South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue chief says service faces ‘much reduced’ risk of strike action

Earlier this month, announcement of a firefighter’s strike was postponed, following a pay offer of seven per cent on nationally negotiated rates and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) backdated to July 1, 2022, and then another five per cent from July 1, 2023.

The executive committee of the Fire Brigades Union has decided to put this offer to a ballot of its members, and has postponed the announcement of strike dates pending the outcome.

Speaking during a meeting of the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority today (February 20), CFO of SYFRS, Chris Kirby, said that the Fire Brigade Union’s executive council had recommended that its members accept an ‘improved’ pay offer.

Mr Kirby added that the ballot will open today, and is set to close on March 6, “at which point we will know whether or not the dispute has been concluded”.

Mr Kirby told the meeting that in South Yorkshire, the service’s business continuity planning teams will ‘continue planning for the potential for industrial action’, ‘until we know for sure that the dispute has ended’.

“The latest information that is emerging now is it there is a much reduced risk that that is likely to be realised, but it won’t stop us planning for that eventuality.”

The union has said it will have an ‘honest and sober’ discussion of the offer, which ‘still amounts to a real terms pay cut given the rate of inflation’.