News

Fire service pushing to recruit more on-call firefighters in rural locations

By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter

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Nottinghamshire’s fire service are pushing for more on-call firefighters to join the service with three stations’ available hours “well below target”.

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Community Safety Committee met today (March 14) to discuss updates on the service’s performance.

Members heard a current recruitment drive for on-call firefighters is aiming to increase the on-call availability across stations.

On-call firefighters are staff that may have other jobs or commitments in their daily lives, but offer availability to be called to an incident on their free hours.

On-call station availability between April 1 2024 and December 31 2024 averaged 83.4 per cent, which is below the service’s target of 85 per cent and has dropped from the 86.3 per cent over the same period in 2023/24.

However, this has since increased to 84.3 per cent.

Between this same period, on-call availability at Warsop and Hucknall stations was close to 100 per cent, while Blidworth, Harworth and Southwell fell below 70 per cent availability.

Nottingham City Councillor for Basford, Nick Raine (Lab), said: “In Blidworth, Harworth and Southwell, availability really is quite low, we’ve previously asked about Retford, that’s not going particularly well either.

“You’ve mentioned the IT problems there. People are going to be thinking about what we’re going to do to rectify the problems?”

Between October and December 2024, Blidworth’s on-call available hours were as low as 57 per cent, Harworth was at 66 per cent and Southwell was at 67 per cent.

Tom Staples, Group Manager at the service, said these were “well below target”.

He said: “There’s the changing contracts for on-call which is a nationally negotiated position for the on-call, we are hoping that does encourage the exiting members to give some more availability, ultimately that will increase their pay.”

The fire service is currently trying to recruit more on-call firefighters to increase the availability across Nottinghamshire.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service following the meeting, Mr Staples said: “It’s not specifically for one station, it’s for the whole of the on-call estate.

“[It would be welcome] if people could give hours during the daytime which is where we struggle with on-call availability.”

He said the service will be specifically ‘targeting’ the low available on-call hours across Blidworth, Harworth and Southwell.

Councillor Tina Thompson, Newark and Sherwood District Councillor for Blidworth and Rainworth South (Ind), said in a statement: “Blidworth Fire Station is a critical part of Nottinghamshire’s Fire infrastructure. Councillor Francis Purdue-Horan and I have been fighting to ensure there are more on-call firefighters to serve this station – so we’re delighted that fire bosses have listened to us and opened recruitment.”

The National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services last year agreed to a rise in the retainment figure for on-call firefighters and the hourly pay from 7.5 per cent of a wholetime employee to 10 per cent.

The retainment fee currently stands at around £3,000 a year.

Applications for on-call staff will close on April 1 at 11:59pm.