News broke last night that FBU members have voted to reject the latest pay offer from the National Employers of 5%. 78% of their membership voted of which 79% voted to reject the offer.

This was a ‘consultative’ ballot, and therefore is not legally binding to allow for strike action to take place but to gauge the strength of feeling of its members.

We still very much hope that strike action will be averted due to the division, ill-feeling and unrest it causes within the ranks of fire service, let alone the increased danger to firefighters and the public.

The FRSA held its own survey of members in recent weeks which has provided the following response.

• 20.9% – Reject the 5% pay offer
• 14.8% – Accept the 5% pay offer which is backdated to 01 July
• 64.3% – Accept the 5% pay offer which is backdated to 01 July and be in favour of the broadening of the role of a firefighter which would be linked to a reformed pay structure, recognising a wider service to the public (such as Co-Responding and Slips, Trips and Falls). Plus, for On-Call firefighters, a new pay structure that better reflects the commitment of availability as well as call levels.

It is clear that the current national pay structure is not fit for purpose, including the short-term government grant mechanism, which creates financial instability due to it not allowing for long-term budgeting.

We will continue to lobby the government asking that it intervenes in this dispute, without which, it is clear that any pay rise above 5% will have to found from current FRS budgets, leading to cuts to services, which we believe are simply not the way to address this current situation.  We believe that the government should commence a service wide debate with a view to averting industrial action.

The current national negotiating machinery has created this mess and provides further evidence that reform is necessary.