A fire chief has apologised for north-east engines being out of action – and revealed a new plan to recruit staff and allow more local decision-making.
Assistant Chief Officer Lewis Ramsay, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s (SFRS) director of response and resilience, said he was “deeply sorry” about worry caused by the vehicles being regularly “off the run” in recent months.
Last week, two of the six Aberdeen appliances were stood down overnight on Monday into Tuesday between 6pm and 8am.
Four of the vehicles were off the road on different occasions during a week in March and other incidents have been reported.
ACO Ramsay said the service was not a “centralist organisation” and that new policies were aimed at empowering managers in the north-east.
He said: “I deeply regret the situation we are in, it’s not a good situation to have pumps off the run.
“If whatever has been reported of late has caused concern, then I’m deeply sorry about that. I need to remedy that and you have my absolute commitment that is going to happen.
“Appliances go on and off the run all the time, they have done since I joined the service. But there is reliance in the system…
“You have six full-time appliances in Aberdeen; you have 30 across the Aberdeenshire area.
“What we have done is recruit five new trainees.
“There is a course starting on Monday so that’ll be another seven coming into the area. We are always looking for transfers of competent and developed firefighters…
“While I’ll set a policy nationally, I need to give local managers the capacity to deliver that to suit their own circumstances.”
ACO Ramsay insisted there were “no plans” to shut any of the 356 stations across the country.
Whistleblowers have raised fears of further centralisation of the service – something denied strongly by the officer.
He added: “I sometimes get a little agitated around the inference that we have become a centralist organisation, only interested in the central belt, because it is not true.”
North-east Conservative MSP Liam Kerr has tabled a question on the issue at First Minister’s Questions today.
He said: “Every minute is vital – and it is no exaggeration to say that a delayed response could be the difference between life and death.”
