Recruitment campaign launched to hire up to 300 firefighters

A recruitment campaign has been launched to find up to 300 firefighters to join the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

The emergency service currently has more than 3,000 wholetime firefighters already working across Scotland.

It hopes to further diversify with the latest Break The Mould campaign, with only 5% of firefighters identifying as women and less than 1% belonging to an ethnic minority.

Liz Barnes, SFRS director of people and organisational development, said the campaign would actively work to encourage people from a wide range of backgrounds to apply.

She said: "We are very privileged to work for an emergency service that prides itself on working hard each and every day to serve and protect the people of Scotland.

"But we are also committed to ensuring that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service reflects our country's very unique and diverse communities - and that is why we are actively reaching out to everyone to ask them to consider a fantastic career as a wholetime firefighter.

"Our message is simple - if you capable of being a firefighter, then we will help you realise that ambition."

Applications go live on Thursday March 21 with four women-only open days in Glasgow, Perth, Inverness and Falkirk between March 1 and March 9.

Ms Barnes added: "There is no doubt that our information sessions both general and targeted will assist and we also will be signposting people to the relevant information on our website.

"This is an exciting time and we are very much looking forward to welcoming the next generation into a service that is seeking to do so more for the people of Scotland."

It comes amid another recruitment drive launched on social media for Police Scotland.

The force aims to recruit another 100 officers from the campaign which began at the start of the year.

At an SPA board meeting in Kilmarnock earlier in February, Chief Constable Iain Livingstone confirmed previous plans to cut 300 officers had been dropped.

Police Scotland also announced 360 officers are being placed on standby to deal with incidents that may arise because of Brexit.