Control Care Campaign

This Conference wholly condemns the proposals by the ODPM to create 9 Regional Emergency Fire Controls in England and the proposals from the Scottish Executive to move from 8 Emergency Fire Control rooms to 3 (or possibly 1) in Scotland. This will result in the loss of approximately 900 staff, the majority of which are women. Conference recognises the key role Firefighters (Control) undertake in saving life and protecting property and ensuring Firefighters safety at incidents. We further recognise that the regionalisation of Emergency Fire Control rooms affects all our members and our communities. Conference is concerned that any detrimental changes to mobilising procedures and reductions in staff will result in delays in attendance to emergency incidents, allowing incidents to develop, impacting on the safety of personnel attending incidents and the general public possibly resulting in the deaths of either or both. We further condemn the 'cloak & dagger' secrecy within the ODPM regarding the proposed future sites of the 9 Regional Emergency Fire Control rooms in England. Conference acknowledges that the ODPM informed the Chairs of the Regional Management Boards of the proposed venues on the 18th March 2005 and immediately forced the Chairs to maintain their secrecy. Conference believes that the ODPM's Outline Business Case is factually flawed and leaves many questions unanswered, including: 1) Failure to assess any of the impacts on lives, injuries and property of changes to the current emergency fire control arrangements. 2) Failure to assess a whole range of costs associated with migration to the new system including withdrawal from existing systems and very expensive PFI arrangements and any additional costs to the police and ambulance services linking up with new regional control centres. 3) Failure to quantify all work carried out under the current arrangements and its impact on operational responses. For example the flow of crucial information on the constantly changing status of stations, the numbers on duty and local details of road closures or traffic delays, Conference re-states its firm belief that the most effective provision of fire cover can only be achieved through the maintenance of the current Fire & Rescue Service Emergency Fire Control rooms. Conference recognises that the only way savings can be made by regionalising Emergency Fire Control rooms is by reducing staff. Conference understands this means sacking hundreds of our highly skilled members who currently work in Emergency Fire Control rooms. Therefore, Conference resolves to: 1. Maintain the current political campaign against the regionalisation of Fire Control rooms. 2. Step up the industrial campaign within the membership against the regionalisation of Fire Control rooms. 3. Protect the jobs of our Emergency Fire Control staff by all means possible,including, if necessary, a ballot for industrial action.