Covid absences 'leave Cleveland fire appliances out of use'

Cleveland Fire Brigade says staff absences have been "carefully managed" throughout the pandemic

Staff shortages as a result of Covid have cut the number of appliances in use on Teesside, according to the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

Its regional officer said Cleveland Fire Brigade should have 18 engines available for use at any one time.

But the pandemic and other staff issues have left it with between 12 and 15.

The brigade's chief officer said that throughout the pandemic, it had maintained its ability to respond to fires and other emergencies.

Brian Harris, the FBU's North East regional secretary, said: "Covid is hitting the fire and rescue service hard, with fire engines left out of use in their stations, but this is entirely avoidable.

"A fire and rescue service with sufficient levels of staffing and decent levels of resilience would be able to continue past these challenges.

"But across the country we've had one in every five firefighters cut since 2010 as financial constraints have hit, so we aren't in that position."

'Robust continuity'

Across the country, firefighter number cuts come against a background of reduced government funding - a drop of 13.8% in cash terms - or £140m - since 2016/17, the union says.

Davey Howe, from the Cleveland Fire Brigade Union, said their area had been particularly hard hit by these cuts.

"We've lost over 30% of our firefighters from the front line", he said.

"So that means when something like Covid comes along it just brings it all into focus that we haven't got the resilience we once had to be able to cope when people get ill."

Ian Hayton, Cleveland's Chief Fire Officer, said: "We have continued to deliver our full range of prevention, protection and emergency response services.

"In common with other organisations, the brigade has experienced staff absence due to Covid and this has been carefully managed through robust business continuity arrangements.

"During the pandemic, the average time for a crew to get to a building fire was five minutes six seconds, which is well below our targeted response of seven minutes."

He added: "Our business continuity arrangements throughout the pandemic have been independently assessed by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services."