THE CHIEF Fire Officer of Devon and Somerset claims the

firefighters' union has “dangerously damaged” its standing

after it told the WMN that the service was “falling apart at

the seams”.

A war of words has broken out between Chief Fire Officer

Paul Young and the Fire Brigades' Union (FBU) after an

interview in which fire safety officer Dave Chappell said the

service was “creaking along” because it was struggling to find

enough crew to man fire engines due to a high number of

vacancies.

And in a sideswipe at the WMN, Mr Young said the authority

had become “quite used” to the paper being “highly critical of

the service”.

But FBU officials insisted the article was correct, and

accused Mr Young of purposefully trying to weaken the union's

reputation.

They also poured scorn on his claim that the union stepped

into the row over the controversial regional control centre

“too late to influence the Government position”.

In an e-mail sent to all staff, and seen by the WMN, Mr

Young said: “They (the FBU) have now seriously undermined their

ability to represent the interests of their members and we will

have to recover a lot of ground to build a constructive

relationship for the future.”

Mr Young said he “completely rejected” claims that the

service was “falling apart”, and said there had been

significant improvement in some performance areas.

He pointed to a reduction in fires and false alarms – with

some types of blaze down by more than 20 per cent – as evidence

that the service was doing well.

In the e-mail, Mr Young said he did not want to discuss

employment relations in the media, and would contact the FBU

direct.

“Sadly they appear to spend much of their time looking for

ways to attack the reputation of our service. In this latest

case, I have to say that local officials have dangerously

damaged their standing not only in the eyes of management but

also the fire and rescue authority as a whole.”

He went on to talk about the FBU's campaign against the

controversial regional control centre, which will mean six

authorities across the South West being co-ordinated from

Taunton.

Mr Young said the FBU “entered this debate when it was

already too late to influence the Government position and must

now realise that the Government has invested far too much money

to allow the project to fail”.

He said the project would go ahead, despite delays, and said

previous FBU claims that it was in “disarray” were untrue.

“Simply to criticise the project without understanding the

full picture is a grave mistake”, he said, claiming that it

would be a “major financial burden to combine the recently

merged Devon and Somerset fire controls without the regional

project”.

John Drake, regional secretary for the FBU, said the

regional control centre claim was “disingenuous”, and that the

union had fought from the beginning, and had put forward two

alternative proposals which were “dismissed out of hand” by the

Government.

“It's downright wrong for him to say that,” he said,

claiming the plans were in disarray because there was no

confidence in them on the ground.

He claimed union members were satisfied with the way they

were represented, and said looking after them was the union's

“top priority”.

He said the union was right to air the issues published by

the WMN, and added: “Paul Young is trying to weaken our

standing in Devon and Somerset.”

When asked to comment further on the e-mail, Assistant Chief

Fire Officer Trevor Stratford said: “These issues were raised

in an internal e-mail intended for staff.

“A meeting has been arranged with representatives of the

Fire Brigades' Union to discuss their concerns and there will

be no further comment.”