Thursday, October 11, 2012

WYFRS have to reveal the truth

The aim of this site is TRANSPARENCY - to bring into the public domain information about West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue that you may not be aware of and most importantly for us to use and share the information we find and put it in the public domain. 

Today we learnt that the  Information Commissioners Office has passed a judgement which means WYFRS should  have to reveal information about its income from training - but scarily the report seems to indicate 

THEY DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW THE GROSS  FIGURE OF PROFIT THEY MAKE FROM FIRE  TRAINING !!!!


Reference:  FS50446509 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) 
Decision notice 
Date:    1 October 2012 
Public Authority: West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service 
Address:   Oakroyd Hall 
                 Bradford  Road 
                 Birkenshaw 
                West Yorkshire 
                BD11 2DY 
Decision (including any steps ordered) 
1. The complainant has requested a range of information relating to fire 
training provided by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.  The public 
authority provided some of the requested information, confirmed some 
information was not held and withheld some information under the 
exemption where disclosure would be likely to prejudice its commercial 
interests.  
2. The Commissioner’s decision is that the public authority has correctly 
confirmed that information relating to gross profits derived from the 
provision of fire training is not held.  In relation to the list of customers 
in receipt of fire training, the Commissioner has decided that the public 
authority has incorrectly applied the commercial interests exemption.     
3. The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following 
steps to ensure compliance with the legislation. 
 Disclose the withheld information 
4. The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of 
the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the 
Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court 
pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt 
of court. 


We enclose the full judgement below, are you like us shocked that WYFRS do not keep accurate records ? 










URGENT UPDATE 

Strangely enough it has just been pointed out by a member of the FCCL team that the link to the training page of WYFRS website in the document above  has a "broken link" 





But they seem to have set up a new page ......

Available here 


And what we can't understand - how do they not know their gross profit  when they have detailed price lists like this one for a Fire Marshall Renewal Course?  



Charge  (No VAT)
Per person - When you book a
minimum of 8 places on a course £45
Fixed price - When you book a course
of up to 10 places £400
Fixed price - When you book a course
of up to 15 places £450
For other individual bookings - each
person  £70
Training at Fire Service Headquarters, Birkenshaw, is all inclusive of parking and
a refreshment break.

And how come if they are so keen to cut services at the front line have they SLASHED their prices by up to  

60% 


Take a look at the documentation




HERE !!!!!!!!!

WOULD THEY DELIBERATELY RUN COURSES AT A "LOSS"  -----??????

3 comments:

Sarah Covell said...

And as Tyne & Wear, Hereford and West Sussex also have FOI judgements against them we are curious to know who is sending them in.

Anonymous said...

of course they run them at a loss - its how they massage the "look how well we are doing" figures to justify closing stations.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how you find this stuff but keep digging - you are doing a great job.