The Fire Services (Appointments and Promotion) (Amendment) Regulation 1991

Statutory Instruments

1991 No. 369

FIRE SERVICES

The Fire Services (Appointments and Promotion) (Amendment) Regulation 1991

Made

27th February 1991

Laid before Parliament

7th March 1991

Coming into force

1st April 1991

In exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 18(1) of the Fire Services Act 1947(1) I hereby, after consultation with the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council, make the following Regulations:

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Fire Services (Appointments and Promotion) (Amendment) Regulations 1991 and shall come into force on 1st April 1991.

2.  The Fire Services (Appointments and Promotion) Regualtions 1978(2) shall be amended as follows:

(a) for the word “fireman”, wherever it occurs, there shall be substituted the word “firefighter”

(b) in regulation 2 paragraph (3) shall be omitted;

(c) in regulation 5(3)(b)(i) for the word “impracticable” there shall be substituted the word “impractical”;

(d) in regulation 6—

(i) in paragraph (2) for the wordsd “service and shall” there shall be substituted the words “service, shall” and after the words “Schedule 1” there shall be inserted the words “, and shall have obtained a certificate in first aid in the period of three years immediately preceding entry for the examination in Part II of Schedule 1 which he has passed”;

(ii) for paragraph (6) there shall be substituted the following provisions—

(1) A member of a brigade shall not be eligible to enter for any of the examinations specified in Part 1 of Schedules 1 or 2, or in Schedule 3, as the case may be, if

(a) (i) in the immediately preceding year, he entered for the examination in question but failed to attend the sitting of all the papers for which he entered in that examination and

(ii) he has not satisfied the Fire Services Examinations Board that he had a reasonable excuse for such failure, or

(b) in the two successive immediately preceding years he has failed the examination in question and has, on each occasion, obtained less than 25% of the total marks available in that examination.

(2) Any excuse submitted for the purposes of sub-paragraph (a) above must be notified to the Fire Services Examinations Board within 21 days of the date of the sitting of the final paper in the examination to which it relates,”;

(iii) in paragraph (7)(a) after the words“Part I of that Schedule” there shall be inserted the words “and has, in the period of three years immediately preceedinbg entry for the first-mentioned examination, obtained a certificate in first aid”;

(d) in regulation 9(2) for the word“Training” there shall be mentioned the word “Management”, and

(e) in Schedule 1, paragraph (c) pf Part II shall be omitted.

Kenneth Baker

One of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State

Home Office

27th February 1991

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Fire Services (Appointments and Promotions) Regulations 1978 (“the 1978 Regulations” (as amended, in particular, by the Fire Services (Examinations) Regulations 1985 and by the Fire Services (Appointments and Promotion) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 1988 (“the 1988 Regulations”)) which relate to the qualifications for appointment or promotion in a fire brigade.

The Regulations replace references to a fireman in the 1978 Regulations with references to a firefighter and make a consequential revocation to the interpretation provisions of those regulations. The Regulations also correct a grammatical error in the 1988 Regulations.

The Regulations impose an additional qualification, namely, that to become a leading firefighter a member of a brigade must have obtained a certificate in first aid in the three years immediately preceding entry for the practical examination (for promotion to that rank) which he has passed. The regulations also provide that, to be eligible for that examination in the first place, a member must have obtained such a certificate in the three years immediately preceding entry. As a result the first aid test is omitted from that examination and consequential provision is made accordingly.

The Regulations provide that a member of a brigade who has entered for, but failed to take, all the papers in a writteh examination specified in the Regulations is to be ineligible to take that examination in the following year. The Regulations also provide that a person who has obtained less than 25% of the overall marks obtainable in the same written examination in two successive years is to be ineligible to take that examination in the following year.

The Regulations also take account of the replacement of the Local Government Training Board by the Local Government Management Board.

(1)

1947 c. 41, as amended by the Fire Services Act 1959 (c. 44).

(2)

S.I. 1978/436; the relevant amending instruments are S.I. 1985/1176. 1988/2235