The Labour government in Britain is imposing budget cuts in the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) that will result in hundreds of job losses and compromise public safety.
The Audit Commission, the unelected body used by the central government to impose market-based discipline on public spending, claims that £200 million of savings can be made through efficiency improvements at local level without endangering the public. But there were already £200 million worth of cuts made between 2004 and 2008. Further cuts, therefore, must mean major job losses for firefighters.
This takes place at a time when the number of reported commercial and domestic fires is on the increase...
While cuts are the order of the day for firemen and the general public, the government has continued to provide lucrative contracts to the private sector. Building and maintaining fire service infrastructure and equipment takes place under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme, which is then leased back by the government. Labour extended this Conservative policy to the FRS in 1998.
In the first deal of its kind—agreed last July—a private company has now been awarded a contract to provide frontline firefighters. The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) awarded a five-year contract worth £12 million to AssetCo to provide 700 back-up firemen. AssetCo already owns, maintains and manages the operational availability of all the front-line fire and rescue vehicles and operational equipment used at in London and Lincolnshire.
The deal is viewed as a precedent to be followed by other LRAs nationally...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/fire-j04.shtmlThe privatization of public services is on worldwide, a coordinated project of the global ruling class. New profit centers to invest their excessive, constantly growing piles of cash in, with guaranteed income streams from gov't $$.
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