To: All Members

Southern Region

11th October 2005

Dear Brother/Sister

Members Update

The announcement of the single site for a control room to protect the entire southern part of England covering an area of 7,411 square miles and with a population of 9 million defies logic.

The Government would have us believe that by reducing the number of controls and the number of staff handling an ever increasing number of emergency calls is good for us and good for the public.

On that logic the conclusion must be a single control for Emergency Services UK Ltd. A single combined emergency service control covering Fire, Police, Ambulance Services, Coast Guard, Mines and Mountain Rescue.

Why keep it in the UK? Economic pressures would then dictate it moves for ‘efficiency savings’ to another part of the world. Fanciful? I don’t believe so. The former Director of the Brigade Command Course Morton in Marsh had just such ideas 8 years ago. This is simply those ideas being put into practice.

This is the second step into the regionalisation of the Fire Service itself. We saw the eight brigades in Wales merged into three and we now see the forced merging of controls.

The next step will be the firming up of regional partnerships through purchasing etc via the regional management boards.

The latter stages would see the merging of fire brigades using the line that we work closely on a,b,c anyway so it logical and would be more efficient. For that read fewer stations, fewer firefighters and a greater reliance on ‘intelligent’ technology. One can see a flow to this process but I wouldn’t call it logical. The path may be logical but the outcome certainly isn’t.

Charles Clarke has announced that the Police need to merge to be more efficient. Why is it that when they need further resources they receive them as do the health service? Well sections of the health service anyway.

The ambulance service remains under funded. Opportunity in the waiting for further mergers and ‘partnerships’?

The reality is that this fight against the forced mergers of fire service control which will affect FBU members as well as the public is a fight for each and every one of us.

The proposed implementation of 2008 leaves little time to build upon our campaign but build we must. A firefighter on Red Watch is as much affected by these proposals as a control operator on Blue Watch. A Watch Commander on White Watch is just as at risk as a firefighter on Green and a day staff officer is just as in danger from these proposals as a crew commander on day crewing stations or those working the retained duty system.

We face a time of opportunity to expand our skills and ability to respond to new challenges, some of which we welcome, and some of which have been forced upon us. We will always meet these challenges as we always have but we cannot isolate members and allow them to be picked off. The fight against controls is a fight for us all.

WE are the professional voice of the fire service because WE, FBU members, are the skilled workers in the fire service.

The proposed control for Hampshire will have to cover 9 counties which in turn boarder 9 other counties. And what of the size of the region?

• 9,000,000 residents which increases greatly in our coastal towns and other places which attract large numbers of visitors.
  
• An area of 7,411 square miles
  
• 348 miles of coastline containing 71 ports, the busiest sea lanes in the world and Eurotunnel.
  
• A region with 978,440 children aged under 10 and with 1,694,625 people aged 60 and over.
  
• A dozen Motorways and the busiest road network and user numbers in the UK

(These are not FBU statistics they are the Governments own from the statistics office data for 2001/2)

And what of the cost? This Government’s financial policy, driven by Gordon ‘prudence’ Brown is anything but prudent.

The set up costs of the new control rooms is, according to the Government, £2 BILLION. Despite the fact that Jim Fitzpatrick has publicly stated this on more than one occasion he is now saying he didn’t. Fortunately radio interviews are recorded. The cost is indeed £2 Billion to get the new controls up and running. The savings the Government say they may make by regionalising controls is up to £20 million a year.

It will take 100 years to recoup the start up costs for the new controls

Some fire authority members in Hampshire have today expressed relief that the proposed control would be in their county. This is not though good news for the residents of Hampshire. How does the Government justify to a family in Hampshire that their call, to regional control sited within Hampshire, was delayed because the ‘local’ control was in fact dealing with multiple calls to flooding in Milton Keynes or repeated call to a train collision in Kent?

This is a fight for each and every one of us no matter where we serve, live or work.

The truth is Regional controls assist no one, will reduce the service the public receives and will waste billions of pounds.

And the final insult is that the Government proposals will not, even after wasting those billions of pounds, save a single additional life. In fact it will cost them.

Dean Mills
Executive Council Member