'The CLG settlement includes a 13 per cent real terms reduction to fire resource expenditure. This will require the Fire and Rescue Service to modernise, increase efficiency and deliver workforce reform.'
How this might be achieved without increasing the likelihood of people dying in fires is not stated. Rather, 'It will be for individual fire authorities to decide how to make these savings.'
It's assumed that every public service has a huge amount of waste and spare capacity. For some, this will be the case, but is it really safe to assume it for absolutely everything, including the emergency services?
This Dilbert cartoon sums up being told to cut 10%, or 20%, or 30% by a government with no idea of how this is to be achieved.
Thank you Scott Adams.
Incidentally, it might be an idea to check your smoke alarms.
The Merseyside fire service achieved a cost reduction of about 25% over ten years while reducing the rate of deaths and fires by almost 50%.
ReplyDeleteThe unions protested and had repeated strikes about this, but the management moved many officers off night shifts to day shifts and spent the time installing smoke alarms and educating the public, preventing fires rather than putting them out.
The net result is that by cutting the service the poor have benefitted overwehmingly, their council tax bill is lower, their houses are much less likely to burn down and they are much less likely to die.
http://www.reform.co.uk/Research/ResearchArticles/tabid/82/smid/444/ArticleID/1331/reftab/82/t/More%20with%20less/Default.aspx