Pension plan averts fire strike

Firefighters can currently retire at 50

A national strike by firefighters across the UK has been averted after ministers dropped proposals to raise the pension age of existing staff.

Proposals protecting firefighters' current retirement age of 50 were accepted by union delegates who had been due to vote on strike action.

Ministers had wanted to raise the minimum pension age to 55 by 2013.

But plans for new firefighters to work until they are 60 could lead to future industrial action.

Firefighters will consider the proposals ahead of a conference in about four weeks time.

Worse pension rights?

The government has said it wants to cut the cost of the fire brigade scheme, but the FBU said it was "fundamentally opposed" to the original proposed reforms.

Under the new government plans put to an emergency FBU conference in Southport, those with 30 years' service could still retire at 50 on a full pension.

We don't think it is justifiable in terms of the nature of the work firefighters do Matt Wrack, FBU

Fire Service Minister Jim Fitzpatrick also pledged to improve pension rights of retained firefighters and to discuss giving control room staff the same pension arrangements as frontline firefighters.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigade Union (FBU), said the government had made "some movements on some of the important areas".

But he described the plan for new firefighters to work until they were 60 as "completely ridiculous".

"We still have concerns about the new retirement age because we don't think it is justifiable in terms of the nature of the work firefighters do," he said.

There also were other areas of concern including plans to change ill-health pensions, he said.

Fire-related deaths

The start of Thursday's emergency FBU conference was delayed to give delegates time to read the details of the new proposals, put forward just hours earlier.

The union's executive recommended that a strike ballot of 55,000 members should be postponed.

A long-running row over pay and conditions led to a series of strikes in 2003 and 2004.

Meanwhile, government figures released on Thursday showed the number of fire-related deaths in the UK fell to its lowest level for 45 years in 2004.

During the 12 months, the latest year covered by the figures, there were 508 deaths - a fall of 14% on 2003.

The figures also revealed that firefighters attended 443,000 incidents, which was the lowest number since 1998.

The statistics showed that fire and rescue services attended 18% fewer false alarms in 2004 than in the previous year and there was a six per cent fall in the number of fires in homes.