Relative costs of wholetime versus retained crewed appliances

[kurnal]

In the good old days before George Bain and Prescott there was a rule of thumb formula for the comparative costs of wholetime vs retained crewed pumps. If I recall there was a factor of about 10:1 in cost terms alone though of course there are obvious other benefits of an appliance available 24/7.

Is there any such rule of thumb formula today since the RDS hourly payments have theoretically been brought into line with the wholetime (though obviously for less hours per week) and other additional employment related costs have been applied?

[Midland Retty]

Most RDS stations are now on salary schemes rather than being paid per call. This has meant quieter retained stations dealing with fewer calls are now much better off, but on the other side of the coin the busier RDS stations where the retained could earn good money are now losing out. So it's swings and roundabouts in terms of expenditure for the Brigade.

Currently a wholetime firefighter (Competent) earns £12.72 per hour

To give you some idea we Retties used to be on the the same hourly rate as our Wholetime colleagues on the pay per call scheme, but on salary it works out roughly that you get one hour's pay for 12 hours of cover (if doing 100 or more hours of cover per week) I dont know if that helps you at all Prof

[kurnal]

Thanks Retty. Is this salary scheme taking off nationally or just pockets of it?
I presume the salary scheme still gives you turnout and attendance fees and the salary is in place of the retaining fee? Is it pensionable?

[Midland Retty]

Hi Prof

I believe that most brigades are atleast looking into the salary scheme. I'm not sure how far and wide it has actually been implemented.

Turnouts and attendances (atleast in our brigade ) have now been scrapped - you get a fixed salary  regardless of the amount of calls you respond to. This has advantages and disadvantages.

As you will be aware you have a maximum crewing of 6 on a retained pump. At times there are more than 6 firefighters available to be on call - Lets say 8 are available - they all respond on pager and compete to ride the pump with the obligatory chaos that goes along with that!

Often those who live farthest away from station dont get to ride the pump. One chap on our watch almost never got to ride. This had obvious implications in terms of his competency and the level of experience he gained.

Under the salary scheme that doesn't happen now . The OIC rosters a crew of 6 and any spare riders do not respond but still get paid their salary. It means retties get a bit more time off, that you havent got Retties competing to try and get their backsides on the pump, Retties aren't racing simply to get to station first and everyone gets a chance to ride the pump.

On the pay per call scheme if you had a quiet month you got practically nothing in your pay packet, with the salary scheme however you get paid the same during a quiet month or busy month.

The salary is pensionable (if the Retty has opted into the pension scheme)

Positive hours are available for certain activities - i.e community fire safety activities / HFSCs / School Visits / Student Firefighter Schemes and for protracted incidents etc

Station cleaning and equipment routines and drill nights are included within the salary and aren't available as positive hours.

[kurnal]

So if I am a retty and providing more than 12 hour cover - lets say 24 hour cover I can expect to receive a salary of about £168 per week. Is there any limit to the number of hours graft I might be expected to do?

My dear old retties were always good for graft and never used to complain about long periods without relief- is that open to abuse?

Thinking back to 1976 and similar spate times when even our retained stations were getting tens of calls per day for several weeks, I think we wholetimers were on a 48 hour week then and I remember doing 40 plus hours overtime one week on the green goddesses.

[Midland Retty]

There is no limit to the hours graft you're expected to do, and in our brigade there are no reliefs.
That said of course at a protracted incident any good commander will realise when his crews are too tired and need to be replaced.

In the bad old days Im sorry to say that some crews used to "draw out" the time they were at incidents to obviously get more money. Thankfully this practice no longer continues - flexi duty officers often attend shouts and keep an eye on what is going on, and of course the salary scheme irradicates this problem anyway.

The brigade are proactive and always try to ensure that it's retties are released from protracted incidents to attend to their full time job commitments . Not always possible of course, but they do try. So the goodwill works both ways.

As you know you do get some Retties who give the rest a bad name. Some constantly whitter on and moan about the job, some pose with badges all over their cars declaring theyr'e on call, or drive to station like Nigel Mansell when their pagers go off etc, fortunately for the most part the Retties I've worked with are responsible,  committed to their jobs and professional.

Many Retties are now getting much better training commeasurate with their wholetime counterparts (allbeit over a longer period of time) long gone are the days where Retty's had did 4 days training
and we permitted to ride on a pump!

Anyway Prof I heard that when you began your long illustrious career in the Fire Service Green Goddesses hadn't even been invented, that horse drawn appliances were common place, and Colin Todd was only 55

 

[Cut Fire Service Pay]

Seems that Retained stations are becoming fewer and fewer, they seem to find it very hard to keep the pumps on the run (particulary on a Friday and Saturday night). Most brigades now seem to accept that having pumps off the run is fine!

Years ago there was a stack of men and women wanting to join the retained. Now its less than a trickle! When I joined there were 15 of us looking to fill two jobs! Now stations have empty pegs and no Ffs at all. This is nothing to do with they way we work, my old station was badly run by rubbish 'managers' in fact the whole brigade was!

Morale is lower than a sewer and new Ffs stay less than a few months when face with IPDS, role maps, ADCs, rank to role, competency based frameworks and endless 'community' fire safety.

The rank to role rubbish was the final straw for me and I binned wholetime and retained, it was the best thing I ever did!
Having worked in the service for 8 years I have never looked back.

Its about time we cut more fire service jobs and all of the 'managers' that go with it!

[Cut Fire Service Pay]

Lets have another review and have a new system called "ROLE TO DOLE!"