THE second most senior figure in Scotland’s national fire brigade was passed over for the top job in the service, the Herald on Sunday can reveal.

Iain Bushell, who led the response to the fire at the Glasgow School of Art in June, lost out in the race to become the new £190,000 a year chief officer.

The organisation declined to comment on speculation that Bushell could leave the service eighteen months after relocating from Canada, amid claims he is off work.

Chris McGlone, the head of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) in Scotland, said:

“We hope the Deputy Chief returns to work as soon as possible in order to support the New Chief officer when he starts early in the new year, as the Dep’s position is a critical one both from the point of view of the day to day operational running of the service and from a strategic, Gold Incident Command perspective.

“The FBU would prefer to see swift action to replace the Dep, even if on a short-term temporary basis. There are presently very experienced senior officers who could step straight into that role tomorrow.”

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) was formed in 2013 after MSPs passed legislation replacing eight regional services.

Firefighters are responsible for attending nearly 100,000 incidents in Scotland every year and the SFRS is the fourth largest brigade in the world.

Although the SFRS mirrored the creation of Police Scotland, the fire service has not undergone the same crises as the single force, or similar ructions at the top.

Earlier this year, the SFRS started the process of finding a new chief officer - the most senior post in the service - following the announcement of Alasdair Hay’s retirement.

As deputy chief officer Bushell was a contender for the promotion, but the job went to Martin Blunden at South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. He will start the role next year.

A SFRS source said there is a question mark over whether Bushell, who joined the service in the summer of last year, would stay.

He joined from Strathcona County Emergency Services in Alberta, where he was Fire Chief and Director of Emergency Management. Strathcona serves around 100,000 people.

According to the SFRS website, Bushell has “overall responsibility for the delivery of our emergency services” and leads on the “development of the future SFRS operational model and role”.

Bushell tweeted last month: “Just a random reminder to all @fire_scot personnel that it’s ok to not be ok...#YouAreNotAlone.”

He later offered his congratulations to Blunden and said he was looking forward to working with him in the new year.

Talking about the fire at the GSA, Bushell said in June: "I live just north of the city of Glasgow and as I was coming down the motorway I could see the glow in the sky from the fire even from eight or nine miles away so I could tell this was going to be a significant fire and as I came closer, as I came round on the M8, you could see the flames, the smoke, and it was obviously a very significant fire that was occuring."

In an Audit Scotland report from May, the watchdog warned that a high turnover of senior officers posed a risk to the pace of change in the service.

It noted that, as of March 2017, 45% of whole-time firefighters and officers were aged between 45 and 55 and two of the four most senior SFRS officers are expected to retire by 2019/20.

The report added that, of the 34 officers at the level of deputy assistant chief officers and area managers, 44% are expected to retire by 2019/20.

A SFRS spokesman said: “Iain Bushell remains the Deputy Chief Officer of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.”

The Service did not respond to a question on whether Bushell is currently off work.