Communities and Local Government written question – answered at on 29 February 2012.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps he is taking to encourage more people to sign up to become on-call retained firefighters.
The Department greatly values the retained firefighter duty system, which provides flexible, cost-effective and locally based fire and rescue cover. However, responsibility for the recruitment and deployment of retained duty system firefighters rests with individual fire and rescue authorities. Each fire and rescue authority is responsible for assessing through its integrated risk management planning process the number of firefighters on both whole-time and retained duty systems, required to provide an effective fire and rescue service in its area.
My Department continues to work with fire and rescue authorities to raise awareness of the retained duty system, to aid this it has produced the Retained Duty System Employers' Information Toolkit to support fire and rescue authorities in engaging with local employers in raising awareness about the duty system, and encouraging their support to release staff to become retained duty firefighters. The Department has also produced the Recognition Scheme for Primary Employers of Retained Duty System (On-Call) Firefighters, to recognise employers who have agreed to make staff available for retained duty system service.
As well as the above, the Department also maintains regular dialogue with the representative bodies on retained duty system issues.
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No0 people think not
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