Fire service bosses ‘waste £600,000’ on purchase of safety gear

FIRE chiefs have been accused of wasting more than £600,000 of taxpayers’ money in a bungled attempt to buy safety equipment.

It follows the release of a report that claims Scotland’s 7,000 firefighters have been left ‘urgently’ short of helmets, fire hoods, tunics, trousers, gloves and boots.

According to the document, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) had intended to spend £14.2million on buying the safety gear from a trusted supplier.

But it shows that the two-year deal for so-called personal protective equipment (PPE) was later abandoned when legal action was launched, meaning the process has to be started over.

Statistics released yesterday, show that SFRS had already spent £610,000 on legal fees and financial settlements before it was agreed to end the process.

Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘Our utmost priority is that firefighters have the most suitable and effective protective equipment. However, £610,000 is a lot of money to spend and not achieve that goal. While they await the new equip- ment it is also clear more money is being spent to repair the old equipment. This is more and more wasted money that has been lost to management inadequacy.’

The reason for the legal challenge has not been made clear, but the report, called Commodity Strategy: Provision of Structural Firefighter Personal Protective Equipment, mentions ‘relevant procurement legislation’ which states that all public contracts must be advertised across Europe.

Sarah O’Donnell, SFRS director of finance, said an investigation was under way. She added: ‘The safety of firefighters is of the utmost priority. That is why we entered into the process to acquire new PPE. This has now been sourced from an established purchasing framework.

‘The termination of the PPE tender process has incurred, over three years, total related costs of £610,000.

‘We acknowledge that the performance of our procurement and asset management departments have, in this matter, fallen below the expected standard.’

The Scottish Government said that the procurement of safety equipment is a matter for SFRS.

‘Management inadequacy’