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Date: Friday, 19 June 2009

For the attention of all RFU members in Scotland

Reference: Scottish Parliament - public petitions committee

Consideration of petition PE1254

This concerns a petition by Mr Mark Laidlaw who is calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend section 51 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 to allow flexibility in order that an employee of a fire and rescue authority can also be employed as a special constable.

The RFU is one of a number of stakeholders in Scotland who are being consulted on our views it therefore follows that the views and that of our members in Scotland are important as to whether such an amendment should be made. This information is available on the RFU Scotland website http://www.scotlandrfu.org.uk/ or http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/petitions/meetings.htm

We would therefore welcome your thoughts on the following topics:

  1. What are the advantages, do you believe this amendment is it a good idea?
  2. What are the disadvantages, if any?
  3. Do you there believe there would be any difficulties on the incident ground or any day to day problems whilst arrying out your duties if one of your colleagues was a serving police officer or special constable?
  4. Do you support the view that any fit and able person should be allowed to be an RDS firefighter irrespective of their primary employment?
  5. Are there any benefits to fire cover and service delivery especially in remote areas?
  6. Any other comments not covered by the above would be most welcome.

Please download this questionnaire here and return to RFUHQ. The deadline for the RFU’s response is 21st August 2009; we will need to evaluate any response before that date in order to meet the deadline.

Original letter to the RFU

Report on the Fire (Scotland) Bill

Scottish CFOA Reponse

FBU Response

Scotland RFU © 2009