National attendance times

Conference is deeply concerned that attendance times throughout the UK are getting worse. Fire appliances are taking longer to get to incidents now than a decade ago. The removal of national emergency attendance times has negatively impacted on the time it takes a fire engine to attend an incident.

The worsening of attendance times may have contributed to an increase in fire losses and an increase in deaths of both the public and firefighters. This is an enormous concern for members of the public who rightly expect that when they make the call for help, it will come quickly.

People want to be sure that when they dial 999 they get fire appliances and firefighters there as quickly as possible, therefore, Conference instructs the Executive Council to commence a coordinated campaign to lobby all Fire and Rescue Services and all UK governments to;

• recognise the importance of attendance times and the impact on public and firefighter safety

• end the postcode lottery of local standards

• adopt a new national attendance time standard for the Fire and Rescue Service throughout the UK.