Consultation outcome

Minimum service levels for fire and rescue services: factsheet

Updated 12 February 2024

February 2024

Purpose of the factsheet

This factsheet is intended to provide information about the regulations on minimum service levels in fire and rescue services during strike action. It is not guidance and should not be read as such. Non-statutory guidance will be produced once the regulations are in force to help employers, employees, trade unions and other interested parties apply the regulations.

This factsheet should be read in conjunction with other published guidance, particularly the guidance on issuing work notices:

• Minimum service levels: issuing work notices, a guide for employers, trade unions and workers

You may also find it helpful to familiarise yourself with further guidance on industrial action:

• Code of Practice: Industrial action ballots and notice to employers
• Code of Practice: picketing
• Industrial action and the law
• Industrial action and the law: guide for employees and trade unions members
• Trade unions: guidance and codes of practice

What are we doing?

We have introduced regulations under the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 to help protect public safety during periods of strike action in fire and rescue services (FRSs).

The regulations set out a minimum service level so that if a trade union gives notice of strike action to a fire and rescue authority (FRA), including FRA contractors, then the FRA can issue a notice (known as a work notice) to the trade union ahead of the strike.

The work notice must identify the workers required to work and specify the work that they are required to carry out during the strike to secure the minimum service level. The regulations set out the minimum service level required to provide essential fire and rescue services. This includes extinguishing fires, protecting life or property in the event of a fire and rescuing people in the event of a road traffic accident. The regulations extend to firefighters, control room staff and those that work in fire safety roles.

Why are we doing this?

Before the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, there was no legislation setting out a minimum level of service on a strike day.

The Act, together with these regulations, addresses the previous uncertainty of relying on voluntary agreements with unions and arrangements for military or private contractors to provide core capabilities during periods of industrial action.

This will increase public confidence in the service and better protect public safety during periods of strike action. The minimum service level has been informed by modelling to help fire and rescues services deal with emergency incidents on strike days.

What do the regulations set out?

Control room services

Control room staff are critical in providing incident responses and for public safety. Staff in control rooms have expertise which is essential in answering emergency calls, dispatching resources, providing guidance, incident management, and communicating with other control rooms. The minimum service level regulations provide for the normal functions of a control room to be carried out during industrial action, as if it were a non-strike day. The control room services covered include all emergency calls regardless of how such calls for help are made. All such calls or requests for assistance will need to be answered and assessed and a response mobilised.

Given the national variations in the number of staff in control rooms in England, the regulations provide flexibility to determine how many employees will be required to achieve this minimum service level.

Firefighting

The regulations set out the minimum service level for firefighting functions. Firefighting functions include protecting life and property from fires and rescuing people from the risk of death or injury.

The service level applies to all FRAs who decide to issue work notices. This is based on a percentage of FRA owned appliances and includes:

• standard pumping appliances
• special appliances and other vehicles owned by the FRA, which may be used as part of an emergency incident response
• supervisory and management staff required, including personnel who may not typically be part of an emergency incident response; and
• national resilience assets are excluded (see section below for national resilience)

FRAs, through their business continuity planning, will determine how many employees are required to crew the required level of appliances and vehicles. This is also subject to discussion with unions as part of the work notice consultation process.

The percentage has been set at 73% of appliances in the regulations. The 73% is a proportion of the usual number of appliances and vehicles that are deployable on a non-strike day, not the total number of appliances and vehicles owned by FRAs.

The 73% figure is based on modelling which calculates the proportion of days over the past five years that each FRS had more pumping appliances simultaneously mobilised than a minimum service level would ensure were available. A more detailed summary of the modelling is provided in the consultation response.

National resilience

National resilience capabilities are vital in maintaining public safety through the mitigation of certain risks identified in the National Risk Register. This includes, for example, attendance at major incidents, such as a marauding terror attack or a large scale building collapse which has the potential to overwhelm a single Fire and Rescue Service.

The minimum service level for national resilience assets is set so that national resilience assets, together with trained personnel, are capable of being deployed as if the strike were not taking place that day. National resilience assets do not form part of the 73% of FRA owned appliances and vehicles required above under ‘firefighting’.

FRAs, through their business continuity planning will determine the number of staff required to meet this minimum service level. It is anticipated that personnel able to crew national resilience assets could also form part of the staff required to crew 73% of FRA appliances.  

Fire safety  

The regulations ensure that only urgent fire prevention and protection issues are dealt with on a strike day.

This is to recognise that the majority of fire prevention and protection activities are not done in an emergency setting but that there will need to be provision to deal with urgent issues that would normally require a same day response.

This could for example include a serious fire safety concern that has arisen with a building where same day enforcement action would be appropriate. This provision only covers urgent issues and not routine work.

Are these regulations a proportionate response?

Minimum service levels balance the ability of workers to strike with the needs of the public, who expect essential and life-saving services to be there when they need them. This will help protect the safety of the general public and ensure essential services are there when they need them – from being able to depend on an emergency response to a high rise building fire, to a rescue in a road traffic collision.

These regulations follow public consultations on the most appropriate approach for delivering minimum service levels for fire and rescue services. The government has in parallel published its response to the consultation.

This government firmly believes that the ability to strike is an important part of industrial relations in Great Britain, rightly protected by law, and understands that an element of disruption is inherent to any strike. But the public expects the government to act when public safety is put at risk.

Where these regulations apply

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Fire and Rescue Services) Regulations 2024 apply in England only.

Further regulations may extend to other devolved authorities in the future.

What are my responsibilities?

Employers, trade unions and employees should familiarise themselves with the guidance produced by the Department for Business and Trade on issuing work notices: Minimum service levels: issuing work notices, a guide for employers, trade unions and workers.