DUBLIN FIRE Brigade is to undergo major restructuring on foot of a report commissioned by Dublin city and county managers which found the service is facing a financial and manpower crisis.
The report by England’s chief fire and rescue adviser Sir Ken Knight found the fire brigade had no current strategic plan, inadequate prevention plans, and was due to lose most of its senior staff to retirement over the next 18 months.
The Dublin city manager John Tierney and his counterparts in Fingal, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown and South Dublin, have agreed to accept the report and its 23 recommendations and are entering into negotiations on its implementation with unions representing fire fighters.
The cost of operating the fire service had become a considerable strain on local authority budgets in recent years. However, costs increased considerably last year because of a high level of retirements. In most years 23-25 fire fighters retire; last year there were 108 retirements involving lump-sum pension payments.
The report said that almost all the brigade’s chief fire officers and assistant chief fire officers can or will exercise their option to retire in the next 12 to 18 months, and there were not sufficiently qualified staff to take their place.
Staff in these senior roles had to be qualified engineers. The existing promotion process did not allow for progression through the service to the highest levels of senior management and there was no clearly defined policy for training. Succession planning needed “urgent” attention, the report found.
The greatest weakness identified by the report was the lack of a strategic plan for the brigade.
The last plan expired in 2005 and was never updated or replaced.
“It is difficult to conceive how an organisation with expenditure of over €118 million can be fully effective when such an instrument is not in place,” it said.
There was confusion about the priorities of the force and any plans that did exist at lower levels in the force tended to be in the form of a “wish list” without any regard to the capacity of the brigade to deliver on them. The report recommends a plan be immediately drafted which would describe the organisation’s objectives relating to such matters as incident and casualty reduction, protection of the environment and effective use of resources, as well as clear statements around achieving value for money.
The brigade’s budget was a matter of particular concern. The organisation’s main revenue stream, the issuing of fire safety certificates to business had been badly hit by the recession declining from more than €2.3 million in 2007 to €770,035 in 2009.
The brigade was “unable to articulate” how it provides value for money. Due to budgetary constraints, which were likely to be on-going it needed to develop a financial plan. “It will also have to have a full appreciation of how it might manage with a lower budget as in other public services,” the report said.
A major factor in providing value for money was to reduce risk. The organisation gave “little or no attention” to the prevention or reduction of incidents and focused solely to reacting to fire, ambulance or other emergency calls.
A plan was needed to reduce the number of fires and other emergency incidents and reduce the loss of life and injuries, and commercial and social costs caused by these incidents.
In relation to the ambulance service, which accounted for 73 per cent of the brigade’s emergency calls, it was vital that a service level agreement was reached with the Health Service Executive the report said. There was “little evidence” that both organisations were working in partnership in relation to driving down ambulance calls, it said.
Staff were motivated and had many innovative ideas, the report said. However, it noted that previous reviews had not been implemented and said it was vital the brigade recognised the need to change and the recommendations of the review were translated into actions.
