More sensible to merge like with like

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 20:32

The reality is that, while the police, fire and ambulance services all attend incidents with blue flashing lights, the jobs we do are completely different.

There may be something we can do in areas like fleet management, but I can't see that being very realistic as the size and types of vehicles are so different.

I think it would be better and more obvious to merge with other fire services considering we are doing the same job and are covered by the same act of parliament. There would be no staff savings to be had in the front line from this, although there may be some efficiencies to be had in back-office staff. However, there are many different ways of achieving that and I am not sure that this is altogether the best option.

We are certainly open to discussions about how to cope with the budget cuts, but we would have doubts about the idea that, just because all the vehicles run under blue flashing lights, merging them would make any real sense.

If they are doing this for economic reasons, I would say councillors have not understood, or not thought deeply enough about this.

I will be interested to hear the views of chief police officers and chief fire officers. I am really quite surprised they have done this without consulting more widely.

• Gavin Barrie is chairman of the Fire Brigades Union Scotland.