Pensions - Take 2 minutes to lobby your MP now

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Surrey Cuts

03/06/2011

31/01/2011

BBC News Article - FBU claims public 'misled' on fire response times - Click Here

Removing fire cover when it’s most needed

Does that make sense to you?

Between 2004 and 2009,

70% of all dwelling fire rescues have been at night

Surrey County Council are proposing reducing the number of fire engines available at night from 33 to 21.

The remaining fire engines will have to cover much larger areas which will cause their response times to be much slower.

Public consultation over these illogical and dangerous cuts ends on the 4^th March.

Have your say before it’s too late by completing the survey below;

http://www.fbusurrey.co.uk/html/survey.html

Data supplied by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service. Night is defined as 7pm to 7am

26/01/2011

Web Petitions

Surrey Fire Cuts - Click Here

FBU Petition - Click Here

19/01/2011

Surrey County Council Propose one of the Slowest Emergency Response Times Standards in the UK

and if that’s not bad enough it's also misleading the public.

The summary documentation which has been released to the public states;

“We aim to have one fire engine at these critical incidents within 10 minutes and a second one within 15 minutes on 80% of occasions.”

But it makes no mention of when that time is measured from.

Nationally Emergency Response Times are measured from the time a call for assistance from a member of the public is received, to when a fire engine has arrived at the incident.

Surrey’s proposed standard does not start the clock until the fire engine has been mobilised. This makes a considerable difference.

The average time taken from Time of Call to an appliance booking mobile is;

Whole-time Fire Engine  3 minutes and 17 seconds

Retained Duty Fire Engine 6 minutes and 25 seconds

Source Surrey Fire & Rescue Service Performance Data Report November 2009.

Surrey County Council are proposing that the first fire engine should be in attendance within 10 minutes to comply with the standard but in reality the real time could be as much as 16 minutes and 25 seconds and still comply.

This is over double the current standards response time.

We have challenged this misleading emergency Response Standard but there are no plans to come clean and include the call handling and mobilising time in the standard. Since we have already brought this to the attention of the council and they have not made any changes to the proposed standard or clarified the detail with the public we conclude that the standard is designed to be deliberately misleading.

A Response Standard should measure the time taken to respond with a fire engine to a call from the public and not from when the fire engine leaves the fire station; if that measurement of time had a name it would be a Drive Time Standard.

We urge Surrey County Council to stop misleading the public who cannot see the vitally important difference highlighted above from the documentation available in the public domain.

12/01/2011

Camberley crews respond to draft PSP - Click Here

The proposed plans to change the level of fire and emergency cover in Surrey have the potential to affect all residents, businesses and those who travel in Surrey. Don't miss this opportunity to have your say on these proposals. Your life or livelihood could depend on it.

http://www.fbusurrey.co.uk/html/survey.html

Surrey Comet article - Click Here

Alternative consultation on the PSP - Click Here

Every second counts - A short video - Click Here

Why the Fire Brigades’ Union [Surrey] opposes the savage cuts proposed in the Surrey County Council Public Safety Plan - Click Here