16/02/10

Net Total Expenditure from 2004 to 2009 - Click Here

Expenditure for Fire Fighting and Rescue Operations from 2004 to 2009 - Click Here

14/02/10

Overwhelming support for challenge to service - Click Here

01/02/10

Consultative Ballot

You should by now all have received the Consultative Ballot paper to your home address which asks you to return your vote for the Composite Resolution. This is not a ballot for industrial action; merely to vote for or against the resolution.

The secondary purpose of this ballot is to ensure your home address is correct on our database. If you don’t get this ballot delivered to your home address; you won‘t get any further communications either.

At the close of the Consultative Ballot the EC will decide whether or not to move forward with a ballot for industrial action- short of strikes as detailed within the Composite Resolution.

I also need all members to vote for or against the Surrey EC Resolution (here on website) as a separate issue and we need your branch reps return to me of your branch mandate for that resolution no later than the 9^th February.

It is important that both resolutions are voted on as described in order for the Surrey EC to decide the future direction we take.

Anyone who has not received the Consultative Ballot to their home addresses by now must get in touch with our membership secretary Nigel Burchell asap as your address needs checking for accuracy.

If anyone has not yet attended a FBU Meeting to hear the full detail and discuss the cuts being imposed on us; please do. The meetings are listed here on FBU Surrey and members are welcome to attend any meetings as the timescale is very tight to get the information disseminated.

No RDS stations have booked meetings but several RDS members have been attending the WT meetings. I would like to encourage more RDS to do likewise.

Make no mistake; the cuts we are currently facing are the most damaging we have ever faced in Surrey. The window of opportunity to challenge these cuts is small. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this will all just blow over. It won’t. If it isn’t challenged now, it will be too late to challenge it effectively later.

Many thanks

Vinny

Brigade Secretary, Surrey.

Membership Secretary Nigel Burchell 07769 249 098

23/01/10

Branch Meetings

Following the FBU Area Committee meeting on Monday 18^th January, several resolutions from multiple branches’s were submitted and agreed by the committee. It was clear that there were several issues that members across the county felt were of utmost importance to resolve and the mood was one of frustration and anger at senior management and the county council. 

Documentation that has been sent out by senior managers since then has compounded this feeling and I and other officials have found ourselves being inundated with phone calls from members expressing their views.

It was agreed at the meeting that the EC would formulate a composite resolution to draw together these individual issues and send it out to the entire membership to vote on.

The original resolutions called for action to resolve these issues. Therefore, the Surrey Executive Committee (EC) met this morning (22^nd January) to discus how best to move forward with the composite resolution.

Our agreed plan is as follows;

Brian Stokes (FBU Vice Chair) is co-ordinating FBU Branch Meetings at every branch so that at least one member of the EC can attend to explain the issues in detail. The timescale is very tight to conduct all the meetings and I urge all branch’s to make contact with Brian asap so he schedule your meeting without it clashing with others. I urge you all to ensure these meetings are well attended. The feedback of every FBU member is extremely important to us to determine our collective direction.

Any members who are not able to attend their own Branch Meetings are encouraged to attend another.

There will be an Officers Section meeting scheduled for HQ for the members based there but Officer are reminded that they are members of the branch they work at so they are entitled and welcome to attend other branch meetings. I also request that Control members attend the Officers Section meeting, Reigate’s or any other branch that suits them.

As Branch Meetings are booked they will be published on www.fbusurrey.co.uk

With timescales being so short, I also urge RDS members to get themselves along to any of the branch meetings if they are unable to schedule their own with Brian before Thursday 4^th February.

I would also encourage neighbouring branch’s to liaise between themselves and Brian to try and hold joint meetings wherever possible.

An all members circular will be mailed to your home address as soon as it is possible to do so. We estimate these will be posted in the early part of next week.

The purpose of this circular is twofold;

• To ensure your home address is correct on the FBU Head Office database.
• For you to vote for or against the composite resolution.

• It is vitally important that you respond to this circular ASAP. If you do not receive this circular when others have, please contact our FBU Membership Secretary Nigel Burchell ASAP to check your home address is correct.

Also the earlier we can get you votes back on the resolution the better. The absolute deadline of return is the Thursday 4^th February. I cannot stress enough the importance of a 100% return to this circular.

www.fbusurrey.co.uk will be updated regularly, so please encourage all members to keep checking it for further news.

Brian Stokes 

Branch Meeting Co-ordinator stokes840@btinternet.com 07787290151

Nigel Burchell 

Circular Response Co-ordinator nigelburchell@btinternet.com 07769249098

I thank you in advance for your co-operation.

Vinny

Brigade Secretary, FBU Surrey

On behalf of the Executive Committee

Composite motion:

This committee demands that the imminent changes being imposed by the service to the Local Borough Autonomy be suspended until full consultation with staff representatives (FBU) have been considered.

Where changes to the Local Borough Autonomy (LBA) policy are to be considered this must be done through the agreed consultation process with a review of the LBA Service Operational Procedure (SOP), this review must include the requirement:-

• recognition that on all duties minimum crewing levels of 5 personnel on each pumping appliance. (WtL’s = 10’s & 5’s) This is to support Incident/Crew safety, ICS procedures and to fulfil standby and training requirements.
• through an agreed satisfactory settlement with Service Management training and service medicals take place on a watch duty day not a rota day.

Where service managers refuse to agree to the staff requests detailed above, this meeting authorises the Surrey FBU Area Committee to seek a ballot from members with a view to members taking industrial action – short of strikes – to include but not limited to:-

• Refusal to work any pre-planned overtime
• Refusal to carryout roles or duties above role map for status.
• Refusal to do any additional duties above standard shift pattern [other than person to person exchange].
• Decline invites to CPD days, Medicals or short term training on rota days.
• Decline all other “goodwill” service requests.
• Withdrawal from the ‘Recall to Duty’ list.

26/01/10

Since the area committee meeting on the 18th January; as part of the continued informal consultation process we have been  advised that proposed council imposed cuts will have a detrimental impact on work life balance and also a real potential for disastrous affect on the health, safety and welfare of members across all sections of the membership not just those working the LBA crewing system.

We need to challenge these proposed cuts in addition to those addressed in the consultative ballot.

Therefore we have agreed the following resolution which we ask branches to consider and return branch mandates to me through your branch reps.

many thanks

Vinny

Surrey FBU Executive Committee Resolution

The Surrey FBU Executive Committee is appalled at the lack of consultation and negotiation they are being afforded by SF&RS and Surrey County Council over the imposition of severe budget cuts. We are also deeply concerned that these cuts are being forced through without full, open and transparent public consultation from behind the closed doors of the council.

We strongly believe that the Surrey residents have a right to decide if the level of funding for Surrey Fire and Rescue Service is agreeable to them as it is ultimately their lives, homes, possessions, businesses, livelihoods and insurance premiums that will pay the price if it is, not adequate to deliver a good frontline service.

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service have applied several cuts over the last few years which have caused a massive detriment in the frontline service it delivers. To further reduce the funding of an existing constrained emergency service further is nonsensical and has real potential for catastrophic results.

The Surrey FBU Executive Committee fully support the need for value for money and will continue to work with Surrey Fire and Rescue Service management to deliver efficiency saving for our residents wherever possible but we are resolutely opposed to funding cuts detrimentally affecting the service we offer and endangering the lives of our members.

The Surrey FBU Executive Committee, with support from the membership, therefore demands that Surrey County Council and Surrey Fire and Rescue Service management redirect the resources, currently being utilised on implementing short term financial focussed cuts to concentrate on resolving outstanding issues which have been previously disputed and enter into a full and meaningful consultation process with all stakeholders of the fire service including the Fire Brigades Union to bring about an agreed way forward on long term securing in quality services for our communities.

In order to achieve our membership demands we will proceed with a ballot with a view to members taking industrial action – short of strikes – to include but not limited to:-

• Refusal to work any pre-planned overtime
• Refusal to carry out roles or duties above role map for status.
• Refusal to do any additional duties above standard shift pattern [other than person to person exchange].
• Decline invites to CPD days, medicals or short term training on rota days.
• Decline all other “goodwill” service requests.
• Withdrawal from the ‘Recall to Duty’ list.

Surrey EC.

Back to back shifts and Crewing System changes

Dear all,

I felt it was necessary to do this note for all to see the position of where we are now.

Back to Back shifts

Back to back shifts have never been officially allowed by the service. The service has on more than one occasion reminded members that they should not happen. Having said that, the service has been happy for them to go on without its knowledge as they know it is a substantial help to maintain LBA.

The Health and Safety Executive of the South East told/ advised us in 2005 that back to back shifts could go ahead if a robust and recorded risk assessment was applied at the change of duty to ensure that the members had had sufficient rest during the previous shift to continue with another. But it must also contain arrangements for what the member should do if they had not.

At that time and up until about 2 months ago, Service Delivery were of the same opinion as us (FBU) that this risk assessment needed to be done as members were continuing to work b2b’s without being covered by service policy or procedure which leaves our members in a very vulnerable position if something goes wrong as the service had stated no b2b’s should happen.

That has all changed. Service Delivery is now adamant that NO b2b’s will happen unless the service requests members to do so to keep pumps on the run.

In other words; they want the flexibility for their purposes but WILL NOT allow members to use them for their own flexibility.

Crewing changes

Since the LBA review was completed in 2006, the service has been clear in saying it wants “changes in LBA”. I’ve been warning members of this for nearly 3 years that these changes are on the way. The only reason they haven’t happened sooner is because management have been busy on other issues like the PFI bid etc.

The changes are coming now.

I have been told mangers in SD and members have rung me over the last couple of weeks to tell me what managers have told them;

Forced standard crewing (no more, no less) by;

• Members being sent home when necessary
• Members being told they must come in where necessary if they owe the service any duties.
• Members being forced to change watch’s to cover odd duties or tours
• Re-introduction of fixed Annual Leave Periods
• No more watch’s has been the end goal for many years
• Managements goal when the above is achieved and the “wasted” shifts used in “over crewing” (their words not mine) will allow them to reduce the watch strength even further

As I said, I’ve been warning members for nearly 3 years that this has been the service’s intention, its no surprise to me that they are now starting implement it.

Management have been very clear in saying that it’s modifications to LBA.

Clearly the changes above are major and constitute a whole new crewing system which must be fully consulted on under the Grey Book.

This is why (as I and other officials fully explained to every branch at the time) I looked for an alternative; System 42.

 My thoughts and that of the EC was that the service were determined to make the changes above so we needed an alternative that would keep the existing shift pattern for those who wanted it but allow members who wanted to work flexibly to be rewarded for doing so to achieve the same end result of standard crewing all 100% of the time. There were other gains like better training and greater flexibility in when shifts are worked and time off taken.

But here we at the start of 2010.

The season of goodwill has clearly ended with management now imposing these changes they’ve talked about for nearly 3 years.

Goodwill is a 2 way thing. Members may want to consider how much goodwill they want to give the service as a result of the service’s actions.

FBU Area Meeting is on Monday 18^th January at the White Horse Dorking at 7pm. Make sure your branch is represented. Any resolutions must be emailed to Paul Greenwood before Monday

Happy new year

Vinny.