Scottish Firefighter Numbers Down

The number of firefighters fell by almost 300 last year, official figures show.

The drop follows the creation of the new Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) in April 2013.

There were 4,001 firefighters in the year to March 2014compared with 4,151 the previous year.

Retained firefighters also fell from 3,076 to 2,940 in the same period.

The figures also show a 5% decline in control-room staff and a 12% drop in support staff.

By March last year, total SFRS staffing had fallen from about 8,964 to 8,484.

The service was required to reduce staffing levels to make necessary savings, although the Scottish Government said there would be no compulsory redundancies.

Community safety minister Paul Wheelhouse said: We are almost two years on from the successful transition to the single fire and rescue service in Scotland and already we have seen the benefits of reform thanks to efforts made by SFRS staff.

All parts of Scotland now have access to specialist equipment and expertise, there has been a reduction in the duplication of services and we are continuing to protect and improve local services.

This has all been achieved in line with the SFRS commitment to no compulsory redundancies.''

Assistant chief officer Lewis Ramsay, SFRS director of prevention and protection, said: The unification of eight fire services has better served our communities in terms of preventing fires, making cost-efficiency savings and educating the public as to how to prevent fires in the first place.

These reductions have been achieved through effectively streamlining and deploying staff where and when they were needed throughout the country.''

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes said the decline in retained firefighters was worrying.

Almost every rural and remote community relies upon the willingness of these local people to drop whatever they are doing and attend an incident,'' she said.

Parliament heard last year that the system is 'on its knees' and has 'long-standing' problems, so we need to know whether it has now been stretched to breaking point.''

The figures also show that the number of attacks on firefighters dropped again in 2013/14.

There were 69 incidents during the year, down from 81 in 2012/13.

Mr Wheelhouse said: I am extremely pleased to see that attacks on Scottish firefighters are decreasing but there is still more work to be done.

Even one attack on the hard-working men and women who often put their own lives at risk to keep the people of Scotland safe is one too many.''