Following last night's Fire Brigades Union (FBU) ballot result, which accepted proposals to implelement revised working hours consisting of 11 hour day shifts and 13 hour night shifts with effect from April 1st 2010, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue issued the following statement:

Chief Fire Officer Mark Smitherman, said: “I am pleased that this dispute is now over. These changes have only ever been about improving the safety of our firefighters and the public, and now we can finally get on with the vital task of making those safety improvements. This agreement enables us to deliver all the additional firefighter training we need, with 50% more training time available. It also provides most of the additional time we hoped for to carry out community engagement work to improve the safety of the South Yorkshire public.

“It is unfortunate it has taken almost two years to achieve these improvements, and relations between managers and the workforce have clearly been affected in that time. Over the coming weeks and months we need to come together to face the common challenge of the significant funding cuts we expect after the General Election. Those cuts will mean we have to deliver our services to the same standards as we do now, but with significantly less money.

“It is obvious that we will have to make more changes to improve our efficiency over the coming years. We need our staff to be fully involved in helping us to shape those future changes. That is why a vital part of this resolution is the joint commitment to agree a new industrial relations protocol with the FBU.

“We will be launching a staff and public consultation in May, and I would urge all our staff to embrace that consultation to help us avoid any repetition of this dispute in the tough years to come.”