National appliance availability standards

In the past Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) were required to meet standards for response times, known as standards of firecover and these were subsequently abolished. In recent years FRSs throughout the country have seen a steady decrease in appliance availability, particularly in rural areas who are largely reliant on on-call RDS staff. This has undoubtedly resulted in potentially preventable fire deaths and firefighters being put at higher risk.

This resolution would seek to stop this and introduce accountability at the highest level to what Conference believes to be our most important job, that of keeping our firefighters and communities safe by providing an adequate emergency response when needed.

Conference instructs the Executive Council (EC) to investigate the introduction of a nationally agreed formal appliance availability measuring and recording mechanism. This will allow FRSs to Benchmark their performance, with a formal record of this. Measuring performance will enable FRSs to plan for improvement and measure the success (or otherwise) of their emergency response and availability strategy.

Conference instructs the EC to develop this mechanism through negotiation with our employers.