UK – Firefighters cut by 1,146

Firefighters cut by 1,346 while fire safety audits down 14% – figures published last week have revealed. The number of firefighters (FTE) fell by 1,346, from 34,395 to 33,049, in the year to March 2017 a reduction of 4%.
The number of fire and rescue support staff saw a 10% decrease, from 7,952 to 7,132

The number of fire safety audits of buildings is down by 14% compared to the previous year.

Wera Hobhouse MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Communities and Local Government, commented:
“These figures show fire services across the country are being cut to the bone. Firefighters do an incredible job, but are increasingly finding themselves overstretched and under-resourced. The government must reverse these cuts and give fire services the resources to keep our communities safe.

As the Grenfell Tower tragedy showed, we urgently need to invest more in fire prevention. Fire services need more staff so they can carry out vital safety checks and ensure buildings are safe.”

More information
In total 40,180 staff (FTE) were employed by Fire and Rescue Services on 31 March 2017. This was a 5% decrease compared with the previous year (42,347 in 2016).

33,049 staff (FTE) were employed as firefighters on 31 March 2017. This was a 4% decrease compared with the previous year.

7,131 (FTE) were employed fire control or support staff, a 10% decrease compared with the previous year
See figures on fire prevention and fire safety audits here

Fire safety audits are carried out by Fire And Rescue Authorities to check that premises are being properly managed regarding fire safety.

Fire and Rescue Authorities carried out 54,247 fire safety audits in 2016/17, 14% fewer than in 2015/16 (63,201)

In 2015/16 the highest proportion of fire safety audits were carried out on shop premises (20% or 10,880), followed by care homes (14% or 7,391) and licensed premises (13% or 6,867).

17,000 (32%) of fire safety audits were deemed unsatisfactory. This led to 369 enforcement notices, 527 prohibition notices, 61 alteration notices and 68 prosecutions

Reporting Back – Bury Council’s Cabinet

Last month was the regular meeting of Bury Council’s Cabinet. This is the meeting of the eight Cabinet members from the ruling Labour Group,  also attended by the two opposition Leaders on the Council – though Labour changed the rules so we couldn’t vote at the meeting earlier in the year.

Councillor Tim Pickstone reports:

The full papers for the meeting are here, the main items which may be of interest to residents included:

Business Rates Discretionary Relief
You may recall a lot of discussion earlier in the year about a review of business rateable values which meant that many businesses were facing increases in Business Rates. The Government announced a relief scheme for small businesses in the March 2017 budget, which is up to local Councils to administer.
Bury will be paying relief to smaller companies with rateable values of less than £100,000. In 2017-18 this will be 60% of any increase in rates, which will be given to people automatically without any need to apply. There are similar but smaller levels of relief in the subsequent three years.

New Neighbourhood Engagement Plan – Implementation
People may (or may not!) have noticed that the Council very quietly abolished ‘Township Forums’ earlier this year. For us this was the Prestwich Township Form which met about four times a year at the Longfield where members of the public could come along and take part in discussions about the local area.
What replaces Township Forums is still being brought into place. As we understand this uses three ways of working:
– online engagement – using a new ‘online tool’ that the Council has paid for. (I asked at the meeting how confident we were that we were going to get members of the public to use a ‘Bury Council’ online tool, rather than the ones we’re all very familiar with to talk about local issues (like Facebook). I remain to be convinced that a Council can do this, but happy to be proved wrong…)
– meetings – ONE a year at a ‘Township’ level – so there is a meeting in Prestwich in November, and meetings at a ‘Ward’ level – no details yet.
– funding for community groups which are allocated either at a public meeting (two across Bury) called ‘The Pitch’, or a small budget to be given for ward councillors to allocate (with very clear rules on what this can be used for). For our area (Holyrood Ward) the three Councillors will work together on a single scheme, and we would want to make sure there was a fair and open process that everyone can see.
Some significant changes in this area of work, and early days to see if it will be an improvement on the Township Forum process.

New Homes to be built in Radcliffe
This item was restricted from the public because of commercial information so I can’t talk about any details, but the basics are have been made public by the Council.Essentially this is the Council building Eight two-bed homes on two current unused ‘garage sites’ in Radcliffe which are owned by the Council.
The properties would be for shared ownership, where a resident buys a share of the property and pays rent on the proportion they don’t own. They can then buy further shares in the property in the future. Our view is that Council’s should play a significant role in making sure that there are homes that people can actually afford to live in. If anything, Bury has been very slow to do this, and 8 new houses is not going to solve very much on its own. We would urge the Council to be more ambitious. Perhaps a better use of its money than buying commercial property outside of Bury…..

Any questions on any of the above – please ask! tim@burylibdems.net