Belts tightened to boost Fire and Rescue Service frontline

The Bligh Government will invest more than $5 million in savings from the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service (QFRS) in an extra 45 frontline firefighters.

Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said while the Government was providing record funding for Queensland's emergency services, it wanted to target areas where "belts could be tightened" to free up extra resources for the frontline.

Last month's State Budget provided a record $397.9 million for QFRS this financial year (2008-09) - an increase of $37.7 million.

"Following the Audit of the Queensland Ambulance Service late last year, I ordered a review of the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service to identify how we could strengthen the Service's focus on the frontline from existing resources," Mr Roberts said.

"Queensland is well served by the QFRS. Queensland's fire death rate is Australia's lowest and falling. Property loss from structural fires in Queensland is among the lowest. Response times to structural fires are faster than the national benchmark of 90% of structural fires within 14 minutes*."

Mr Roberts said while QFRS workload had remained relatively stable in recent years, the review has identified potential savings to boost the frontline.

"The QFRS review has identified six areas of potential savings. The Government will implement recommendations in four of those areas, generating savings of up to $5.5 million per annum."

Mr Roberts said the Government has not accepted the review's recommendation to rationalise fire stations nor to reduce firefighter involvement in community risk mitigation activities, such as education.

"The Government is expanding QFRS's presence by completing a new fire station at Burpengary and it is funding new fire stations at Redland Bay and Nerang. Additional firefighters are required for the new fire stations," Mr Roberts said.

"The priority will be to allocate the extra firefighters funded by these savings for the two new stations at Redland Bay and Nerang. These stations will each require 19 new firefighting staff. The deployment of the other additional staff will be determined by QFRS based on its operational needs."

Mr Roberts said the Ambulance Audit identified savings of $12 million in non-operational areas of QAS and corporate areas of the Department of Emergency Services (DES) and its divisions, including QFRS.

"This review has identified $4.73 million in total corporate savings from 2009-10 ($3.54 million in 2008-09) in non-operational areas of QFRS and corporate overheads across the Service and DES," he said.

"These savings will result from a reduction of corporate staff and non-operational staff in QFRS head office and in areas such as non-operational vehicles, travel and accommodation, consultants and contractors, office equipment, communications and publications and replacing temporary staff with permanent appointments."

Mr Roberts said as a result of the review, QFRS would revise the Road Crashes Rescue (RCR) protocols to minimise non-essential attendances at road crash incidents.

"While the number of fires attended by QFRS fell by 8% over five years until 2006-07, the number of road crash incidents attended increased by 98% over the same period. QFRS attended 13,802 road crash incidents in 2006-07.”

"There are very serious and tragic road crashes where QFRS provides expert and often life-saving assistance. However, under the current RCR protocols QFRS crews are dispatched even if no extrication or rescue was required," he said.

Mr Roberts said the most common role for QFRS crews at road crash incidents was "investigation only", accounting for 5779 incidents (or 40% of total incidents) in 2006-07.

"The QFRS review has found number of non-essential attendance at road crash incidents could be reduced by 10% or 1400 incidents per annum, reducing the need to call professional full-time and auxiliary firefighters for non-essential incidents,” he said.

QFRS will also continue to implement strategies to minimise unwanted and false alarms.

Mr Roberts said the recommendations of the review would be implemented in consultation with union representatives of QFRS employees and the staff themselves.

He said while the QFRS review and QAS audit would deliver greater resources on the frontline, both Services had different challenges.

"Unlike QAS, QFRS is unique as it also has extensive compliance and enforcement responsibilities. It has staff working in critical areas, such as building fire safety, compliance for budget accommodation, residential care and most recently smoke alarms which are now compulsory in all Queensland residences."

*QFRS urban crews responded to 98% of structural fires within 14 minutes from permanent full-time stations.

The QFRS Efficiency Review report will be published on the Department’s website www.emergency.qld.gov.au.

22 July 2008

Media contact:

Kirby Anderson (Minister’s office) 3247 8194 or 0418 197 350

Queensland Fire and Rescue Service

·Record budget - QFRS has a record budget of $397.9 million in 2008-09 (increase of $37.7 million);

·Falling fire death rate – Queensland’s fire death rate was 4.5 per million people in 2005 compared to 9.4 per million in 1999;

·Falling fire injury rate – Queensland’s fire injury rate was 16.3 per 100,000 people in 2005-06 compared to 20.9 in 2001-02;

·Falling property losses from structural fire – property losses from structural fires in Queensland has fallen from $33 per person in 2002-03 to $23 in 2006-07;

·Response times improve – QFRS crews responded to 50% and 90% of structural fires in 6.5 minutes and 11.5 minutes respectively (estimated actual) in 2007-08, compared to 6.9 minutes and 13.1 minutes in 2006-07;

·Increasing investment per capita – Fire service expenditure per 1000 people will be $98,849 in 2008-09 compared to $90,138 (estimated actual) in 2007-08;

·More staff per capita - QFRS has more full-time equivalent staff per 100,000 people (71) than counterparts in Victoria (63.9) and NSW (68.7);

·Total incidents increase - total incidents attended by QFRS increased by 10.4% over past five financial years from 62,214 in 2002-03 to 68,661 in 2006-07;

·Fire incidents decrease - total fire incidents attended by QFRS decreased by 8.1% over past five financial years from 20,865 in 2002-03 to 19,185 in 2006-07;

·Road Crash Rescue incidents increase – total road crash rescue (RCR) incidents attended by QFRS increased by 97.9% over past five financial years from 6974 in 2002-03 to 13,802 in 2006-07.

·Most RCR incidents are for “investigation only” or “remove hazard”– most actions taken by QFRS crews at RCR incidents was “investigation only” (5779 or 41.8% in 2006-07) or “remove hazard” (3520 or 25.4% in 2006-07). Other incidents attended included extinguishment (138 or 1%), rescue (982 or 7.1%), extrication/disentanglement (840 or 6%), provide medical assistance (552 or 4%) and provide assistance (695 or 5%).