Money needed for fire safety officers

Greater investment in fire safety and building standards officers is needed in Scotland in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, a Holyrood committee has heard.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said cuts to the number of fire safety officers working across the country should be addressed as a matter of urgency, with the number down by almost a quarter since 2013-14.

Meanwhile, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in Scotland told MSPs that local authority building standards departments were suffering from a “huge lack of investment”.

The local government committee has extended

“Officers find it difficult to complete fire safety tests”

its inquiry into building standards to cover fire safety following the London tower block blaze in June in which at least 80 people are thought to have died.

Denise Christie of the FBU said the number of uniformed fire safety officers in Scotland has fallen by 25% since 201314, down from 89 to 68.

Officers were now finding it “more and more difficult” to complete fire safety tests within the time they have available, she said.

The reduction has come alongside wider job losses across the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) amid falling budgets, Ms Christie added.

“We’ve had year-onyear cuts to our organisation and we are finding it very, very difficult to cope,” she said.

“We were promised that the reorganisation from the eight former brigades into the one Scottish Fire and Rescue Service would not impact on the frontline, but it is impacting on the frontline. Now we are seeing cuts to our fire safety inspection officers.”