Crystal Balls - Who needs them !!!

Well admit we do have one, sometimes we stare into it  
at the FCCL Office, 

BUT it's only  used for very  important things, such as 

trying to ascertain what we have written that makes ill people fit to work (and when we do find out we will be straight on the blower to Iain Duncan Smith or maybe try and sell our technique to ATOS)  obviously we wouldn't dream of profiting from our exploits but would pay ourselves a nice sensible salary of £28k a year in line with the people whose jobs we aim on this blog to defend.

But so far we aren't doing very well and as our crystal ball is still under warranty we may have to return it to the International Crystalball Organisation for some fine tuning 

What do you think of the new nail polish btw? 

So why today didn't we need one?

Well as we have said on a different blog  ( here )  occasionally the karma fairy comes along and gives us a hand. And as we said yesterday in our post  TITS 

 (you can read it by clicking here) 

we think WYFRS use of social media is dire! 

This morning we received an email from Mehboob Khan  (the chair of the fire authority) informing us that  the Local Government Association, Safer, Stronger Communities   had  interesting news, he had as well as appearing as a witness at a parliamentary select committee investigating the horsemeat scandal (aka lasagna- gate) he  has been  involved in this ............  

Fire and rescue services e-bulletin:  March 2013

I have added the link  HERE BUT unless you log on to the LGA site 

( for which you need a government email address), 

 .gov.uk, nhs.net   etc  

you might not be able to access it , so much for transparency !!!!  

Hidden  in the pages - the karma fairy  drew our attention to this

And guess who its hosted by 

THE LONDON FIRE BRIGADE 

It is a bargain at £80 + vat  

Best of all when you go to the topics pages it says 

Staff relations

Can social networking improve staff relations and boost morale? Should social media be managed or controlled? Can social media improve employee performance? 

SINCE FCCL BECAME POPULAR

 WYFRS REISSUED THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY TO ALL STAFF

WE THINK IN AN EFFORT TO STOP THEM INTERACTING WITH US   

A politicalPolitics

Should politicians be tweeting and using Facebook? What are the benefits for politicians? Has social media improved public awareness and interaction with elected representatives? 

WELL THIS MADE US CHUCKLE AS WELL, COS IF YOU CHALLENGE A POLITICIAN ON FACEBOOK, CHANCES ARE THEY WILL BLOCK YOU !!!!!! 

Anyway  all the details are  on the LFB website which you can access from our  news pages

So hopefully  IF very soon, if the penny drops and WYFRS stump up £80 (plus vat )

  we might soon be seeing 

THIS  

ooooohhhh but there is one ray of hope ACO Dave Walton has a twitter account - you can follow him by clicking  here    in fact WYFRS has one too but its very quiet and spasmodic. 

TITS

There are many types of tits. 
Some are quite rare these days as due to heavy use of pesticides and other chemicals reducing their food supply their numbers have diminished. 

BUT  - we are referring to NON OF THESE!

(but we reckon you guessed that) 

TIT's  in Fire & Rescue Terms can mean only one thing.............

TEST   IT   TUESDAY  

Launched in 2011 (we think) the Test it Tuesday campaign encourages people to test their smoke alarms on, yes you have probably guessed by now 

FCCL has started researching other Fire and Rescue websites and we think its a very fair comment to say that WYFRS site is DIRE. 

It seems to us that they do not wish to engage with the general public at any other level than in  an US and THEM situation. 

For example below is a video from  South Wales Fire  that demonstrates how fire fighters are prepared to make "idiots" of themselves to get a very pertinent point across. 

What do WYFRS say about smoke alarms - its here    and its very BORING, un engaging and dry.

Come on WYFRS you employ qualified professionals in your communications team, surely  they can come up with ways to engage the public in fire safety via social media .....................its gets to lots of people  (we can assert to that) is cheap to do and engages old and young alike.

BUT ........whoops, they do seem to have lost one key member of the comms  team, the one Cllr Brian Selby was slathering in praise how wonderful she was at her job , whilst in the same breath making digs at certain blogs and websites.

Hannah Stoneman, the 2012 IRMP consultation co-ordinator  who after her job was re profiled and about  £20k knocked off her "value" - voted with her feet and went to Yorkshire Water. Did she jump, was she pushed, we will never know?

Question : Does this mean she was over valued  in the first place?  As the  financial year has ended and the WYFRS accountants do their sums to prepare the annual accounts we await with interest to see if the number of people employed who earn £50k or over a year has decreased from last year. We even have a chartered accountant ready to give them the once over.


............. put it this way if they haven't , we will be very annoyed and will blog our disapproval                                                                                        accordingly. Fire fighters are losing jobs, staff being made redundant and  in our opinion senior staff should also be taking the hit.  Cos according to at least one little birdie pictured above 

"We are all in this together"

oh and just to let you know we have updated our union pages here   with Unison information and added a few extra links to our reading lists. 

Happy Browsing 

The FCCL Team. 

We have had a complaint ..............

So as we aim to be responsive to our readers needs we have  increased the size of the page and  improved the contrast of the title bars etc. Basically, it is we hope

BIGGER 

(and easier to read) 

But, as we  were tweaking our templates and making executive decisions about templates, it was decided that we would also add a 

Fire Safety Information List 

where you can click through to book a home fire safety check with West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue and also browse sites we will be adding over the next few weeks. 

But for tonight, please do one thing 
(we  here at FCCL are big on self help)

CHECK YOUR SOCKETS ARE 
NOT OVERLOADED 

Below is an interactive quiz to check you are not over loading your sockets and putting your home at risk of fire.

The Socket Calculator has been brought to you by the Electrical Safety Council. For more safety information visit www.esc.co.uk

Fire Plan Friday = Brilliant

One of our first tweeting lessons  was how to "follow" people. 

And in following Derbyshire Fire and Rescue, 

and learning how to re-tweet  we discovered this 

FIRE PLAN FRIDAY

and its so good we decided we needed to blog it on 

a Thursday evening 

so you are all ready tomorrow to create a fire plan for your home.

 It is a website designed by 

RED WATCH WATFORD

 in Hertfordshire 

And to be honest you don't need to know anymore from us......... because it is BRILLIANT! 

Click here   get the information you need to keep your home and family safe. 

Its not often we suggest you should look at someone elses website but just click and go away, tonight you need to read THIS site from start to finish. 

Fire Plan Fridays stat counter is currently at 935, I would love to see it much much higher tomorrow, Red Watch Watford deserve nothing less. 

11/10 Red Watch  from FCCL 

And don't forget if you live in West Yorkshire you can have a free 

home fire safety check from 

West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue by clicking here 

It's time to share the fact that we have....................

got a Twitter account . 

We have had the account for ages but up to now haven't really had the time to  utilise its functionality to maximum effect.

BUT thanks to a very generous offer from Eamonn, we at FCCL are learning how to tweet like a canary!


You can find it HERE

Cheers Eamonn!  we really appreciated your kind offer of help

And perhaps before WYFRS engage in a witch hunt to  find  Eamonn, and point out the error of his ways and how it may impede his career development plans it might be a kindness to explain  ...

Eamonn  doesn't  work for WYFRS in any capacity 

(or isnt a retired early fire fighter to be called in either)

Our latest facebook  entry got over 1,300 views in less than 12 hours and Twitter is said to be quicker and more responsive, we look forward to giving it a go.  

HR Update - New fire fighter posts in West Yorkshire !!!!

 Well OK, we confess there has only been ONE. 

Was it a "coal face firefighter" at  £28k a year 

NOPE

Was it  middle ranking officer at about  £50k a year 

NOT THAT EITHER 

The only recruitment that has taken place is for an 

Assistant Chief Fire Officer 

at a whopping  £120k plus 

figures from  WYFRA HR Committee 12th April 2013 

Now call us old fashioned but surely IF the number of stations is reducing, staff numbers being cut and  things according to Simon Pilling are all looking good, (fires down, smoke alarms saving people from burning buildings etc) 

Why do you need to replace an ACO?   

We know Martyns gone off  to play trains, a hobby he has pursued since being a teenager,  but  surely the top table should take a large dose of its own medicine and embrace the concept of not filling vacant posts due to retirement.  

Don't forget we are due another ACO retirement later in the year Craig McIntosh retires (and is  probably due to spend more time with his bagpipes) and then  Steve Rhodes hops into his  empty post on  July 1st 2013. This was all decided way back in September 2012. 

Perhaps its time to consider a 

"fundamental review"  of  the top table. 

Actually the HR report for April 12th is a cracking good read, and we will be blogging more about it the coming few days.Staff Cuts, job re profiling , compromise agreements, redundancies, compulsory and otherwise make shameful reading especially when this has all be implemented by a Labour controlled authority. 

Mind you Politicians also line their nests with money from the public purse,  we asked way back in September if people knew how much fire authority councillors receive as an allowance. And many councillors receive more than one allowance  from varying sources.  Click here to see what we wrote way back in Sept 2012. The chair of the fire authorities income is a fascinating read, he must have at least 30 hours in every day to pack it all in, and thats not counting the FOI investigation  he has been involved with recently! 

We are currently researching how much some of the WYFRA members get from the public purse to carry out their various duties.   It's quite an interesting  topic,  while  many of their constituents lose benefits, and get clobbered by bedroom taxes etc  politicians don't seem to be suffering at all ..............and the more "posts" you do, the more money you get. 

But surely the more you do 

 - the less time you give to each! 

Simon Pilling - Resigned to the fact that

We are hearing rumours of  the resignation of 

Chief Fire Officer Simon Pilling 

Yes its TRUE, Simon is now resigned to the fact that 

Fire Cuts Cost Lives is here to stay.