It's groundhog day at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service where its three fire chiefs bag thousands of pounds in bonuses at the start of every new year while making cuts to the service.
Another £3,000 each is going to chief fire officer Paul Hancock, who earns £146,884.30; his deputy Mark Cashin, who takes home £125,428.53 and assistant chief fire officer Richard Ost who earns £110,415.72.
The service says the one-off recognition payments are for ‘additional duties and responsibilities incurred over the last 12 months and to recognise their continued high level of performance’.
This is the fifth consecutive year the chief and his deputy have had extra money totalling thousands of pounds. Last year all three gained one-off bonuses for extra responsibilities associated with the delivery of a regional control centre even though it was delayed and suffered serious teething problems, according to firefighters.
And later in the year there was a national pay rise of £1,000 awarded to all brigade managers in the country.
Assistant chief fire officer Richard Ost has seen his salary rise by £4,365 in 12 months, reflecting a 1% rise but also the service’s decision to ‘move the post to the correct 75% ratio of the CFO’s salary as set out in national guidelines’.
News of the pay bonuses comes after the service revealed it must find £1.9 m in savings from this year’s budget.
Dave Williams, secretary of Cheshire Fire Brigades Union (FBU), said: “This is an ongoing saga. We repeat this every year, not that they are taking any notice of us.”
He added: “It will go down like a lead balloon. The message they are trying to portray is ‘Team Cheshire’ – the principal managers are trying to promote the idea we are ‘all in it together’ and that we all need to take the pain of job cuts and service cuts because of austerity, yet at the same time they are adding to their incomes year on year, it’s not morally right when the service is faced with massive budget cuts. ”
Mr Williams said the timing could not be worse for FBU members who were being forced to take part in a 24-hour strike from 7am on Wednesday, February, 25, to defend their pension rights.
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service spokeswoman Sian Corrigan said: “The pay of the service’s three principal officers is reviewed annually by the brigade managers’ pay and performance committee. At their meeting this January, committee members decided to award a 1% pay rise to the Chief Fire Officer, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer and the Assistant Chief Fire Officer in line with the national increase received by all operational staff and after receiving a report detailing the salary of people in similar positions.
“In addition, a one-off a non-pensionable recognition payment of £3,000 was given to each of them in recognition of the additional duties and responsibilities incurred over the last 12 months and to recognise their continued high level of performance.”
