‘Lack of resources’ blamed for North Wales firefighter recruitment drive being delayed

A “lack of resources” has been blamed for a firefighter recruitment drive being delayed in North Wales.

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service apologised last week after shelving plans to take on more full-time fighters.

However little detail was given regarding the reasons behind the decision.

North.Wales asked the fire service for further information after disappointment was expressed about the move by many would-be recruits.

Chief fire officer Dawn Docx told us in a statement that having limited resources and staff time to recruit and train firefighters was the main reason why the plans were placed on hold.

She said: “The decision to delay opening the recruitment window for full-time firefighters for a few months was not taken lightly.

“I realise this might be disappointing for people who were looking to apply and I can only apologise for any inconvenience caused.

“However, after much deliberation it had become clear that it would be better overall to pause this process for now.

“Recruiting full-time firefighters always attracts a lot of interest and involves a lengthy selection process, but we have limited resources to recruit and train firefighters and we have to be realistic about the amount of staff time available.

“I would like to emphasise that we are still recruiting on-call firefighters, and we continue to encourage people to apply for on-call firefighter roles with us.

“Of our 44 fire stations, 36 are on-call fire stations that rely on having sufficient trained on-call firefighters available to make up crews in those areas.

“Whilst the role can be demanding and unpredictable at times, many on-call firefighters get a huge sense of satisfaction from knowing that they are providing a crucial and highly respected service to their local community.

“Another of our priorities at the moment is to address the issue of internal promotions.

“We have a number of staff filling posts temporarily so we want to ensure that we focus on filling posts permanently through a new internal promotions process.

“That process also relies on having enough staff available to plan and run it.

“In the meantime, I hope that the people who had considered applying to be full-time firefighters this year will maintain their interest until we can resume the process in a few months’ time.

“The full-time firefighter recruitment process is always popular and very competitive so I encourage potential candidates to keep up with their preparations for the assessments involved.

“We also intend to continue to hold positive action days to encourage applications from a diversity of people to best reflect the communities we serve.

“Again, please keep looking out for further information about these on our website.”

We have previously highlighted concerns over staff shortages at the fire service on several occasions including after problems were faced responding to a house fire on Anglesey.

The service was also forced to defend its response to a blaze which caused major damage to a house in Gwynedd after a whistleblower claimed a lack of cover had caused delays in responding.

Many of the anonymous complaints raised by firefighters in the region were addressed by assistant chief fire officer Richard Fairhead in an interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service in January.