Shift Patterns

The shift patterns in use in London Fire Brigade are not dissimilar to those used in the rest of the country and have been the same for some 27 years. They consist of a 15-hour night and a 9-hour day shift. We strongly believe there is a very good business case for wishing to change those shift patterns to one that is not only more flexible but allows us to equalise those shifts, for example, to 12-hour shifts. This would allow us to ensure we can have more flexible use of staff and employment of staff, such as part-time working or job sharing, which is just disallowed by the current system because there are unequal shifts and people cannot swap from day to night without being owed hours, and will also result in greater productivity. It comes back to the community fire safety question; why on a change of watch at 6.00 pm, everything has to close down and for an hour equipment is checked. By having a longer day shift there is a greater opportunity for greater productivity into the early evening for home fire safety checks. There is a strong business case.

We are consulting with the Fire Brigades Union. We started that in 2005. It was in our London Safety Action Plan for 2006/07. There is an opposition to shift change, even though we have given an undertaking that what is called the 2-2-4 system will remain in place, which firefighters seem to know and love. We did put a questionnaire to staff, which was unfortunately boycotted by the Fire Brigades Union and they instructed their members not to respond to it, so we only had a 7 per cent response, which was very disappointing. We are continuing hard to produce a greater productivity, a greater flexibility of shift patterns, and I hope that we will get that by agreement through the year.