Does Charity Begin at Home ?

We here at FCCL  enjoy surfing the web, 

working in IT it's sort of mandatory! 

&

 amongst all the spam and junk mail 

we do occasionally discover 

And whilst looking at the What Do They Know website, whilst incidentally checking our own FOI on water charges and allotments (its a long story - don't ask) we found a Freedom of Information Request to West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue  asking for information about charity events. Now we have once been sent information about this ourselves so we read the request with  interest. We also know that WYFRS have  on occasion fallen foul of the Information Commissioners Office and we wrote about it here  way back in October 2012. 

Here is the FOI request we found .......

Dear West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service,

Please supply me with all information (times, dates and locations)

regarding charity or fund raising events where on duty Fire

Fighters were allowed to participate in the last 3 years. Eg. car

washing events, transporting equipment for such events as boxing

tournaments. I would like to be informed also of the name/s of

supervisory officers and rank who gave permission for this to take

place and how this time was recorded on the SAP system. I would

also like to see any policy where this is allowed to happen.

Yours faithfully,

Mark Hamilton Formerly Stn O 2714 of Gipton Fire Station

Well Mark,as we have said we have been told of times when crews have been sent from one area to cover crews carwashing in another.  And to be honest until this week I considered it on line suicide to blog about it. 

                                    BUT  

after careful consideration, in particular as private companies are being threatened with a  charge of £350 an hour  per fire engine and crew for false alarm calls, it seems pretty rich to "donate" crews and time to cover whilst charity events take place. 

I will watch the FOI with interest as FCCL was told specifically of Gipton being sent to cover whilst Wetherby washed cars a few months ago.   

That's a very high risk station covering for a 

medium risk one.

FCCL has the greatest respect for the Firefighters Charity, we know you do amazing work  for fire-fighters and their families

BUT 

All voluntary organisations are feeling the pinch and trade unions (and we know this includes the Fire Brigades Union) are having their right to facility time questioned. I think Mark has asked the right question at the right time.

Perhaps it is time for WYFRS managers to rein in the use of public facilities for charitable activities. 

If you would like to donate to the Firefighters Charity or learn more about their activities, please click here for further details.  

Or they are just a click away on Face Book

Whoops and we almost forgot - the full FOI is available here to read.