Public asked to choose as 999 service looks for £9m savings

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (SYFR) is currently

anticipating budget cuts of between 10 and 20 per cent between 2012 and 2014, due to the savings likely to be made by the new Government in the wake of the recession.

A 15 per cent cut in funding would lead to SYFR having to save 9m a year from its 60m annual budget.

Currently, the service spends around 36m a year on full-time firefighters, a further 12m on support staff, 999 control staff and part-time firefighters, and the remaining 12m on premises, vehicles, equipment and other costs.

A three-month public consultation has now been launched, with SYFR asking members of the public where they think savings could be made.

Chief fire officer Mark Smitherman said: "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."

Apart from Government funding, SYFR's other source of cash is from council tax but that has been capped by the Government. However, even if SYFR was able to do use the tax to recoup 9m per year it would increase the fire and rescue element of every household's tax by around 40 per cent.

One of the issues being raised in the consultation is the type of fire engines that are used to respond to emergency calls.

SYFR has revealed that two-thirds of its calls could be answered by a small vehicle and a team of two or three firefighters. Currently, the service's minimum response to a fire of any kind is to send a 14-tonne fire engine with four or five firefighters – despite the fact that 67 per cent of fires in South Yorkshire are small fires out in the open.

Although a trial of a smaller "category two response" vehicle to tackle small fires was successful, SYFR said it realises small fires can escalate into bigger fires that can threaten lives.

Mr Smitherman added: "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 per cent of our spending is on staffing costs?"

Other issues being raised during the consultation, which runs until Monday, August 2, include the staffing of fire stations, community safety initiatives such as home fire safety checks, and SYFR's priorities and values.

Mr Smitherman said that discussions were already underway with the Fire Brigades' Union, which carried out a series of strikes last year over changes to firefighters' shift times.

He added: "They and their members are being fully consulted and we want to work with them to take the right decisions for the future."