Tale of the tape

Jan 4 2007 By Ross Smith, The Journal

Consultancy fees attacked amid row over fire service changes

Fire Brigades Union leaders last night attacked the spiralling sums being spent by Government on consultants over its plan for regional control centres.

Fees paid to consultants topped £11.7m over the 2005-06 financial year, according to figures released to Labour left-wing MP and declared leadership contender John McDonnell.

That compares to £1.5m in 2003-04 and £9m in 2004-05.

The Government plans to abolish separate control centres for the North-East's four fire brigades, in favour of a single complex at Belmont Industrial Estate, Durham, due to open next year.

It is pressing ahead with the plan - which fire officers say could lead to a regional brigade - despite police force mergers being shelved last year.

However, the FBU claims that will mean less staff answering calls, and less specialist knowledge of local areas to help them direct emergency vehicles.

Regional secretary Steve Gregg said: "Now when children tell their parents they want to be firefighters, the advice should be to become consultants instead.

"They get better paid, they have much less work and much less risk."

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Communities and Local Government needs people in the short term with specialist skills to deliver the fire control project.

"Therefore, alongside civil servants and fire and rescue service personnel, we need to employ specialists."

The Government says the centres will produce savings of £20m a year.

But Conservative shadow local government secretary Caroline Spelman said the regionalisation of fire control rooms was an expensive and flawed project.

"Just as the scrapping of local police forces would have wasted millions of pounds and made policing more distant and less responsive, so the planned regionalisation of the fire control services is risky and badly thought out."

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Workers struggle on after clocking off time

Workers in the North-East do more unpaid overtime than in any other part of the country, according to figures released by trade unions yesterday.

Staff in the region who are not paid for extra work stay behind for an extra seven hours and 42 minutes a week, the survey claimed.

That compares to a UK average of seven hours and six minutes.

And the TUC said the unfairness of the situation is compounded by the fact average wages are lower in the North-East.

The North-East is one of just two regions in the country where the amount of unpaid overtime has increased over the past year. The total value of unpaid overtime in the region was £733m.

TUC Northern regional secretary Kevin Rowan said: "It's hard to understand why the North-East is swimming against the tide. It's particularly hard to bear when people are already the lowest paid workers in the country and they're essentially working an extra day for free.

"It will be worth trying to find out why the North-East is increasing the number of hours worked when almost everywhere else it seems to be reducing. Perhaps its due to the growth in service sector industries."

Reducing unpaid overtime is best done through agreements between employers and trade unions, Mr Rowan said.

CBI assistant regional director Liz Smith said: "It is not in anyone's interest to routinely work very long hours although it can be necessary, as the TUC recognises, for staff to work longer than normal at times.

"Almost all employers offer flexible working to ensure workers can maintain their work-life balance and get properly remunerated for the work they do.

"It may be that as the North-East economy becomes more buoyant the demands on workers are increasing, although the percentage of the workforce doing unpaid overtime is still lower than much of the rest of the country."

The CBI and TUC are among a number of North-East organisations which have backed the Work Wise drive to increase flexible working.

The TUC has declared February 23 its `Work Your Proper Hours Day' - as that is the day the average British worker would begin to get paid if they did all their unpaid hours at once.