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Building resilience through workforce planning |
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New crewing systems are changing the way wholetime fire cover is provided in Surrey
LIMITED BOROUGH AUTONOMY (LBA) is the system used by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service to manage staff employed on the wholetime duty system, which ensures sufficient personnel with the right skills and competencies are available on-duty to respond effectively to emergency calls to meet the Surrey Response Standard. LBA provides flexible working opportunities for wholetime personnel by removing previously prescriptive rules governing the taking of leave, and promoting greater integration between watches and with different duty systems, facilitating the use of RDS, part-time, job-sharing and other flexible working arrangements at wholetime stations. The 2x2x4 duty system with a nine hour day and 15-hour night shifts (as set out in the Scheme of Conditions of Service (Grey Book)) serves as the underlying shift pattern. LBA is dependant on the flexible use of personnel within each borough, and through accurate advanced planning, crewing levels are maintained and sufficient human resources are made available to support key events.
Standard Crewing Targets
The 11 borough management teams plan staff availability autonomously from each other based on an ‘annualised-shifts’ basis, whereby day and night shifts are treated as equal when exchanged, regardless of the actual number of hours worked. The service has calculated the number of shifts required to meet the standard crewing targets (nines and fives) for each borough, which have been set using a risk-based approach.
Where standard crewing is not possible for whatever reason, the ‘limit’ on the borough autonomy kicks in and the Duty Group Manager may allow minimum crewing (eights and fours) or authorise other strategies to ensure servicewide response cover is maintained. We might also cover the introduction of Variable Crewing (work already exists on this) and how it underpins RDS during the working week and provides firefighters with expanded roles with additional responsibilities that see firefighters leading on projects and initiatives in their own right.
We have also introduced job share for wholetime firefighter roles, which provide a flexible resource at fire stations to help support LBA achieve the crewing targets.
No Precedence
We should include our transfers and reemployment policy that maximises the service’s investment in skills training and builds resilience. As a principle, no employment group or individual has precedence over another employment group or individuals wishing to transfer within the service or to join the service from another fire and rescue service or from another occupation.
This is with the exception of:
• Individuals being considered for redeployment – possibly under the Disability Discrimination Act – where reasonable adjustments to working arrangements apply
• Individuals who have been moved from a substantive B role to an A role through a service need will be on protected pay and will be moved back to a B role at the earliest opportunity in accordance with the NJC Circular 01/06
• An individual that is required to move to meet a service need
• Applications to transfer to ease financial or travelling difficulties, or where a transfer would assist in making the applicant’s role more family friendly, will be considered sympathetically and allowed where possible.
The service reserves the right to refuse any transfer request on the grounds of:
• Operational or risk-critical service needs
• Where the person wishing to transfer is unable to meet the required standards or demonstrate competency in role
• Where opportunities to achieve a more diverse workforce would be adversely affected.
The service no longer maintains a transfer list. Instead, location-specific vacancies are advertised on a regular basis, allowing personnel who believe they have the right skills, qualities and attributes to apply for vacancies.
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