Fire and rescue told to save £10m over two years

All four fire authorities in the region will have to cope with drastically reduced budgets after central distribution grants were reallocated.

West Yorkshire Fire will have its budget slashed from 57.5m to 52.4m by 2012, a decrease of almost nine per cent, while South Yorkshire Fire will have to manage with 4.1m less than the 36.8m grant it received this year, a chop of more than 11 per cent.

Humberside Fire and Rescue Service will receive 26.1m for 2012-13, compared with 27.2m for 2010-11, and North Yorkshire will face a 200,000 cut to its 13m budget.

Senior figures from the fire and rescue services across the region will meet this week to discuss the ramifications of the announcement but it is believed that the figures published are broadly in line with what was anticipated.

David Ridgway, chair of the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority, said last night that safety to residents was the primary concern and that there would be no compulsory redundancies.

He added that a system of pooling workers across the county, in place since January, was already showing efficiencies and would become a focal part of the service's plan to make savings.

Coun Ridgway said: "We have gone through an internal review of everything in order to see where savings may be generated. The most important thing to stress is that people in West Yorkshire will be as safe in their beds after this announcement as they were before it.

"No one in the fire service will face compulsory redundancy but natural retirements are a key element in our strategy. There will be voluntary retirements and we already know who they will be.

"Natural and voluntary retirements together should achieve the sort of reduction in work force to drive savings."

Coun Ridgway said that the new roster system, where firefighters could work for more than one station in West Yorkshire, would off-set a diminishing staff level.

He added: "We are confident we can find appropriate savings without in the slightest part affecting people's safety."

Fire service chiefs in South Yorkshire last month proposed "self-rostering" for crews – a move that would save more than 2m but also make 70 staff redundant.

They said they were opposed to closing any of South Yorkshire's 23 fire stations, but decided to give further consideration to the self-rostering system, which would remove "historic inefficiencies".