Public pay the price for decade of Scottish Fire and Rescue cuts

The number of available appliances has diminished. Nearly half of all stations are assessed as being in “bad” or “poor” condition.

It's the public who pay the price for these failures.

Last year, it was revealed the average time to attend 999 callouts was eight minutes and eight seconds – a big jump from the six minutes and 50 seconds average recorded in 2013.

To say ministers are asleep at the wheel would be an understatement.

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In the Programme for Government, no consideration was given to these challenges whatsoever – just a vague commitment to “always support our core public services” and a brief reference to wildfires.

The verdict from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), which published its excoriating Firestorm report last week, is sterner: “The [SFRS] is in crisis, morale is low amongst its staff, people are leaving in large numbers and year on year budget cuts are impacting on the ability of the Service to respond effectively to serious and life-threatening incidents.”

It’s a far cry from the intentions set out when the service was centralised a decade ago.

The rationale behind the creation of today’s national service was to ensure equal access to specialist support across Scotland, with budgets, resources and expertise shared. 

However, the Scottish Government made clear a key requisite to achieving these outcomes was “not cutting frontline services”.

Instead, we’ve gone backwards.

The blaze at Ayr Station Hotel (above)

Fire appliances were temporarily withdrawn from a number of stations across Scotland last month. The number of high reach vehicles has been permanently reduced.

Even prior to this, appliances were frequently unavailable. An FOI by my office found wholetime fire appliances “off the run” 6,272 times in 2022, a 138% increase since pre-pandemic.

As a member of the Criminal Justice Committee, I’ve put questions to SFRS Chief Officer Ross Haggart on multiple occasions.

He's repeatedly made clear in evidence that the current budget settlement means hundreds more jobs are at risk and dozens more appliances will go.

When I asked him last month if current projections mean response times increasing, he replied affirmatively.

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Let’s be blunt: in an emergency, small delays could be the difference between life and death.

We’ve already seen worrying examples of these potential dangers in the last few weeks.

On the night of the Ayr Station hotel fire, the FBU say this meant local firefighters waited for an appliance to arrive all the way from Castlemilk as the Kilmarnock appliance had broken down.

A fortnight ago, when six houses were destroyed by a fire in East Kilbride, appliances were away from the local station for training purposes, meaning nearby stations were unable to provide cover quickly due to the recent withdrawal of some of their own appliances.

Firefighters put their lives on the line and expose themselves to dangerous contaminants to protect  the public. But the message they’re sending is they feel under-supported, poorly protected and  ill equipped to tackle the challenges today, especially as we suffer the worsening effects of the climate emergency.

Many don’t even have safe spaces to decontaminate and around a third of stations even lack showers.

The recent mass rallies held, both in Glasgow and at the Scottish Parliament, show the strength of feeling about these challenges. They’re saying enough is enough.

Scottish Labour recognises the wider public isn’t safe unless the emergency service workers who support us are safe.

That’s the message I’ll be conveying in the debate I’ll be leading in parliament this afternoon.

Nothing less than an emergency funding package is needed to support a service that’s now on its knees.

Katy Clark is a Scottish Labour MSP for West Scotland (Region), serving from 2021 to present day.