Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Official Report 926KB pdf

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Urgent Question

Good afternoon. I have selected an urgent question that will be taken as the first item of business today. As a consequence, I am afraid that decision time will be pushed back to 5.15, as we were already a bit tight for time. So, our first question is from Liam Kerr.

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Firefighters’ Pay and Conditions (Reform)

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I am grateful for acceptance of the question.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the reported reform of firefighters’ pay and conditions.

Yesterday, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service issued a letter to its staff setting out a proposal on the possible future transformation of the service. Under that proposal, there will be no compulsory redundancies. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has confirmed that formal negotiations will be conducted through agreed collective bargaining arrangements. The Scottish Government, in the 2018-19 draft budget, has increased the spending capacity of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service by £15.5 million. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has been exploring for some time now how best to develop the service to meet new and emerging risks, including how transformation could see the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service do more for the people of Scotland. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will be issuing a formal consultation on the future transformation proposals within the next three weeks.

At this stage, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has indicated that its proposed reward package would be for a new, expanded role for firefighters, which of course is still to be negotiated and agreed with unions. I welcome the Fire Brigades Union’s willingness to engage with the service.

I thank the minister for that answer. The public will understand the rationale for changing the fire service but, as I have said before in the chamber on similar occasions, they will have legitimate concerns that the proposal is a way to implement cuts by the back door. The chief fire officer has told firefighters that there will be a small reduction in whole-time firefighter posts. Will the minister confirm exactly how many full-time equivalent posts will be lost? Will she explain how the service is expected to respond more quickly with fewer firefighters, given that the average time taken to respond to house fires has increased in almost every council area in Scotland?

Of course, decisions about the allocation of resources are an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service as the employer. What is to be embarked on is a discussion with the FBU about the transformation of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and a new and expanded role for firefighters. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has confirmed that there will be no compulsory redundancies, as has been the case since the establishment of the single Scottish service.

On resources and the press coverage that we have seen in this morning’s papers, what the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is looking at is a reward for the new expanded role and potential pay increases of up to 20 per cent.

Finally, if the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service was able to get back the almost £50 million in VAT that Mr Kerr’s Tory colleagues in the House of Commons have refused the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service access to, then it would have had, over the years since the establishment of the single Scottish service, more resources available for each community in Scotland.

I thank the minister for some of that reply. Of course, it was the Scottish Conservatives who won the VAT refund for our fire service, which is worth £10 million a year. Perhaps we can stop the grievance politics so that the minister can answer my further questions.

There are aspects of reform that we can welcome. In particular, I praise the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service for its successful trials of responding to cardiac arrests—I understand that a number of lives have been saved thanks to that effort. However, the Fire Brigades Union has said that its members have been given no specific detail about the roles that they will be expected to take on. We understand, for example, that firefighters will take on youth and social prevention work and inspection and enforcement responsibilities. Will the minister outline the specific duties that will be included in the definition? Further, will the Government publish the methodology that has been used to calculate the proposed pay rise?

I am not entirely sure whether Mr Kerr is saying that the Tories in Scotland are against firefighters gaining a reward for what they are being asked to do, which is a new expanded role for firefighters the length and breadth of Scotland. It seems that the Conservative Party is not very enthusiastic about it, which is a point that will not be lost on the firefighters.

The operational detail on the new expanded role is, of course, a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to discuss with the FBU in the formal process, and that is what I understand is about to happen.

Finally, on the key question of resources, of course it is not surprising that the member did not like my point about VAT, but the fact of the matter is that, while Highways England and academy schools were allowed to reclaim VAT, the fire service in Scotland was precluded from doing so by the Tories in Westminster for years and years, during which time it lost almost £50 million. Instead of being less than supportive of the transformation of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the increased reward for our firefighters, the member might want to fight to get that money back to Scotland and to the service.

Will the minister give a guarantee that those who take on enhanced responsibilities as a result of the new contract will be given comprehensive training and the necessary resources to carry out their new role effectively?

Those are matters for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, but I am encouraged to note that training is deemed to be crucial and will play a vital role in transformation of the service. As I said, there have been no compulsory redundancies since the establishment of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, and the service has confirmed that its proposals do not involve any compulsory redundancies.

According to the response to a freedom of information request that the Scottish Labour Party has received, the Scottish Government has been intimately involved in not just the finances and strategies for the transformation project but the details. Will the minister therefore confirm whether, ahead of yesterday’s announcements, she was aware of the scale of the reductions in firefighters, stations and units? If so, given the scale of the change, why did she not feel that it was worth revealing to Parliament directly? Finally, does she share my concerns and those of the FBU that it did not receive prior sight of the details and that national pay and bargaining mechanisms have, in effect, been bypassed?

On that last point, I heard Chris McGlone, head of the FBU in Scotland, on “Good Morning Scotland” on the radio this morning, and I was concerned to note that due process had not been followed. However, I was encouraged to note the FBU’s willingness nonetheless to engage in discussion with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, as is right and proper.

The Scottish Government is aware that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has been engaged in looking at how we can transform the service to meet the new and emerging risks of 21st-century Scotland, and we will continue to offer any support in that process that we can. I also stress that the SFRS is the employer and is in charge of operational matters. As the employer, it will be getting on to discussing the detail of the proposals with the FBU.

Simply relying on the good will and hard work of staff on the front line to get by is not a long-term sustainable strategy, and an important part of protecting the fire service is paying workers properly and preventing their living standards from falling.

To follow on from Daniel Johnson’s question, was the minister informed specifically of the offer before it went directly to staff? How does the enhanced role that is envisaged for staff in respect of terrorism, medical emergencies and community engagement differ from what staff already do? Will it to any extent formalise or recognise existing practices?

The answer to the first question is that I had no knowledge of the letter being sent yesterday—the first I heard of it was when we all heard of it.

To an extent, the expanded role already exists. For example, the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest work has been going on in some fire stations in Scotland on a pilot basis. The proposals for the new role would expand that emergency responder aspect of the role across the country and aspects in relation to terrorism, environmental risk and other matters, including prevention. Those issues are the nub of the discussion that will take place between the employer—the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service—and the FBU in the context of the collective bargaining arrangements, which are important. I hope that the member will do what he can to support that process.

I welcome the minister’s comments about collective bargaining. As a former full-time official of a staff association, I would have been raging if the employer had bypassed agreed procedures. That is not an operational matter, so will the minister direct the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to adhere to the collective bargaining procedures, not only for the benefit of future negotiations for the fire service but to send a clear message to others in the public sector?

I am happy to reiterate what I said in answer to Mr Johnson, which is that when I heard Chris McGlone, the head of the FBU in Scotland, on the radio this morning, I was concerned to hear what he had to say on the matter, but I was equally encouraged that the FBU nonetheless stands willing to get round the table and engage in discussions about transformation of the service. As I stated in my answer to the original question, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has confirmed that formal negotiations will be conducted through agreed collective bargaining arrangements. I hope that that gives the member the assurance that he was seeking.

I thank the minister for taking that urgent question. I understand that there are a number of questions outstanding. Members who still have questions to ask will have other opportunities later this week or next week if they wish to raise the issue again.