Fire service saves £6m in underspends and refunds

The fire service for Devon and Somerset saved more than £6m in 2024 through underspending and unforeseen refunds.

Devon & Somerset Fire Service said the money had come from a range of departments, including an unexpected £1m refund from its radio system provider Motorola, and a £700,000 saving when lower-than-predicted pay rises were awarded.

Recruiting challenges for office-based roles saved about £1m and a further £1m was saved on the use of on-call firefighters.

Andrew Furbear, head of finance, said the service welcomed the underspend.

He said: "When predicting the usage of on-call firefighters for the coming year we use a three-year average, but the activity in the last financial year was lower than anticipated."

Mr Furbear added than in 2022, the service had wildfires during the summer but not in 2024 or so far this year so its on-call costs had dropped.

The service said the £6.1m would be used for various initiatives including helping fund station refurbishments and replacing equipment.

It said £2m would go to the Invest to Improve reserve for new technology.

More than half of the money will go into a reserve fund for larger capital projects to prevent the need to borrow in future.

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