Fire service spent £781k covering staff shortages

Covering staffing shortages cost a fire service £781,000 in 2024, the BBC can reveal.

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS) moved firefighters from their usual stations to elsewhere in the county 3,876 times.

The staffing crisis was "exhausting" crews and left the service "on the brink", the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said.

Craig McLellan, ECFRS' head of response, said shipping staff across the county meant the public were best protected.

The fire service spent £781,755 on moving appliances in 2024, a sharp rise from £350,011 in 2023.

Figures obtained by the BBC, via a Freedom of Information request, revealed back-up cover for major stations was being called for 11 times a day on average.

But Mr McLellan insisted the numbers had risen because ECFRS changed the way it recorded movements.

Crews have been asked to travel across Essex to cover their colleagues, making journeys such as Coggeshall to Dovercourt and Waltham Abbey to Braintree.

On-call firefighters were paid for each call-out, with the service spending £75,000 in September.

There were 417 movements in July, 384 in October and 372 in August.

Richard Maddams, the FBU secretary for Essex, said: "ECFRS is continuing attempts to paper over the cracks of a service on the brink.

"Instead of addressing this crisis in understaffing, firefighters are being forced to travel large distances to cover areas that simply don't have enough crews.

"This is exhausting a workforce that is already overworked and underpaid, fuelling issues with recruitment and retention."

He said despite assurances from management, the "shocking figures" showed the problem was worsening.

In its most recent inspection by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, ECFRS was told it must do more to improve the availability of its crews.

For the year 2019-2020, there was an average of 10 crews a month unavailable - but by 2022-2023 it had almost doubled to 19.

Mr McLellan said the service was in the middle of a major recruitment drive and he would "make no apologies" for moving staff in the interim.

"We will continue to make movements to best protect the county," he said. "The days of one crew staying in the same area are over."

Many small businesses could no longer afford to release employees during the day so they could work for fire services, Mr McLellan added.

He said the £781,755 would be spent on wages once ECFRS finished recruiting across its 50 stations.

Asked if he agreed crews were exhausted, Mr McLellan said: "I'm not getting that feedback, no more than I did last year."

He said no-one was forced to work outside their working hours and all firefighters were given adequate breaks.

A new system was allowing people to sign up for more overtime, rather than leave it to those who did not want to, Mr McLellan added.

"We do have people who want to do more hours, but we also have those who find it a challenge," he said.

"At the moment we don't have the ability to identify those people ahead of time."

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