Local people are being encouraged to have their say on the future of South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue (SYFR), as the Service prepares itself for possible future funding reductions of up to £9 million per year. The three major political parties have been indicating for the past few months that spending cuts of up to 15% are likely for many public services, including Fire & Rescue Services. £9 million is 15 per cent of the Service’s current £60 million budget, equivalent to the staff costs of around a quarter of its 750 frontline firefighters. Fire & Rescue Services have previously been given a funding settlement through until March 2011 but the new Government is poised to announce £6 billion of early funding cuts.

At the start of the consultation, the Service has revealed that two-thirds of its emergency calls could be answered by a small vehicle and a team of two or three firefighters. Currently, SYFR’s minimum response to a fire of any kind is to send a 14-tonne fire engine staffed by four or five firefighters. But 67% of fires in South Yorkshire are small fires out in the open, with no threat to life or property. Some fires in remote locations are hard to access with a fire engine. A trial of a smaller 4x4 ‘Category 2 response’ vehicle to tackle small fires last autumn was successful. But small fires can escalate into bigger fires that can threaten life and property.

Chief Fire Officer Mark Smitherman said: “We believe our current funding is secure until March 2011 so we should have some time to properly plan for the future. We have to ask ourselves honestly whether the traditional one-size-fits-all approach is still the right one. Should our minimum response still be four or five firefighters and a 14-tonne fire engine? Or could we actually improve our service and reduce costs at the same time by using some smaller vehicles for appropriate incidents? Would a rapid response vehicle to attend road traffic collisions be quicker than our current response? If we don’t make changes like these, how else could we reduce costs to reflect our likely future budgets, when 80% of our spending is on staffing costs?

“The expected funding challenges leave us with a delicate balance which we have to get right to maximise public safety within the budgets available. We still have the absolute imperative of making sure we have a full complement of fully-staffed, fully-equipped fire engines available when fires threaten life or property. I would add that we have already made significant efficiency improvements over recent years. When the Government makes its decisions as to where funding cuts are to be made, they need to bear in mind that we are an emergency service on which the public depends.

“These issues are of massive importance to the public, our staff and the Fire Brigades Union, so we are beginning this three-month consultation period to make sure everyone has a chance to have their say. We will then use this feedback to help inform our plans for 2011-14, which will be published this autumn for further consultation.

“We are already discussing these issues with the Fire Brigades Union. They and their members are being fully consulted and we want to work with them to take the right decisions for the future. I would stress that no decisions have been made; this consultation will inform the recommendations we make to the Authority. Change can be challenging for us all but if we address these issues together, I believe we can continue to provide all our essential services to the same or even better standards, albeit in different ways.”

The consultation period is running until Monday 2nd August. It covers a wide range of topics such as funding, emergency response, fire stations and staffing, community safety initiatives, joint-working options, and our priorities and values. People can view the consultation document and complete the survey by clicking here, or request a personal copy of the pack by texting FIRE to 87023 or writing to: Consultation, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue, 197 Eyre Street, Sheffield, S1 3FG.