles. (we've only got 112 stations - sorry 111 from June so virtually 50% of stations are getting new kit). Some of it is primary crewed (IRUs) so FFs who joined the fire service are becoming disillusioned by (in effect - as the IRU rarely turn a wheel)) being off the run for large parts of their shifts.
Add that list to the list of yet-to-be-agreed changes to: working conditions, Pensions, shifts et al, and you'll see why morale is a little low right now.
But come and join us. We a big impersonal outfit, but you get London weighting and a better quality of football than you will have been used to.
So if you are a one legged black asylum-seeking lesbian from a broken (single parent) home - see you next week. If you are not, it might take a little longer!!!
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i am a black lesbian ( praise allah) , and im actually very offended by your discriminatory remarks and i demand an apology , there is no room in the modern service for heathen bigots like yerself.
anyways thanks for the info, yeah youre right, people are a bit disalusioned with the proposed changes brigade wide , although i was refering more to the urban legend of firefighters catching the train from scotland to croydon and then getting a case ofthe f*ck 'ems all tour.
As for IRU's are you seriously telling me that firefighters are manning these appliances 24/7 ???
any propsed shift changes being booted around? and how much is the london waiting?
whats a busy/quiete station in london ?
quiete in bristol would be 1500-2000 and busy would be 3500-4500
As for the footy im pretty confident that once youve been to the memorial ground to watch rovers versus s****horpe youll never again hanker after champions league pre-madonnas. im actually a spurs supporter but hey ,progress is being made.
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Those urban legend are true. There are scores (maybe hundreds) of FFs commuting 100+miles and camping out on the stn or on a mate's floor. My last station had four FFs commuting from Wales and a previous stn had a LFF from Spain!!
Yes 5 of our 10 IRUs are manned full time (the remainder are switched manned).
As for what is quiet or busy, LFB only record 'on ground' calls, whereas the true figure is obviously always higher. The quiestest: Biggin Hill do about 250 calls and the busiest?? always a debatable issue. Soho always rate themselves as busy with about 3500 but many are afas, but for busy 'working' (rather than posing) stations, head east to the crappy end of our fair capital. Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Poplar, Dagenham.
Which part of London are you moving to?
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suprised at the number of calls soho gets ..people always refer to soha as the busiest station in europe which clearly it isnt if it only gets 3,500ish.
im moving to bishops stortford nr harlow so would be hoping to be posted nr the M11 in the east end somewhere.
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Go east then mate (as my previous post) and good luck!!
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Messey, I am arranging to have a leg amuptated (can you recommend a good hospital), I hope to get a good sun tan this summer, I seek asylum from a landlord in Scotland who is still looking for me to pay the rent from the 1970s. I am arranging to have a sex change. My mother once didnt speak to my father for a whole week. When can I start. Could I join your watch, so you can show me the ropes. The only thing is I dont chew gum, and I do not find men attractive, particularly those of a certain large met brigade. Notwithstanding, I meet the other criteria. Other than a small fire in a car, caused by a short circuit in wiring I installed myself, I have never fought a fire, but hey how difficult can it be? One of your esteemed colleagues rejected one of our FRAs recently, writing a contravention notice and telling the client to get an FRA carried out but that anyone with common sense can do one (you dont need a consultant), so I imagine operational firefighting is very similar?????I wont be there long anyway, as my back plays up from an old weightlifting injury, so I hope to be out on medical before too long, so I may not actually have to go to any fires.
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Colin,
Clearly you have missed your way. If you had of been honest in the first place and disclosed this information, who knows what could of happened. You could of found yourself in the heady heights of Stn O by now, especailly with the experience you have with dealing with car fires.
I guess you shouldn't have sleepless nights wondering what could of been?? But you.ve only got yourself to blame in keeping this to yourslef.
Although it may be a good idea to let LFB know which leg your having off then you can be teamed up with someone with the oposite one off, a bit like a 3 legged race, only with two.........so nothing like really.
Paul
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Stn Officer, STATION OFFICER??????????? My goodness, Mr Smith, I actually tacked the fire fearlessly and bravely with a CO2 extinguisher, without the need for fire service intervention. I would have thought this would have qualified me for the Queens Fire Servie Medal and a synecure as a CFO.
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Yes Colin Stations Officer???
You did say that you do not find men attractive, along with not chewing gum,
come on!!
On the other hand, without fire service intervention you say?? Could save LFB a small fortune.
you could be head hunted!!
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Colin: I cannot support your application as we do not recognise sweaties as a minority in London. There are many such immigrants sleeping rough across our fair city, even the Houses of Parliament are full of em. Some have the cheek to move down here, steal our jobs and then abuse our finest public servants who are only trying to do their best.
I reckon we English should rebuild Hadrians wall and fit it with panic bolted doors (obviously opening to the north) so we can get out if there's an emergency. The only items allowed south through the wall would be Irn Bru, haggis and oil.
If you start to integrate with the local community (including the fire safety community) I will look at your application again
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Yes LFB would have made pumps 30 on approach to the incident. Equally, it would have taken them a long time to get there, as I was in edinburgh at the time. But hey the guys from LFB will go anywhere to show them how its done. Shame that fire safety enforcement in the capital of england is such a shambles, whereas in the capital of a certain other nation that forms part of the UK the officers are polite courteous and are not into chewing gum. Messey, I am integrated as of today, when one of your borough commanders wrote to me with an unreserved apology for the fact that one of your I/Os failed to recognize a suitable and sufficent FRA as such. Thats a first for a certain large met brigade, so I guess he must like me. I feel so humble and honoured I could cry with emotion.
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Mr Avon
As a former LFB (F26 Bethnal Green to be precise) turned county man i'm in a position to advise you.
Most of the things you hear about LFB are true to an extent. Dis-interest from the troops, poor equipment on the machines, even dare I say bullying and harrassment of vulnrable prople.
But it's not all bad, LFB has an infrastructure and traditions which are second to no other Brigade in the world in my opinion.
From what you have written, I suspect what you really want (like most of us if we are honest) is action. You want a busy station.
As our collegue stated earlier, LFB has got alot of very, very quiet stations. Biggin hill being the usual scapegote!
Out of the 112 (111) stations they have, there are about five or six busy ones. When I say busy, i mean in terms of FDR1 fires. They are located just south of the river - Brixton, Peckham and in the East end - Bathanal Green, Homerton and upto the buisiest when I transferred - Tottenham. The common theme here is large populations of people from the lower end of the social scale. Avoid anything in the west end unless you have ambitions to be a Fire alarm enginer!
The busiest stations I've mentioned probably receive between 3000 and 4000 calls a year.
If you are moving the Bishops stortford then I would urge you to consider Herts. They have an exelant reputation but again, are not very busy.
Lee
PS You dont mention at which/stage in your career you are. If you are a FF then I cannot recommend LFB. if you are an Officer then I think i probably can.
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Mr Avon
As a former LFB (F26 Bethnal Green to be precise) turned county man i'm in a position to advise you.
Most of the things you hear about LFB are true to an extent. Dis-interest from the troops, poor equipment on the machines, even dare I say bullying and harrassment of vulnrable prople.
But it's not all bad, LFB has an infrastructure and traditions which are second to no other Brigade in the world in my opinion.
From what you have written, I suspect what you really want (like most of us if we are honest) is action. You want a busy station.
As our collegue stated earlier, LFB has got alot of very, very quiet stations. Biggin hill being the usual scapegoat!
Out of the 112 (111) stations they have, there are about five or six busy ones. When I say busy, i mean in terms of FDR1 fires. They are located just south of the river - Brixton, Peckham and in the East end - Bethanal Green, Homerton and upto the buisiest when I transferred - Tottenham. The common theme here is large populations of people from the lower end of the social scale. Avoid anything in the west end unless you have ambitions to be a Fire alarm enginer!
The busiest stations I've mentioned probably receive between 3000 and 4000 calls a year.
If you are moving the Bishops stortford then I would urge you to consider Herts. They have an exelant reputation but again, are not very busy.
Lee
PS You dont mention at which/stage in your career you are. If you are a FF then I cannot recommend LFB. if you are an Officer then I think i probably can.
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I read that before somewhere. I read that before somewhere.
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Lee
Just to update you on the status of LFB's quieter stations:
Yes, no surprises that Biggin Hill remains the quietest in total calls,
But the award for the fewest fires goes to .............................. Knightsbridge in the busy west end, with 105. (Biggin Hill had 107)
(This is based on an annual total of all fires [including secondary] averaged over the last 5 years)
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105/107 fires? I have a retained station which had 99 FRD1s, 48 (serious) RTCs, 42 SSCs (only 1 a lift 'rescue' the remainder were such as serious flooding) and overall 720 calls. We have two one pump WT stations with over 300 FDR1s a year and over 1200 calls. We consider these quiet really. Two of our WT stations went day crewed 10 years ago due to the low activity and one RT. The DC stns average around 120 FDR1s and 750 calls and the one that went RT 80 FDR1 and 500 calls. Note when the calls arelsued these do not include any off the stn ground, which all our stns reguallry attend as there are very few 2 pump stns (5 out of 18 and only 1 WT)
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Fireftrm
Our figure only relate to on ground calls and if off ground fires were recorded Knightsbridge would indeed been busier than Biggin Hill.
The topograpy of London aint all west end, city with gold pavements. Much of surburbia fades into near rural environment as you get to the boundary with the home county brigades. (Which is why we are rushed off our feet with grass fires at the moment)
For interest: Biggin Hill's total is circa 250 total (on ground) calls per year, arguably making them the quiestest WT stn in the UK. The LFB wanted to make it DC but didn't want to spend money buying property. So they advertised for FFs living locally. Unsurprisingly, the response has been slow, as few can afford to live anywhere nearby.
Only Villains, Merchant Bankers and overpriced Fire Consultants can afford these prices! (Are they 3 different jobs or 1??)
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Hi Messy, I think you may well be right at 250 calls it must be the quietest. At that level it is a fairly busy retained station and no more. It must be on a pretty sticky wicket when it comes to being needed at all? Westerham, I see, not 6 km away is retained..........
Perhaps there needs to be some realignment of funding if LFB can afford WT stations with these levels of activity? I fully appreciate the cost of housing is high, but on a quick examination a 4 bedroomed detached house in Biggin Hill is around £340k, this is the same price range as the area where my day staffing station is in. 3 bed semis from£195k all, I would have thought, well within the price range of most Ffs ona day crewed station with London/South East weighting. They are all well within the prices that Ffs here pay and with no weighting.
Seeing the prices let me know if any station, or group manager jobs come up - I can easily afford to live there!
PS how do Kent get their retained staff at such nearby stations, maybe LFB should start having some RT?
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I am retained in Kent. The stand alone stations and stations joined to a whole time station just recruit when they need staff from there villages or towns, the candidates have to be within a 4-5 minutes of the station. Getting cover for days is always a problem as most village residents go to work during the day.
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fireftm: I stand corrected. The housing is less expensive than I assumed.
However, you state you're from the north east and 3/4 bedroom house are for sale at £340K?. I thought you'd be able to but 45% of Middlesbrough with Redcar thrown in for free, for that sort of cash up there!!
Your post brings up an interesting point - did LFB advertise elsewhere for DC personnel? A few years ago, Bucks FB opened a DC stn at Gerrards Cross, perhaps the most expensive place to live in the UK. They provided housing and advertised the posts nationwide. The result- more accents on that station than you'd find in a UN conference.
So it can be done, even in very expensive areas
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I see that the replies have concentrated on the opposite ends of the spectrum ie the quietest and the busiest. So what are the average stations in LFB actually doing call wise?. And for those serving or has served in London would you have served elsewhere given the chance.
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One of your esteemed colleagues rejected one of our FRAs recently, writing a contravention notice and telling the client to get an FRA carried out but that anyone with common sense can do one (you dont need a consultant), .
Dont blame the troops they get no backing from senior officers fire safety is the poor relation inthat metro brigade, CFS is all that matters they have targets but you Colin and your consulatnt "friends" can change that. forget the appology, sue them, and hit them in the pocket. then they will do something. put out a flier" have you been given a notce then I can save you money" when they keep paying out the members will force the senior officers to do what they have a legal duty to do.
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We have received a suitable payment from the FRS in question as it happens.
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Oh I bet that hurt,
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It hurt me that my PA banked the cheque beofre I could see it. I wanted to make a photocopy for the wall, but was too late.
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Not that you would want to shout about this Colin (I'm trying to be serious here too...), however, is anything getting into the 'fire' press. I think it should.
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To be honest, Ian, and I too am being serious, as an ex senior officer in fire safety, the story will appall you. The overview of the story is this. Our second largest client (by annual fee spend) want to have a staff alarm arrangement to reduce false alarms. We tell them they must get approval of fire authority. An I/O visits and does a detailed inspection of the building and its management. No arguement there; a building should not have a staff alarm unless there is a good standard of management. He asks to see the FRA and is shown the document that we prepared for the client. The format has been seen by CACFOA (as it then was) and agreed as suitable and sufficient. The same FRS have seen our format many many times and always agreed it was suitable and suffcient. It has also been specifically agreed by many other FRSs across the land.
The I/O looks at it and tells them it is NOT a FRA. Note that he gives no reason for this, makes no specific criticisms, does not say that, well it is not quite suitable and sufficent. With an arrogance typical of the particular FRS, he tells the client that it is not even an FRA and that, therefore, they are in breach of legislation by failing to have ANY FRA and that they would be getting a ''long letter'' from the FRS. As an aside he helpfully tells the client that they do not need consultants to carry out FRAs as anyone with common sense can do it. Understandably, the building manager wonders what the hell is going on and writes to the client's Director of Health and Safety asking if, given the I/O's comments (after all the FRS are the ''experts'' arent they???) they need to use our services any more. If the Director had not had a lot of faith in us as she happens to have, and had she not known what the particular FRS are like, we could have lost a major client, possibly resulting in redundancy of at least one consultant, all because of this I/O.
The I/O sends what is effectively the old minded to type letter and schedule, with the very basic error that they are in breach of the FP(W) Regs by failing to have a FRA (when of course, even if it would be correct to say there was none, the breach would be Management Regs), calling up incorrect clauses, and stating that there was no FRA, giving them a few weeks to get one done.
When challenged on the phone as to why he had done all this the only explanation he could offer was that he THOUGHT it was not an FRA. When asked what training he had done on the subject of the Regs and FRAs he stated he was searching the Internet to find some as he had not really had any, other than a little bit just after the Regs came in in 1997. The FRA was sent to the FRS Policy Group and to the guy's ADO, none of whom could find anything wrong with it. The ADO tried to huff, puff and bluster about well maybe what the I/O meant was that they would need to act on the FRA, which is bull****, bearing in mind that we are sitting on a bit of paper signed (to use the words of Chaimberlain) by Mr Hitler, stating there was NO FRA and that the client was in breach of legislation.
We instruct solicitors to take action against the FRS on the basis that much time has been taken up at our end sorting this mess out, unless they agree to pay a relatively small fee for the hours of time wasted. We also made it clear that this is not an action we would take simply say because the FRS say a door is needed somewhere and it proves not to be the case. Our case is that the wreckless action of the I/O was so fundamentally flawed that our costs should be met by the FRS. We were prepared to go to County Court and intended to subpoena the I/O to explain his actions to the Court and the training he had been given to enforce fire safety legislation. The sum we sought was very small, but it was a point of principle.
As it happens the FRS settled by paying the requisite amount.
There are several things I would wish to stress, Ian for the purpose of objectivity.
1. The DO to whom this sorry tale was referred has written stating that the Authority accepts that the FRA is suitable and sufficient, that the I/O now acknowledges that he ought to have recognized it as such, and stating that the schedule would be withdrawn.
2. The DO acknowledges that this has caused us embarrassment for which he ''apologises unresevedly''.
3. The ADO offered to visit the premises personally to apologise and explain to the client.
4. There is little more one could expect of the FRS, who have, therefore, done all they could subsequent to this whole debacle.
5. I say again that we would never take action to seek recompense over normal disputes in respect of adequacy of fire precautions,etc as such a case wouldin any case almost certainly be contrary to public policy as to win would make enforcing officers unnecessarily cautious. It was the very fundamental nature of the issue that we felt was a point of principle.
6. In fairness to FRSs, it is my honest belief, having worked with many FRSs in training I/Os in fire risk assessment, that, certainly in other FRSs with whom we have experience, this simply would not happen, as enforcement is fair, reasonable, measured and non-aggressive.
7. The issue is primarily about training. Sadly, it seem to be from the outside that CFS is sexy, Political Correctness is all the rage, IPDS is new and exciting, but fire safety is becoming a poor relation in FRSs, and I fear that this will get worse with the RRO, not better. And the frightening paradox is that, come the RRO, there will be a need for more enforcement, not less, but it will need to be competent.
If you want sight of the papers, or the FRS letter to us, let me know.
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Colin,
If it had gone to court, do you think you would have won?
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Colin,
I think it is very sad that I/O’s react in this way. To be honest in the areas that I have most experience in the North and in particular GMC, Lancs,T&WFRS and good old Strathclyde I have experienced the sort of support and co-operation you would expect to receive from an enforcing body (not a joke).
Aside form this I think the problem generally seems to be with the train of thought. If a solution is offered outside the prescriptive standards then all they can see is the requirement that should be met, not that the same level of fire safety has been achieved by alternative methods and in some cases improved!! The effort required to think latterly seems to be too much trouble in some cases. This is not a criticism, more of an observation.
Lets be honest ( this usually gets me in trouble), the fire safety departments of most FRS are, in the main, full of I/O’s who would rather be somewhere else. They would rather be on station with the lads or a covering officer etc. The interest just isn’t there, which is a big shame!! As you say Colin, come the RRO, the level of enforcement will need to be greater. The Interest needs to come from people who care about the subject and not by people such as the example bigot who could n’t give a damn about the welfare of others, only that he impressed the people he was in the company of.
Oh I bet they ‘re impressed now!! But not with the LFRS
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There were 3 different tacks that the lawyers could have followed. The only person who can answer that is a man with a wig and deviant sexual habits. To be honest, it was almost academic who won, if it exposed the FRS to examination under oath about training and skill in enforcement of the cornerstone of UK fire safety legislation. The Judge's comments would have been interesting enough.
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Paul, It would be quite wrong to tar all I/Os with the same brush. Moreover, your comments about the northern FRSs is of no surprise. GMC for example nearly always persuade and discuss rather than shout and bully. Interestingly enough, only today I recommended to a client in Scotland (it was not a holiday there and I kept getting calls from Scottish clients as the office lines were diverted to my house!) that she should contact Highlands and Islands FRS about a fire safety problem. She has moved jobs from London and was very wary about this advice until I reassured her that the H&I guys are really nice to deal with and that she should not regard all FRSs in the same light as her past experience. It has a lot I think to do with how fire sfaety is managed in the FRS, and who manages it. As in all organizations ( I hate to say this , Davey if you are listening), the problems often are a result of failures of senior management to manage properly and not the fault of the troops. There are some very bright and forward thinking SFSOs out there, who are doing a good job in changing the culture of enforcement.
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I am appalled Colin. Sadly, I think this type of thing may happen more often as the guys and gals tasked with enforcing legislation are not as well supervised, experienced or trained as I would like. Already I have had a few 'interesting' discussions with brigades - when I eventually get someone to answer the phone!
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'once upon a time .............'
- having proper training for any activity is a pre-requisite of carrying out that activity, particularly when not being directly supervised - unfortunately this incompetency will spread into all fire service activities, and it will be the untrained worker who suffers as a consequence - has anyone considered what is happening/has happened to the individual who got it so completely wrong? surely even the barest minimum of training would have stated - dont act independantly outside your area of knowledge - take it back to discuss with someone who has the knowledge - i only hope the particular 'service' has looked at their internal processes to reduce the potential of it happening again -
colin - to photocopy and display the 'cheque' would have been stooping to depths i dont believe you would seriously have stooped to!
dave bev
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One of the difficulties here is with the more experienced I/O.
I have already mentioned on another thread that many FS ADOs have little (or indeed no) FS experience and use the more experienced I/Os as a database - ie. somewhere they can easily access FS info from a bloke who's been doing it years. Under pressure to come up with answers (& thereby maintaining their 'Guru'status) the experienced I/O may guess and often get it wrong.
Add to the equation, certain ADOs in FS posts who would rather be elsewhere and the obnoxious attitude of some I/Os and you're bound to have situations from time to time similar to what's happened to CST.
Colin, you should have run with the legal action. I cant go into details but I dont believe the lesson of this case has been learned. There has been plently of rumour about your case throut the Brigade's FS dept - much of it tainted with propaganda & half truths originating from those attemting to protect their rather bruised egos- but (so far) no official memo circulated which aims at rectifing the errors.
The vast majority of I/Os are well motivated and able individuals, but perhaps are let down by minimal supervision and training. Consider this - Even after Colin's 'situation', PAS 79 remains unavailable on the Brigade intranet so many I/Os aren't even aware of it and certainly wouldn't recognise a PAS 79 FRA if it was presented.
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Dave Bev - I couldn't agree more!!
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Colin, you should have run with the legal action. I cant go into details but I dont believe the lesson of this case has been learned. There has been plently of rumour about your case throut the Brigade's FS dept - much of it tainted with propaganda & half truths originating from those attemting to protect their rather bruised egos- but (so far) no official memo circulated which aims at rectifing the errors.
The vast majority of I/Os are well motivated and able individuals, but perhaps are let down by minimal supervision and training. Consider this - Even after Colin's 'situation', PAS 79 remains unavailable on the Brigade intranet so many I/Os aren't even aware of it and certainly wouldn't recognise a PAS 79 FRA if it was presented.
This so right. this FRS had a court case go against them but still its brushed under the carpet. as i said before untill they keep being sued or there are mass deaths senior management play ostritch an ex GMC does not know what he has let himself in for.
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I didnt know this would create such interest to be honest. I will, however, without hopefully unnecessarily prolonging the subject try to respond to a number of points made. Firstly, while as a result of lack of training, mistakes are certainly made, I think fundamental errors of the type we are discussing would not happen in most FRSs. I think a lot has to do with the way fire safety is managed (?) in the particular FRS.
Davey, With regard to the man (always one to consider the human side, you commies), we offered him free training and the offer was reiterated to the DO, who told us that, while acknowledging it was a genuine offer (which it was), it would be difficult for the FRS to accept. I am unclear as to why, but then I dont really purport to understand FRS ways.
Davey, Yes it was my full intention to frame the cheque, but it was banked before I had a chance. It would have taken pride of place alonside my drum exam passes. (For our large met brigade friends, a drum is a musical instrument, not slang for a house.)
Messey, I have little care for the rumours and half truths. The anecdote I relayed is the troof, the ole troof and nuffin but the troof, guv. You can see the papers if you wish.
Messey, There was no need to run with the legal action, given that the point was accepted by the FRS, who tried to make things right in an honourable way.
Messey, There are far fewer obnoxious I/os than people would claim. They are generally a thing of the past. Equally, the most difficult thing for some of our own ex fire officers to take on board when they join us is that they are NOT the worlds experts on all matters ( only black taxi drivers are that-lest this be thought as a racist comment , black refers to the colour of the cab, not the driver). The thing they have to learn quickly is to know when NOT to give advice. To be fair, most learn this quickly, but one wonders why they were never taught this in the FRS.
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Ex Fire officers whop have worked for us tend to have little understanding of concern for impact. This I think is oner of the most valuable attributes when trying to influence cultural change within an organisation. The bull in a china shop approach has never worked in industry, only in provoking a knee jerk reaction for which is often the one thing you do not want to do.
As Colin says, there a good number of FRS that are well on board with these influencing styles, although I do have to say they are mostly in the North (in my experience).
The whole old school approach of getting people to juump whent hey say originates from the drill ground and training schools that beasted their students to get the result they desired. This does not work in industry and never will and I might add is not the case now in FRS nationwide!!
Enforcement within the FRS over the last decade has by default become the last stop before they unlock the golden handcuffs, however, talk of the RRO and IRMP and the whole thing becomes sexy, but I fear the essentials will become second fidle to this new generation of new dynamic and exciting risk based rollercoaster ride that awaites us.
oh joy..
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colin - to photocopy and display the 'cheque' would have been stooping to depths i dont believe you would seriously have stooped to!
dave bev
Text taken from Dave Bev - sorry could not get this thing to quote!!
Sorry Dave but I would of had the thing on ebay!!!!
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Ditto
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Mr Avon
As a former LFB (F26 Bethnal Green to be precise) turned county man i'm in a position to advise you.
Most of the things you hear about LFB are true to an extent. Dis-interest from the troops, poor equipment on the machines, even dare I say bullying and harrassment of vulnrable prople.
But it's not all bad, LFB has an infrastructure and traditions which are second to no other Brigade in the world in my opinion.
From what you have written, I suspect what you really want (like most of us if we are honest) is action. You want a busy station.
As our collegue stated earlier, LFB has got alot of very, very quiet stations. Biggin hill being the usual scapegote!
Out of the 112 (111) stations they have, there are about five or six busy ones. When I say busy, i mean in terms of FDR1 fires. They are located just south of the river - Brixton, Peckham and in the East end - Bathanal Green, Homerton and upto the buisiest when I transferred - Tottenham. The common theme here is large populations of people from the lower end of the social scale. Avoid anything in the west end unless you have ambitions to be a Fire alarm enginer!
The busiest stations I've mentioned probably receive between 3000 and 4000 calls a year.
If you are moving the Bishops stortford then I would urge you to consider Herts. They have an exelant reputation but again, are not very busy.
Lee
PS You dont mention at which/stage in your career you are. If you are a FF then I cannot recommend LFB. if you are an Officer then I think i probably can.
i'm the former Mr Avon/guest28, finally got around to registering
Thanks for the input.
Ive heard good things about Herts but the main disadvatages are that the closest stations to me are B.Stortford(day crewing) and Hertford (sleepy hollow) after that im looking at anything from a 20m - 50m drive.
iv worked for a shire brigade before joining Avon and the lack of activity at most stations was demoralising-we all like to use our skill dont we??
My present station handles about 4,000 on patch shouts ( yes lots of alarms ) and its a friendly enough brigade so think ill just have to accept a step down in *some* respects? and follow the london weighting ;-).
Oh and yeah im a FF.
thanks everyone else for the ifno.
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Buff
Is it true, or perhaps folklore, that you have a station in Bristol doing about 4000 calls - with THREE(yes 3) w/t pumps and 2 or 3 specials? with about 25 blokes on the watch? and a CFO who following his IRMP asked the FA for more w/t ff's?
If this is true, then I would not dream of leaving - you stay put buddy!
good luck
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Buff
Is it true, or perhaps folklore, that you have a station in Bristol doing about 4000 calls - with THREE(yes 3) w/t pumps and 2 or 3 specials? with about 25 blokes on the watch? and a CFO who following his IRMP asked the FA for more w/t ff's?
If this is true, then I would not dream of leaving - you stay put buddy!
good luck
yeah well we have a couple of stations in Bristol doing around 4000+ calls and even a great 1 pumper that takes about 2,500+ calls
My station Temple Back does around 4000+ shouts and yes its 3 w/t pumps, the 3rd is known as "the **** cart" for obvious reasons. there is also 1 turntable ladder, 1 emergency tender (the only 1 in the city) and a Vertical line rescue unit. there are 24 on each watch inc 1 rider SO, 2 subs, 3 LFF.
its a fantastic station ground too covering the deprived inner city areas such as Barton hill , St pauls and Easton as well as the whole city centre inc docks and large residential areas and large industrial areas its also the only city in europe with a major climbing venue within the city boundry hence the rope rescue.
so yeah id love to stay where i am which is why im doing a 140mile commute but at some point i have to transfer.
oh yeah almost forgot . yeah i did hear something along the lines of our chief finding that he would actually require MORE stations and FFS lol.
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I'd get divorced before I transferred if I were you!
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I'd get divorced before I transferred if I were you!
yep its been discused lol
anyway london aint that bad is it ?? which brigade/station are you serving in now?