Londoners could have been at serious risk of death or injury on Bonfire Night if the Fire Brigade Union had not called off their strike and the public had to rely on private cover.
The private company AssetCo used by the London Fire Authority has clauses in its contract allowing them to decide how to handle fires – and whether an attempt should be made to rescue people caught in a blaze.
The terms of the private firm’s Capitalguard contract with the authority gives them carte blanche on what action they should take on putting out fires.
A London Fire Brigade document shows that the five-year £9 million management contract (£3.3 million up front and the rest paid over four years) delegates responsibility to the company at the scene of a fire.
It says that private firefighters should normally adopt a defensive rather offensive approach to putting out fires – meaning containing rather than trying to extinguish them.
The contract also puts an emphasis on rescuing “saveable lives” – saying that risk assessments should be made before intervening to save someone from a burning building.
It says: “The decision to move to offensive operations will be based upon a ‘risk benefit’ assessment and is anticipated to be confined to the saving of ‘saveable life’.”
More disturbingly, the contract makes it clear that when the privatised firefighters attend a fire by themselves, senior management will decide what action will be taken – and when there are senior London Fire Brigade people there, the company can override them in certain circumstances.
The document says: “At incidents attended only by EFCC (AssetCo) the operational command of the incident will be the responsibility of the EFCC supervisor or other senior AssetCo representative on scene, and direct supervision and control of EFCC operational personnel will rest with them.
“At incidents attended by both LFB and EFCC personnel the operational command of the incident will be the responsibility of the LFB supervisory officer attending whatever their role. However, in these circumstances the direct supervision and control of EFCC operational personnel will continue to rest with the EFCC supervisor or other senior AssetCo representative on scene.”
The company’s response time is far less than trained firefighters, because private firefighters are not trained to the same high driving standards.
The document says: “The level of cover provided by 27 appliances is projected to achieve an average first appliance response of just less than 13 minutes and attendance at 95 per cent of all calls within 25 minutes.”
Any pretence that the company – officially described as a reserve force – has not been hired to break strikes is also removed in the report to the London Fire Brigade. It makes it clear that it has been worded to prevent a legal challenge from the FBU.
