The Fire Safety and Organisational Statistics report shows 3,490 wholetime operational firefighters in 2022-23, compared with 3,530 the year before, around a one percent reduction.
SFRS Interim Deputy Chief Officer and Director of People, Liz Barnes, said, “We are fortunate to have a wealth of experience in our workforce with over half of wholetime operational staff serving 15 years or longer."
decrease in wholetime firefighters
Liz Barnes adds, “The longer-term picture shows an overall decrease in wholetime firefighters however, this is due to several factors, including the streamlining of services and standardization of duty patterns and appliance crewing, as well as retirements, changes to pension scheme, natural turnover and vacancies."
Liz Barnes continues, “We continue to implement a policy of year-round recruitment, targeted where the need is greatest in Scotland, and it’s encouraging to see a rise in the number of wholetime trainees in the past year.”
Recruiting and retaining
SFRS continues to encourage people from all walks of life, including under-represented groups
Recruiting and retaining on-call firefighters can be challenging in rural and remote areas. However, there is less than a one percent reduction of on-call firefighters across the period (from 2,758 to 2,735).
SFRS continues to encourage people from all walks of life, including under-represented groups to consider a career with the Service.
Female Firefighter Rise
Since 2017-18, female wholetime operational staff have risen from 175 to 227. DCO Barnes said, “It’s encouraging to see that in the last five years, the number of female wholetime operational staff has risen by almost a third, but we will continue to do more to increase diversity in our workforce.”
Disappointingly, attacks on personnel have increased from 76 in 2021-22 to 80 in 2022-23. More than half of these were verbal abuse. There has been a ten percent rise in objects thrown at firefighters and appliances.
Attacks on emergency service workers
Liz Barnes continues, “Attacks on any emergency service worker are unacceptable. Our crews must work to bring any emergency to a safe and swift conclusion without being exposed to this kind of behavior."
Liz Barnes adds, “We know that those carrying out attacks are a very small minority within our communities. We will continue to work with our Police Scotland colleagues to identify those responsible but also engage with communities to raise awareness of the very negative impact of these attacks.”
Fire prevention work
Fire prevention work is a vital aspect of the role of the firefighters. Home Fire Safety Visits continue to be a valuable way to help the most vulnerable people in our communities to be safer in their properties.
One in twelve households across Scotland have been given bespoke safety advice in the past five years, with more than 38,000 visits in the past year alone.
