Structure of the Workforce
As at 31 October 2020, 1,545 people worked for us. These employees span various pay groups which perform a variety of roles and have different working patterns to meet our business needs. In its simplest form these are employees who either have an operational role (such as firefighters working on fire stations, 999 operators in our Control Room and technical staff working in specialist areas) and wear a uniform; or those who provide administrative and back office functions such as finance, information technology systems and human resources, and do not wear a uniform. A summary of the numbers in each of these categories is set out below in Table 1. Additionally the Authority has a third group of employees, namely the Chief Executive, and three Directors; one of whom is uniformed and the others non-uniformed, which are not shown in the table below.
Table 1: Number of staff employed by category as at 31 October 2020
| Staff Group | Definition | Number of Staff in Group |
|---|---|---|
| Whole-time Firefighters |
Firefighters who work an average of 42 hours a week to crew stations 24 hours a day either as firefighters located at the station, or as firefighters located at the station during the day and responding from their own homes on an on-call basis at night, or who work in specialist areas such as Building Safety. This figure also includes officers that do not work on fire stations. |
661 (660 full-time equivalents) |
| Control Staff |
Uniformed staff who handle 999 calls and are based at the Fire and Rescue Control Centre. |
37 (35.5 full-time equivalents) |
| On-call Firefighters |
A duty system where firefighters respond from their own homes or workplaces located near to the fire station on an on-call basis. |
514 (full-time equivalents not applicable) |
| Corporate Staff |
Staff who typically do not wear a uniform and largely work in administrative and professional support functions. A proportion (48, or 46.24 full-time equivalents) provide fire prevention and road safety advice and offer home safety services and specialist advice for those more at risk |
329 (315.6 full-time equivalents) |