Wholetime retained - risk assessment

[Pip]

'If all retained firefighters followed the working time directive to the letter Im afraid to say that there wouldn't be a retained fire service!'

or probably a wholetime one either!
I am not sure, but as emergency workers, if we have opted out of the WTD, are we therefore not exempt from the rules?I only stopped WT /retained 2 years ago, and my brigade set no limits on my hours, just to manage it myself to be fit for duty-but if I had been up all night with my retained hat on, they would not penalise me if I said I could not turn in on my wholetime duty the next day.The brigade accepted this as it was keen to get more RT and WT Retained firefighters.When I was 42 hour  WT, and called out during those hours, the service still paid me my retained rate-effectively the brigade was paying me twice for the same time-but crucially-different roles.The brigade manages the retained crews by organising reliefs-doesn't work perfectly but it is few and far between.Again the brigade was happy to do this .
It is no different now when I do FDS- a 78 hour week.If I have been up all night on a call out then I just book myself unavailable for the next day-regardless of my daytime work commitments- and have done on a few occaisions.I would suggest that it is not a real problem(in my experience) in general, but of course that is not to say that there are not many busy retained stations.The system is not perfect, but acceptable-and is not viable to do it any other way without huge increase in cost(which the government will not allow) or recruiting more people(and they are not exactly applying in droves).
I think it will either take a court case or a change in the governments view to see any changes.

[Firewolf]

Absolutely right pip.

The retained service is suffering an all time low in recruitment primarily as rural locations where many retained sations are located have such high house prices.

But anyway...back to the heart of this debate... This is really the old chestnut about a man / woman being free to do what they want in their own time. For instance there isn't anything stopping me from going clubbing till 3 .00am on a week night and turning up to work the next day.

Clearly if my work suffered as a result my employers would have something to say but thats a seperate issue. The fact remains that theres nothing in law to stop me from going clubbing or stopping awake all night doing a jig saw puzzle so why should it be any different for me deciding to do retained duty?

Ok doing a jigsaw puzzle is less physically straining but i think you get my point!

[Mike Buckley]

Pip you are right. The Fire Service is outside the scope of the essential parts of the Working Time Regs. Regualtion 18 says that the some of the regulations do not apply to certain specific services, ie civil protection services that inevitably conflict with the provision of the Regulations.
Specifically this exempts these services from the 48 hr week, the limit of 8 hours for a night shift, the limit of 8 hours for heavy or specially hazardous work. The need for regular health assessments for night work, the need for the employer to move the person if the night work is producing specific health problems. The need to provide rest breaks, the need for a daily rest of not less than 11 hours, uninterupted rest of 24 hours during the week etc.
So a retained firefighter would be subject to the Working Time Regulations whilst they are doing their normal job but as soon as they go on a callout the WTR goes out of the window. I am sure that someone could argue that the same would happen for retained drill nights.

[lucky]

If you opt out of the working time directive you have to be carefull your employer doesnt use this against you,also as a retained firefighter you only put in what hours you can,say a brigade needs cover from 18.00 until 06.00 then you can put in to do 12 hours or part of the shift,the only thing you have to remember is to switch off your pager when you have done your hours,you will find your family will frown upon you if you forget as it will activate and you wont ignore it,the retained firefighters do an excellent job as well as the full timers and I am sure local comunities do appreciate them.

[Andy Cole]

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there Lucky, it's all very well booking off retained duty but if you don't switch your alerter off and it goes off it's very difficult to ignore it, regardless of time of day or night, I haven't ever been able to! I don't think there is any dispute that we (by which I mean the retained) do a valuable job which is appreciated by the community,a representation of this is that my station takes a Father Christmas float out some evenings in December to collect for the Ben Fund, this year we raised almost £2500 in my small town!!

Pip,
Booking off duty form a day shift (whatever that may be doing) having spent all night with your Retained cap on is all well and good if it's an option you have, unfortunately for many retainers it just isn't!! I'm sure I wouldn't have a day job for very long if I rang in 1st thing in the morning to say I wasn't coming into work because I'd been up all night too many times especially when I rely on that same employer to allow me to just drop everything and run every time my alerter goes off in 'his' time!!

[lucky]

Well said Andy I certainly couldnt stay off work if I have been out on shouts for most of the night,which is why I book off at 5 in the morning instead of 6,If I book off at 6 I could be late for work,while my employers gave permission for me to be retained they make it clear it ust not interfere with my day duties.Well done on the Christmas collection..

[Pip]

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there Lucky, it's all very well booking off retained duty but if you don't switch your alerter off and it goes off it's very difficult to ignore it, regardless of time of day or night, I haven't ever been able to! I don't think there is any dispute that we (by which I mean the retained) do a valuable job which is appreciated by the community,a representation of this is that my station takes a Father Christmas float out some evenings in December to collect for the Ben Fund, this year we raised almost £2500 in my small town!!

Pip,
Booking off duty form a day shift (whatever that may be doing) having spent all night with your Retained cap on is all well and good if it's an option you have, unfortunately for many retainers it just isn't!! I'm sure I wouldn't have a day job for very long if I rang in 1st thing in the morning to say I wasn't coming into work because I'd been up all night too many times especially when I rely on that same employer to allow me to just drop everything and run every time my alerter goes off in 'his' time!!

Yes, I appreciate that a soley retained firefighter does not easily have that option-which means that it is more important that you consider how long you are out at night etc.The i/c should be prompting for reliefs-There is no reason why a R/T FF should be out all night-it just requires good management, from the persomnnel involved, control and service policyHowever that is not too say there are not difficulties in achieving this.If you are up all night-how safe are you to operate vehicles etc the next day?These are all akward questions that have yet to be addressed, but they can no longer be swept under the carpet.A few years ago there was a successful prosecution ( and jail time) against a driver who fell asleep and caused a train crash-different circumstances of why he was tired-but the risk was the same.How long before it happens to a retained member?
I can remember many times when I was at home looking after my children and being frustrated I could not respond when my alerter went off-I decided to switch it off during those times-it made it a bit easier to quell the frustration.
Please dont think I am retained bashing-having done it myself and working in a rural brigade I know how committed people are-but I think that is taken advantage of and little has been done in the past to rectify this.For a number of reasons there will have to be changes in the way the retained service is operated (long hours,poor/limited recruitment)-too much overstretching of limited resources will not be able to  continue-already stations are being closed and alternative crewing are options being taken up.