The RFU wishes to put on record its gratitude to The Scottish government, Scottish MPs, MEP’s, Fireboard Convenors, Elected members and the media for publicising this important threat to public safety.

Members of the European Parliament met on the 17th December to vote on the issue of maintaining the Working Time Opt-out which if removed would limit all workers within the EU to a 48 hour working week.

Naturally the RFU has an interest in this issue, specifically the implications on maintaining the provision of emergency fire and rescue response by RDS. In addition to this concern, there are also implications on maintaining the Flexi-duty system provided by officers.

Prior to the vote on the 17th, the RFU met with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) on the 10th December to discuss this issue and made representations on behalf of the RDS, we also wrote to every UK MEP and provided a written submission to brief them on the implications should the opt-out be removed.

RFU Scotland National Officer Jim Kilpatrick said:

“Since this story broke in mid December following the vote to scrap the UK Opt-Out, we have been overwhelmed by the level of moral and public support for our campaign to save the Opt-Out. If ever there was a time when deserved recognition of what retained firefighters do on a daily basis for their communities was needed, this was it.

It is fair to say that initially we felt on our own in fighting this threat in the face of strong TUC support in favour of scrapping the opt-out. Indeed there has been a campaign for employees to lobby their MEP to vote for it to be scrapped.

Our campaign has been described in some circles as ‘scaremongering’ but the very fact that important public figures have taken their own view on this and come out in support provides a clear statement that this threat is not just our perception but a clear statement of fact.

I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify another issue concerning why this threat is hanging over the UK’s retained firefighters. The reason is that Europe has over 4million volunteer firefighters who perform duties similar to the UK’s retained personnel.

These 4 million firefighters are unaffected by the removal of the opt-out because they are volunteers.”

Statement Ends

Note for editors
The UK has 37,000 career fire fighter and 18,000 Retained duty system firefighters
Austria 2,462 career fire fighters, 234,134 volunteer fire fighters
Belgium 5,500 career fire fighters and 12,000 volunteer fire fighters
Czech Republic 6,755 career fire fighters and 300,000 volunteer fire fighters
Denmark 1,700 career fire fighters and 5,000 volunteer fire fighters
France 38,700 career fire fighters and 199,200 volunteer fire fighters
Finland 5,000 career fire fighters and 14,300 volunteer fire fighters
Germany 30,000 career fire fighters and 1,346,000 volunteer fire fighters
Luxemburg 150 career fire fighters and 6,400 volunteer fire fighters
Netherlands 4,000 career fire fighters 29,000 volunteer fire fighters
Poland 28,000 career fire fighters 460,000 volunteer fire fighters
Portugal with 2,000 career fire fighters and 40,000 volunteer fire fighters
Slovenia 550 career fire fighters and 60,000 volunteer fire fighters
Sweden 5,300 career fire fighters 11,000 volunteer fire fighters
Switzerland has 1,200 professionals and 115.000 volunteer fire fighters

Source: International association of fire and rescue service

Statement Ends

Press contacts