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24
Sept
Fire chief admits on-call recruitment a 'significant challenge' in North Yorkshire
A member of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s strategic leadership team has acknowledged that on-call firefighter recruitment is a “significant challenge”.
The Stray Ferret revealed this month that all on-call stations in the Harrogate district had suffered big declines in crew availability, which prompted concerns about public safety.
The availability of Ripon’s nighttime on-call crew fell from 48% in 2022/23 to 17% in 2024/25. Crew availability in Summerbridge and Boroughbridge declined from 44% to 21% and 67% to 23% over the same period.
Jo Coles, the Labour deputy mayor for York and North Yorkshire who is responsible for scrutinising North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s performance, criticised the Stray Ferret for reporting on the issue during the Langdale Moor fire.
But Ms Coles quizzed Damian Henderson, director of service improvement and assurance at North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, about the issue during her online public meeting last week.
Mr Henderson told the meeting:
A significant amount of work continues to be undertaken with regards to on-call recruitment. If anyone can support their local fire station that would be hugely appreciated. We do appreciate that in a number of our stations there’s a significant challenge.
The figures from our freedom of information request.
Mr Henderson said overall fire engine availability had fallen from 69% to 68% this year. This is the combined figure for wholetime and on-call crews throughout North Yorkshire. Ms Coles asked whether specific figures for on-call availability could be made available “so we would have a sense of where the recruitment challenges might be”.
Mr Henderson said the fire service did monitor on-call availability but “wouldn’t want to necessarily share” the information in a public meeting because each on-call station faced different recruitment challenges.
He added:
“From our point of view we understand the challenges, we understand the locations where we need to improve with regards to our availability.
“There is a huge amount of activity that is happening with regards to on-call but it is a continual challenge.”
A North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service image used in a firefighter recruitment campaign.
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service initially refused to release the information to the Stray Ferret in response to a freedom of information request but later did so and admitted its initial response had been wrong.
Mr Henderson said recent two-week courses for on-call staff had been fully subscribed and echoed a plea earlier in the meeting by chief fire officer Jonathan Dyson for people to become on-call firefighters.
On-call firefighters are part-time, trained firefighters that respond to alerts on pagers at work or at home. They earn on average £7,000 a year.
You can apply to become an on-call firefighter here.
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