The catalogue of failures of the alleged state-of-the-art mobilising system in Essex fire control continues to grow. Amid the nine-day strike of professional 999 control staff, three separate incidents have been reported highlighting the on-going failures of the new IT system to get the correct engines to respond without delay to the correct emergency incidents.
In Basildon it took over an hour for an engine to be mobilised to a woman who was trapped in a lift. In Colchester a fire engine from further away was mobilised to an emergency and so took much longer to arrive.
Most worryingly when a 999 call was received for a house fire in Orsett, the mobilising commands from the new control room to the fire station were not received. This substantially delayed the emergency response and is further evidence of the failing IT system.
Riccardo la Torre, chair of the FBU in Essex, said: “These most recent incidents come on top of the hundreds of problems reported previously and are further proof that this IT system is not fit for purpose. It was simply rushed in before it had been proven to work and public safety is being put at risk as a result.
“Trying to blame the professional control operators for the problems simply won’t wash. They were on strike and so nowhere near the IT. Everyone on the frontline knows the dangerous reality but senior managers are still crossing their fingers whilst trying to blame ‘user error’ and peddling their public message of ‘only a few teething problems’.
The on-going technical shambles is in addition to the on-going dispute over the untenable and unnecessary shift system imposed on the professional control staff.
Alan Chinn-Shaw, secretary of the FBU in Essex, said: “Public support has been tremendous with social media inundated with messages wishing ‘Happy Mothers Day’ to the control staff who will still be on strike this Sunday. Essex Fire and Rescue Service need to come back around the table. There are cost neutral alternatives which would go a long way toward resolving this dispute.”
The account below was provided to the FBU by one of the professional control operators before the latest failures occurred:
“I’ve got enough experience in my job to know that the new mobilising system is not fit for purpose, the system was promised by senior managers to cut down on work by around 30% (one of the reasons for the job losses) all I’ve seen so far is the workload and stresses on staff increase by over 30%.
“I’ve seen the ‘state of the art’ computer system work so slow that the operator has to write down the information on a note pad and input details later when the computer finally catches up – it’s so unreliable that any information we put in is double checked and scrutinised before being able to mobilise any appliances with confidence.
“Control is made up of a group of professional, hardworking, knowledgeable and experienced people who are keeping things together through their sheer determination and dedication under extremely difficult circumstances, the system has proved it is incapable of working properly from day one and we have seen little signs of improvement to date.”
