More than 1,000 applicants for firefighter jobs
A thousand would-be firefighters have applied to join Shropshire’s brigade since its 2020 recruitment campaign got underway, a report says.
Writing for the county’s fire authority, the service chief and two managers say that nearly 87 per cent of the full-time applicants are proceeding to the next phase of selection.
The report adds that Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service has the highest rates of firefighter availability on the English mainland, but says the part-time rotas at Prees fire station are still only three quarters full, after numbers more than halved there in the last year.
The report adds that the Brades Road station, which has the capacity for 15 full weekly shifts, currently has five personnel with four more in pre-employment testing.
Co-authored by Chief Fire Officer Rod Hammerton, Service Delivery Area Manager Kevin Faulkner and Group Manager Adam Matthews, the report summarises full- and part-time availability in September and October.
They said: “Wholetime crews continue to provide an increased level of resilience across the specialist operational areas of the service.
“Five wholetime recruits have completed their training and have started their development phase on watch.
“The 2020 wholetime recruitment campaign is now underway. A total of 1,047 applicants were received with 907 now proceeding to the next phase of the process.”
Among the part-time, or “on-call” service, just over 98 per cent of shifts were covered between April and October. The report notes this is an increase of nearly two percent on 2019.
“Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service is still the leading fire and rescue service in mainland England with regards to availability. This includes metropolitan services that have no on-call stations,” they add.
A table in the report shows Prees has the lowest availability rate across the brigade’s 22 on-call stations, with a year-to-date average of 82.95 per cent. Monthly rates from April to July stood between 87 and 97 per cent, but dropped to 71 to 75 per cent in August, September and October.
In September, Assistant Chief Fire Officer Simon Hardiman told fire authority members that on-call numbers at Prees had dropped from 12 to five in the preceding year.
The report notes that one rota “unit” consists of a 120-hour weekly commitment, and can be fulfilled entirely by one on-call firefighter or shared among several. They write that Prees has vacancies for 10.5 units. There are five personnel available at the station, but one recruit is the medical examination stage and three more hopefuls are undergoing “job-related tests”.
Shropshire and Wrekin Fire and Rescue Authority’s Standards, Audit and Performance Committee will discuss the report tomorrow.
