The employer voice in fire service pay negotiations
It’s easy now to forget just how close we came to a national dispute over firefighter pay and conditions in 2023.
But after a long night of negotiation, the National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services came together to avert industrial action, which had felt inevitable.
It wasn’t perfect, but the NJC – which is UK-wide and brings together the employer and employee sides – proved its worth, demonstrated agility, and thrashed out a deal.
This year’s negotiations were set against that backdrop, with some outstanding items from the 2023 settlement still on the table.
We remained under pressure to deliver, but, strategically, the National Employers also wanted to find an agreement without the public drama of 2023, and to rebuild trust.
We took our commitment to joint working groups seriously, getting people from all sides of the debate round the table to discuss the issues in good faith – as we said we would.
This year’s agreement also improved occupational maternity pay as part of our drive to attract and retain more women into operational roles.
The NJC continues to play a key role in the work to improve culture and behaviours across the service through the Inclusive Fire Service Group – and where the National Employers can support cultural change through our work on terms and conditions, we will always look to play our part.
That same aspiration – ensuring the NJC responds to strategic issues by looking through the workforce lens – drove the final part of this year’s deal, following recommendations from expert practitioners on the joint working group, which improved the retainer fee for firefighters on the ‘retained duty’ system (sometimes known as ‘on call’ firefighters).
For the first time in decades, we increased the retainer fee in recognition of the esteem in which those firefighters are held – many of whom make themselves available for hundreds of hours each week, and who cover huge swathes of the UK.
As always for the NJC, balancing different-sized fire and rescue services with different funding models and different demands is not an easy job.
We know for some services that increasing the retainer fee brings a significant additional financial challenge, which is why we delayed implementation of this part of our agreement until 1 January 2025. We’ve also explored the wider pay framework this year, through joint working.
While there is some consensus around reforming our pay structure to drive a greater focus on skills, knowledge and behaviours, the complexity meant the National Employers deferred those talks into next year’s negotiations.
Ambition remains, but circumstances need to be right to fulfil those aims, and a lot more thinking and consultation is required.
There’s so much more we can do, and the National Employers’ self-led review invites our stakeholders to join our national conversation, to increase understanding about how the NJC works and explore where we can improve. There has been criticism over the years – some fair, some not – but the NJC is just the machinery. Together, we bring it to life to deliver our shared agenda.
The past few years have been difficult: there are so many challenges facing the UK fire and rescue service, operationally, financially, and culturally. However, success for the NJC isn’t just about avoiding a strike – it’s in the measure of how we build sustainability in the years that follow. I look forward to that national conversation.
- Cllr Nick Chard is Chair of Kent Fire and Rescue Authority, and is appointed by the LGA to the National Employers for Fire and Rescue Services, which he also chairs. The LGA provides the secretariat to the employer side of the NJC.