Yesterday we were made aware that the National Employers had submitted a revised pay offer of 5%, having back in June this year, tabled an offer of a 2% uplift for all Grey Book employees. We find it difficult to understand why this offer could not have been made earlier and gone some way to prevent the justified anger from firefighters.

You will recall that the FRSA provided a view back in early July that the original offer of 2% did not go anywhere near overcoming what our members are experiencing in a cost-of-living crisis and that we needed to look at the bigger picture as to why firefighter pay overall hasn’t kept up with the cost of living, not just in 2022 but for the last 15 years.

Last month we highlighted the pay offer given to and accepted by the Police, which was an average of 5% (lower earners receiving 8.8% and the highest earners 1.3%).

Our approach to this situation is two-fold.

Firstly, that the new offer would be accepted to alleviate any unproductive and divisive industrial action and, that the issue of fire reform can no longer be kicked into the long grass by the National Joint Council (NJC).

Secondly, the issue of broadening the role has been talked about for several years without any genuine attempt to progress meaningful diversification within the fire sector and it was time to act. Such a transformation would be in parallel with reform of the national negotiating machinery and pay structure to better reward employees performing a broader role. There needs to be a new deal for the fire and rescue service as an integral part of all the emergency services. All parties should come together to map out a way forward, and the investment needed to achieve this. We would be eager to assist in this for the benefit of everyone in the fire and rescue service.

The present situation where a handful of people decide the future of the fire and rescue service is no longer tenable.  The current inflexible and outdated national negotiating machinery that has limited pay increases and hampered the broadening of the role and must be completely reformed.

If the status-quo remains, we can all expect the same outcomes in the future; we believe fire service employees deserve much better.