Government increases pressure to reform working practices after military exceeds targets

The Government stepped up its demands for an overhaul of the working practices of firefighters yesterday when it published a report on how the military had coped during last week's strike.

A dossier prepared by the Joint Assessment Cell of Cobra, the Government's civil emergencies unit, says the emergency cover provided by 18,600 service personnel who stood in for 40,000 striking firefighters "worked well" and "exceeded" its original remit to concentrate on protecting life.

The report says75 per cent of the incidents reported to the Joint Operational Control Centres were between noon and midnight. It saysthe Ministry of Defence is considering a new rota system during any future strikes with more people on duty during that shift.

This could have far-reaching implications for the shift system worked by firefighters, which provides the same cover round the clock. They work two days on, two nights on, and then have four days off, allowing many to have second jobs.

Nick Raynsford, the minister responsible for the fire service, said: "The very marked variation in the time of day when calls occur suggests there is a case for more flexible shift patterns relating to risk, not simply adopting the same cover irrespective of risk."

He also suggested the Government might want to set up joint operational control centres for the emergency services – opposed by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) – because they had worked well during the strike. He said the 999 centres were "another obvious benefit of joint working" which avoided the need for fire appliances to attend incidents unnecessarily. "It makes financial sense too," he said.

The Cobra report makes no mention of whether firefighters should be banned from striking, as the Tories demand. Mr Raynsford said the Government had no current plans to make strikes illegal, but raised the prospect that the idea could be included in a White Paper on the fire service's future next spring. This was a harder line than Tony Blair adopted last week, when he suggested a strike ban might be counterproductive.

"We will want to look at all options," said Mr Raynsford, adding that the White Paper would examine how the fire service could be run "without the risk of interruptions we have seen this autumn".

John McGhee, the FBU's national officer, said that most house fires in which people died or were injured broke out between 10pm and 8am, so reducing night cover would be "a ludicrous answer to public safety concerns". He said reform of the fire service should be based on the experience of firefighters, not the military's response to the strike.