Mixed Crewing

Conference notes that the Joint Secretaries Position Statement of the 20th October 2003 states in paragraph7 1 "Paragraph 3.3 of the Fire Service Pay and Conditions Agreement 2003 made it clear thatwhole-time and part-time employees on the shift, day crewing and day duties system should be free to undertake retained duties where appropriate. With effect from 7th November 2003 there is no barrier to any employee working on a combination of different whole-time, part-time and retained duty systems at the same or different places of work or to employees working on different duty systems making up the crew of the same appliance. The arrangements for the application of this agreement should be the subject of consultation between the fire authority and recognised trade unions." Conference instructs all Fire Brigades Union Officials to ensure that before any agreements are reached between fire authorities and the Fire Brigades Union that the following criteria are met: 1 All members of any crew must be either in the development or competent phase of their role. 2. Mixed crewing will not be carried out to supplement whole-time stations or crews when the approved watch/station strength has not been achieved. 3. All competencies must be demonstrated and auditable within IPDS. 4. At no time shall agreement be reached when any mixing of differing duty system personnel would mean an extended turn out time of a fire appliance or specialist appliance. 5. At no time shall agreement be reached when the crewing of an appliance by personnel on differing duty systems would allow the reduction of current (2003) establishment levels