Id like to remind people of the start of the destruction of fire service via labour asking staff to sign for the 1992 pension scheme and/ or " new " one that ripped firemen off and still affects them now 11 years later as the FBU have been in court for 3 years using the age discrimination act.
It split the workforce in 2007 causing divide & conquer techniques.
Pls remember also it was sadiq kahn and champange socialist toad prescott that has caused a massive multi million pound PFI bill for 20 years , they okd the waste of space white elephant 999 regional controls that the taxpayer funds for an age.
Under labour the fifth man on the truck went too.
Manning levels where destroyed under labour.
The irony of dan stevens over seeing halving of all stn trucks & staff in 10 years and then moaning about it like he cared!!
To top it , getting off to OZ to be chief for a nice fat salary on that very premise....money saving.
" saving the fire service " via labour....i dont think so.

All public service pensions have gone through changes in recent years as have many private pension schemes, they simply became unaffordable and total collapse of pension schemes is something that needed to be prevented. People are living longer and claiming their pensions longer, something has to be done to fund those extra years, pensions don't grow on trees.

I agree that pay "at the top" in the fire service seems far too much.

The cutbacks are mostly due to central Government cuts, not the fire-service mismanagement? The silly beg-for-grants system where funding is available for new builds but not for maintaining the current service doesn't make sense and is taking local management control away and putting it into the hands of central Government. But of course the developers get their substantial cut out of everybody else's budgets that way.

I have always said I would be more than happy for the fire-service precept to be increased, its a very small part of the total Council Tax bill, increase in wages to the regular firemen hardly makes a difference and is certainly not worth the real risk of strikes.

The disrespect Greasby showed to the fire service still irks me.

1/ fire service pensions are now THE highest of all public sector ....over 14 % of salary yet no pay rise in years.
As FBU says " pay more work longer get less"
2/ fire chiefs pay is the highest ever average £160k more than the PM.
3/ alot of authority pensions are sold off to private companies like KIER who know nothing of the fire service.
4/ people are sicker for longer at the end, they dont die...thats the real issue. Theyre costly.
5/ the cuts are due to labour over spending yet they want to petition .....laughable.
6/ council tax ALWAYS goes UP & police/ fire cost but cover is worse or retained.
7/ it follows the usual uk MO . Bill goes up.public gets raped of money .service is worse.
8/ heres an example i know guys at wilmslow ( imagine the c tax there!) Theres NO cover esp at night...ellesmere ports 2nd truck travels all the way there just so theres 4 bods on stn.
Heres the stickler .....cfrs want to stop that 2nd pump ...no slack in the system and what if you get a house fire?? It got stopped this year , crewes 2nd pump was saved but new chief will try in 2019.
Its a disgrace.
9/ theres IS enough for fire pensions FBU proved it in court , welsh scots & irelands fire arent as punitive and ARE affordable.

Labour borrowing (and hence spending) has always been less than Tory borrowing, its a complete myth that the Tories are better art controlling finances, they borrow more and sell more national assets but that money doesn't go to joe public. Labour borrow less and generally more money filters downward.

If the Chief's budget is reduced he has to produce cuts, its not his choice, its the Government that control those budgets usually by underhand means.

The employee pension contribution rate is to a degree pointless, the total pension cost is about 25% in the public sector. In my pension scheme we had 0% contribution rate but as soon as it came to pay negotiations the "normal" pension contribution rate was immediately taken into account and added to our salary for comparison purposes. So whether they charge it as a deduction or build it into salary it ends up the same, the 25% has to come from somewhere.

I totally agree that stagnating pay is absolutely wrong (and going backward in real terms is worse!) and I fail to understand any overwhelming advantages of hyper-low inflation policies, the only people that win with low inflation are the financial markets (because they self-create instability in the financial markets), not joe public.