28 September 2007
A district-based fire and rescue service will be rolled out in the New Year to strengthen links with local communities and improve internal management and communication.
“The New Year will be a new beginning for West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service; a time for building on our successes and investing in the future,” explained Councillor Philip Booth.
The Chair of West Yorkshire’s fire and rescue authority said that a skeleton district-based structure for managing stations and community fire safety teams had been introduced in January but had already proved popular with staff and partner agencies such as the district councils and Police.
“We work on a daily basis with a considerable range of organisations and voluntary groups across the county,” said Councillor Booth. “We are devolving more power to the local managers who are our ambassadors at the grass roots, and who know their areas, staff and stations best.”
It is intended that from 1 January 2008 the five district managers covering Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Wakefield and Calderdale will be supported by dedicated teams responsible for:
operational performance
training
managing community fire safety and multi-agency projects
staff development and operational health and safety.
Deputy Chief Fire Officer Simon Pilling said that the district structure considerably improved interaction and participation with local communities and operational readiness and response.
“Our district managers have become a focus for communication and performance management, but require additional support to continue these improvements.”
Mr. Pilling said that a raft of opportunities were now emerging for the fire and rescue service to influence, and contribute to, local partnerships aimed at improving the welfare and life chances of vulnerable groups such as the frail and elderly. “These are the very people who are also at highest risk from fire so we have a moral duty to work alongside other organisations and put our resources where they can do most good.”
The new district posts will largely be filled by existing staff, or by people on fixed-term contracts.
The trades unions have given their backing to the plan.
The brigade’s Director of Human Resources, Assistant Chief Fire Officer Allan Hughes, explained that the New Year would also herald fundamental changes in his department.
“Over recent years our training and personnel staff have played a pivotal role in helping to modernise West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service but now much of that work is embedded and we must prepare to meet new challenges.”
Mr. Hughes said that extra support would be found to improve:
the training and development of retained firefighters
general career development
technical back-up for operational crews
e-learning.
“The success of our community fire work and the impending retirement of a significant number of experienced officers also compels us to give priority to incident command training and assessment.
“The authority has invested in some state-of-the-art incident simulation software to test and update critical command skills so we need the staff to make sure we get the best value from it.”
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