Reference:
Request detail:
Please could you endeavour to answer the following questions within 20 working days, as specified under its clauses.
Please could you break down the below information per month (from the 1st to the 30th or 31st) for each month from April to December in 2020.
How many times did fire stations under the authority of your fire service fail to meet their minimum safe fire engine availability threshold over the specified year?
Please could you specify the stations which most frequently failed to meet this threshold, and state the number of times they failed to meet it.
How many full-time firefighters were employed by fire stations under the authority of your fire service over this period?
Response detail:
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. Please find responses below. The remaining questions will be answered under separate FOI’s which were how they were originally received.
I just had a few points of clarification on some of the questions contained within the three separate FOI requests I sent on the 1st of January.
In relation to what I meant by "minimum safe fire engine availability threshold", I used the criteria as defined in the linked example from Surrey's IRMP 'Making Surrey Safer'. I appreciate that fire and rescue services do not hold uniform basic information on this, but It would be great if you could send the relevant information you do hold internally which is as similar as possible to what is in the table outlined on page 15 of this document.
In your response to the question about how many times did the fire stations under your authority fail to meet their minimum safe fire engine availability between April and December (1st to 31st) 2020, please could you also tell me the same information broken down by month over the same period in 2019 as well.
Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service do not report on the number of occasions that appliances fall below our minimum staffing threshold , this is recorded as a percentage. The below table shows the percentage availability of all our on call appliances for the specified period.
Minimum requirement
- Day and night time : 28 appliances (23 on call / 5 whole-time )
All Whole Time appliances at Shrewsbury, Telford Central and Wellington have maintained 100% during 2019 and 2020.
On -Call 2020 Availability
* See attached Word Document
On-Call 2019 availability
* See attached Word Document
In relation to the question sent in another one of my FOI requests: "how many full-time firefighters were employed by fire stations under the authority of your fire service over this period?", I would like to clarify I mean the total number of whole-time firefighters employed by your fire and rescue service for each month (April to December 2020).
Please find below the average number of Wholetime Personnel (Full time equivalent) that were employed for the months requested. Please note that On Call Firefighters are not included in these figures.
A full time equivalent of 1.0 is equivalent to a full time firefighter working 42 hours. For a firefighter who works under 42 hours their full time equivalent will be less than 1. For example a full time equivalent of 0.5 would be someone working half the amount of hours of someone full time (21 hours).
April 2020 - 177.26
May 2020 - 176.26
June 2020 - 176.26
July 2020 - 179.26
August 2020 - 181.76
September - 184.26
October - 185.76
November - 186.36
December - 186.86
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled, you can complain or request an internal review of the decision. This must be done within 40 working days of receiving this response. You can do this by writing to the Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, St. Michael’s Street, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1 2HJ or email: enquiries@shropshirefire.gov.uk.
If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint, you have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
Information Commissioner's Office
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Water Lane
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Cheshire
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Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: www.ico.gov.uk
