Cuts

The Fire Brigades Union has urged the government to change course after chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to cutting billions of pounds from the welfare budget in her Spring Statement on 26 March. The welfare cuts, which will amount to around £5 billion, are largely targeted at disability benefit...

The cover story of this edition of Firefighter will be familiar to many FBU members. In many areas, it is no longer guaranteed that there will be enough firefighters on a fire engine to safely tackle an incident. As we report in this issue, firefighters attending incidents as part of a crew of four...

Firefighters in Staffordshire have launched a public petition in the fight back against a dangerous policy allowing retained firefighters to attend incidents as a team of three. The service has pushed ahead with the policy despite 130 firefighters involved in the trial signing a letter in opposition...

Fire and rescue services in England face a real term cut to central government funding, with a below inflation increase of 1.4% this year. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government publishes the amount of funding local authorities receive annually, which includes funds for fire and...

In the week following the removal of one of the 24-hour crewed fire engines at Poole in Dorset, retained firefighters at the station were called out to 15 incidents – five times the number predicted by the service. Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service removed Poole’s second wholetime...