Calls to protect fire service to ensure people in Sunderland are safe

The meeting was held at Sunderland's City Hall.

Councillor Phil Tye, chair of Tyne and Wear Fire Authority, raised the motion at the latest Sunderland City Council meeting, citing increased financial demands and inflationary pressures on the organisation.

The Labour councillor said the fire and rescue sector cannot resolve the current difficulties without national Government support.

The motion will see the city council’s leader, in conjunction with all Tyne and Wear council leaders, write to the appropriate Government minister for financial support “as a matter of urgency”.

It said: “Council is concerned that, without extra support, the Fire Authority may have to once again balance the books by cutting more essential services to our vulnerable residents in Sunderland.

“Over the last decade or so, the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service have prioritised every possible option to achieve greater efficiency and minimise the need to cut budgets for essential services.

“It is clearly not realistic to expect financial pressures of this magnitude to be addressed through further efficiencies.”

Cllr Tye noted the issue was especially pressing as earlier this week the Fire Brigade Union rejected the offer of a 5% pay rise for firefighters and control staff, with a ballot on strike action now planned to be held.

He added he had also been notified by the Home Office that the suggestion from Government is to use the “military soldiers” to take on the role of firefighters during any strike action.

Continuing, Cllr Tye said his decision, in line with the Tyne and Wear chief fire officer, was to refuse this.

He added: “They told us that we have to pay out of our own authority’s budget £4,000 [per week] for every soldier it provides.

“The cost of training alone would have cost us £500,000 from those numbers, there’s absolutely no way from a resilience measure that we would be able to fund that.

“Our resilience measures that we already have set up and in place will do exactly what the soldiers of the Ministry of Defence would have been providing.”

He added firefighters “rightly deserve” a “significant increase” in pay, but the Government is to date providing no additional cash to fund this.

The motion, signed by Labour representatives, received unanimous approval from councillors at the full council meeting on Wednesday (November 17).

Conservative Councillor James Doyle, who also sits on Tyne and Wear Fire Authority, said it was a “timely and important motion”.

He added: “It’s essential that the government acts now to mitigate the risk of strike action, which despite resilience and contingency planning, would have a devastating effect on our response capability.”

Chris Lowther, Tyne and Wear chief fire officer, speaking earlier this week, said the future of the fire service is in a “strong position” due to its financial management over recent years.

However he warned, like most public sector organisations, they are set to face an “oncoming storm”.