Bring back training again!

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:12 pm

I first did real fire training after being in the job for 15 years, bit strange, but hey you can't have everything. I loved it, done it twice since (at Morton) and would go again.
I think it should be an ongoing thing, say every 5 years, just to keep you honed!

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:33 am

Totally agree, we as a brigade seem to have the attitude of 'it'll be alright on the night' unfortunately as we have proved it sometimes wont be.

As we are having less and less fires sometimes a crews big fire can be one of their first ones, we cant gain the experience of the ff's of 20 years ago had by actual fires so we have to keep the teams safe by training.

I think this should be introduced in most aspects of the job, USAR have one and two day workshops, FRU have Maintenance Of Skills (CPD) every six months.

Training can't be a bad thing as long as its done properly.

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:04 pm

It would be nice for us to get some real training and have decent facilities at station but then again it always appears to be those at the sharp end going without so those in other departments get what they need

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:21 pm

I think you'll find that the 'Brigade' always plays on the training bit, they'd like us to do more training to be the 'best in the world' but don't really like paying for it, still, much better that they used to be 20 years ago when you 'just made do'!!
In an ideal world we would charge for Non emergency calls and for special service calls (insurance companies then pay up adding extra to insurance costs), we would charge for any smoke alrarm visit, have advertising on our fire engines and actually make some money instead of being a bottomless pit for the Government and Emploters.
But what do I know?

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:30 am

We currently have in place a means of charging for special services but how many Crew or Watch Managers use it? Faced with a women in a short skirt late at night who has lost her keys because she’s drunk, they should be charged but I bet on every occasion the Crew or Watch Manager does not charge for the attendance, same for people locked out including the old girls or children locked in bathrooms etc. This issue raises so many questions; the brigade is there to provide a humanitarian service to the people of the city that pay for it via the council tax and general taxation, should they pay for it again when they need it?

Insurance company did use to pay for the salvage corps, but got rid of that and gave us a few DCT’s which we have now good rid of. Asking the Insurance Company’s to cough up more means higher insurance costs for all of us including those less likely to be able to afford such insurance increases; with the chance that they will go without insurance cover and end up in a possibly worse state should they be unfortunate to experience a fire or other such emergency.

How much revenue would advertising on appliances really raise? And do you want to see public service emergency vehicles with adverts on them? Who would you allow or refuse to advertise on an appliance? It’s a mine field with little benefit and I would imagine that’s a reason why it’s not happened so far.

Charging for smoke alarms again goes back to providing a service, by all means only fit smoke alarms in houses of people who fall within a certain social group, ie elderly or disabled, but how would you feel turning up to a house and pulling a dead kid out of a burnt out house that did not have a working smoke alarm just because there family was in the wrong social group to warrant us fitting a smoke alarm?

I think rather than talk about charging for this or not doing that, its time to try for some realistic funding for the fire service.

The Metropolitan Police force which covers basically the same patch of London as us receives an annual budget greater than the total budget for the UK Fire Service, The government (regardless of who’s in power) is getting its Fire and Rescue Service on the cheap and it knows it.

However if we are honest how much money do we see wasted everyday within the fire service? Look at various projects such as communications or the clothing project which have been going on for years with lots of staff being paid higher rates to produce what?? Nothing, and at the moment and with the national projects ongoing likely to be a waste of even more money and time.

We have always been in a state of not having enough to do all the things that we are required to do, what we need to do is seriously look at our current work load and reduce the station work load to allow more training to take place. Why should an appliance with a crew of 4 or 5 (at a one appliance station) be used to fit a smoke alarm? Its nuts!! If you was in charge of a company sending 4 or 5 people to fit a smoke alarm which in truth could be fitted by one person then you would not stay in business long, think of that time wastage being multiplied by every watch across every fire station in London its just truly amazing at the amount of money being wasted, perhaps before we ask for more money or get the public to pay more we should get our own house in order first.

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:44 pm

I agree, I've never understood why there isn't a 'civilian' on station monday to Friday to do most of the paperwork? We have a SM who supposedly co-ordinates the watches and makes the station run smoothly (yeah right!) but in truth, a 9-5 civvy would achieve far more and actually be on top of things as opposed to watches being off for 4 days and something just waiting till they come back!.
Still, the brigade should be in for another re-organisation soon, that'll make things much better, as the last rank (oops role) re-structuring did!

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:57 pm

Depends if the station manager is more like a Fat Controller, I think our one is

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:41 am

We had a civilian temp staff in the rescue skills team until about two weeks ago, although he took a trainers space it allowed us to get on with the day to day work and not have to worry about too much paperwork.

we would just go in there tell him what we wanted, changed or ordered and he'd get on with it, save a lot of time and trouble

Rob

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:22 pm

Sort of what an ADO ( sorry Station Manager ) is suppose to do

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 12:50 am

Yes, yes, but there's no need to go there anymore, we have a 40 Million (That's 40 Million) Firehouse to use.

Have'nt we?

You mean we wasted 40 Million pounds worth of taxpayers money? Feck me we could have bought another Helicopter with that. :roll:

Not being accountable is great, is'nt it? Licensed to piss money against the wall.