Local government

The Fire Brigades Union is demanding proper public consultation over plans to axe Cumbria’s fire service command and control centre and move the work to Cheshire. It says the county council never costed alternative and, failed to apply for a £1.8 million grant to upgrade Cumbria’s control. The union...

The Fire Brigades Union has challenged Cumbria County Councillor Gavin Strong’s claims there was a “long and hard” debate before a decision was made to axe the county’s fire control centre. The union says full public consultation did not happen, there has been no debate by the full fire authority...

A new report warns that plans to privatise London Fire Brigade training and the fire control centre would compromise safety whilst imposing new high financial risks on the capital’s fire service. The European Services Strategy Unit, jointly commissioned by the FBU, GMB and UNISON, has released its...

FBU regional secretary Ricky Matthews said: “Those who work in Buckinghamshire fire service command and control centre have been told their work is to be outsourced to Cambridgeshire with the loss of 20 posts. It is very unhelpful that this was communicated to many of them by letters delivered to...

The Fire Brigades Union has warned that the lessons of the FiReControl project have not been learned and the same mistakes are being repeated on a local level by the current government. The union welcomed the Public Accounts Committee report on the failure of the FiReControl project, but warned that...

East Sussex Fire and Rescue management have stated that following a recent incident, whereby a member of the public suffered injuries as a result of a fire, that they ‘ do not intend as a result of this incident to make any changes to the Service call challenge procedures’. The FBU are shocked that...