Retained recruitment

[Salty]

Hi,
I'm thinking about applying to Staffordshire Fire and Rescue as a retained firefighter as they are not recruiting wholetime and given how long wholetime recruitment can take I thought that I would at least be able to offer a years retained service before, if successful in wholetime recruitment, I'd have to leave. However, I don't know if there is any kind of minimum service I must do before being allowed to apply of a wholetime position and leave the retained role. I'm aware that if you apply wholetime you can't apply for another wholetime position in a different brigade within a 3 month period but don't know how this works for retained. Does anyone know anything about this?

I'm not trying to use the retained system as any sort of short cut to wholetime. I simply want the experience and to get involved in the fire service as soon as possible but I don't want it to prevent me from applying wholetime during the next recruitment campaign.

Sorry for my ignorance about this and thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[xan]

it should make no odds.apply for the retained,get in,apply for wholetime as soon as you can.do staffs not allow wholetime retained?in theory the recruitment process should be the same for WDS and RDS,and you should be able to apply for any wholetime post when they become vacant,without going through a recruitment process again.in practice,don't think there are many(any?) brigades that are that far down the road yet.

[Andy Cole]

The only draw back is even getting into the retained can be a very drawn out process, it's just taken our two new recruits a year plus to be on the run!