LIVES are at risk from a “free market fundamentalist” shake up of Scotland's fire service, firefighters' leaders have said.
Under the proposed reforms, firefighters will have to tackle terrorism and provide emergency medical care, and campaigners have warned the plan will lead to hundreds of job losses and devastating cuts.
The comments come weeks before the first anniversary of the Grenfell fire in London on June 14 last year, in which 71 people died.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) warned the change "will not benefit the people of Scotland nor the firefighters who serve them".
A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) consultation on the changes closed last week. In its submission, the FBU said the shake-up is driven by a desire to cut jobs and close fire stations.
"It seeks consent to start shutting fire stations and dismantling the infrastructure of the service, which will be extremely costly to replace," it stated.
The union added: "Accompanying the closure of stations, fewer firefighters will be employed."
The FBU also said fire service chiefs were adopting a 'free market'-driven approach to the plan.
It said: “The FBU is disappointed that the SFRS has imported the language of free market fundamentalism into its proposals.
“The fire and rescue service does not operate in a market, where ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ determine outcomes.
"The proposals, if adopted, would worsen service delivery, resulting in worse outcomes for the public in a number of ways including fire damage before extinguishment, injuries and deaths at incidents, business continuity and societal resilience."
Firefighters are being offered a pay rise of up to 20 per cent if they agree to take on new responsibilities.
An SFRS spokesman said the service had received over 1,500 responses to its consultation on reform.
A Scottish Government spokesman added: “This year the Scottish Government increased the spending capacity of SFRS by £15.5 million, supporting investment in vital equipment and resources."
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