Faulty alarms cost fire service £19 million

False alarms caused by faulty equipment cost Scotland’s single fire and rescues service close to £20m in its first year up and running, an Audit Scotland report has found.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service attended almost 50,000 false alarms in 2013-14, almost 60 per cent of emergency incidents firefighters across the country responded to.

Though the overall number of false alarms has dropped 12 per cent in the last decade, those caused by equipment malfunction or failure now make up more than two in five of all emergency incidents having risen five per cent.

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The figures accompanied an Audit Scotland warning that a long-term financial strategy is needed inside the next 10 months amid a “significant potential funding gap” facing the fire and rescue service.

The watchdog warns the SFRS face a potential funding gap of £42.7m by the end of the decade as a result of “future cost pressures and likely reductions in funding”.

Based on an estimated cost of £412 for every false alarm caused by equipment failure, the watchdog puts the real terms cost at around £19m to the SFRS in 2013-14 alone.

“Reducing the number of unwanted false alarms could contribute to reducing the SFRS’s future funding gap,” says its report. “In addition, there is a wider economic cost to businesses and communities associated with the disruption caused by unwanted fire alarms.”

The SFRS is currently involved in research into the causes of false alarms while Her Majesty’s Fire Service Inspectorate is to report on unwanted fire alarms this summer.

Caroline Gardner, Auditor General for Scotland, said the creation of the single service had been “well managed”, though it is “crucial” a strategy and supporting plans to plug the funding gap are now put in place.

SFRS chief officer Alasdair Hay said the service had delivered “very significant financial savings” since its inception with funding reduced by £31.5m at the same time as costs have jumped £16.7m.

“As the Audit Scotland report acknowledges, this has been achieved with no impact on frontline operations or to the public and the services they receive,” he said.

“Indeed SFRS has delivered improvements during this period, including the extension of specialist resources across Scotland, providing a higher number of home fire safety visits than ever before and a continuing reduction in fire fatalities and casualties.

“It is recognised that going forward funding pressures will intensify and work has already been undertaken to project future costs and savings up to 2019-20 across all cost areas.

“The SFRS will, of course, continue to place community safety and firefighter safety at the forefront of any decisions which are made to ensure that we can continue to deliver the high quality service the public has come to expect from us.”