West Midlands Fire Service in £10k call-out bill

ALMOST £10,000 has been collected by West Midlands Fire Service in just 10 weeks since it introduced controversial charges for call-outs, figures released today reveal.

A total of 17 people have been invoiced for 999 call-outs which were deemed to be non-emergency cases.

Call-outs have included people stuck in lifts, people whose houses have been flooded and chemical spills.

In each case, the fire service has ruled that there was no risk to life and that the job they were being called for could have been carried out by an alternative team.

Under rules that came into force on May 14, people calling the fire service face a charge of £412.80 per hour for every appliance or specialist vehicle called out.

Fire chiefs say they need to charge for 'inappropriate' call-outs to offset savings of £30 million the service needs to make .

In the 10 weeks, there have been around 260 call-outs that could have been charged, meaning the service has so far only invoiced seven per cent of low level special service calls.

The most common non-emergency call-out since charges began has been people locked out of their houses, which accounted for 74 of the 260 calls received.

Watch Commander Wesley Williams said: "The principle of the policy is to filter out inappropriate special service calls, where other service providers are better suited. We have so far invoiced for £9,718 excluding VAT. When you consider that for the entirety of the last financial year we were only able to recover £31,000 for the taxpayer, there is every indication that the policy is working."

Critics say the public should not be charged extra for call-outs as the service is funded by the council tax.