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  USAR Grant Funding
  A Fire Service Circular (62/2007) has been published, providing information for Fire and Rescue Services about grant funding totalling £16.7 million awarded to support the New Dimension Programme. The Circular sets out the funding that is being awarded to FRAs to support expenditure incurred or due to be incurred in 2007/8. The areas for Urban Search and Rescue that the Circular covers includes:
  USAR Crewing
To download the Fire Service
Circular from the CLG site go to:
 
  USAR Strategic Reserve    
  USAR Consumables    
  USAR Canine Teams    
  New Dimension Crewing
  Ministers announced at Fire 2004 that CLG would provide up to £16 million per year from 2005/6 to help meet the cost of crewing the second phase of the USAR project. Following discussions with USAR FRAs and the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA), crewing costs for 2007/08 have been established as £764,075 for a full USAR team based on a team of 30 personnel. West Sussex FRS provides the USAR strategic reserve and will receive half of this funding. The increase in costs is owing to both the annual firefighter pay increase and the incorporation of a standard allowance in line with nationally agreed firefighter terms and conditions, to ensure 24/7 USAR operational response. Total funding amounts to £14,899,463 between those FRAs hosting the USAR capabilities.
  USAR Strategic Reserve
Fire Service Circular
  Funding totalling £43,000 will be provided to West Sussex County Council to cover costs relating to training and personal protective equipment based on half the funding provided previously to each USAR Team.
  USAR Consumables
  In the Circular, CLG confirmed funding of £10,000 for each USAR team and £5,000 to the USAR strategic reserve per annum in recognition of the costs to them of timber replenishment. Timber bought for USAR must, as a minimum, meet the C16 specification for construction grade timber (guidance has already been issued by the New Dimension USAR team to provide greater detail in this respect). CLG also strongly encourages that the purchase of wood is made from sustainable sources.
  CLG also recognises that USAR teams will use considerable quantities of concrete slabs as part of their training for major incidents. The Department has therefore agreed to award each USAR team £20,000 and £10,000 to the strategic reserve in recognition of concrete replenishment requirements. Total funding for the USAR consumables amounts to £585,000.
  USAR Canine Teams
  The New Dimension USAR project has always envisaged that canine teams would become an integral element of the USAR capability given their considerable ability to undertake searches to locate people trapped by collapsed structures. Following significant discussion with host USAR FRAs and CFOA, CLG agreed that each USAR team should have a search and rescue dog as part of its capability, amounting to 20 dogs in total.
  Initial set-up funding for each dog for 2007/08 totals £20,274 per USAR team which covers procurement of the dog, a contribution towards transportation costs, training for both the dogs and their handlers and other associated costs. The intention is that the handlers will be drawn from the existing USAR teams whose crewing costs are already funded by CLG. Total funding amounts to £429,480, between the host USAR FRAs.
Canine team at the Maryhill collapse
  CLG’s expectation is that generally USAR FRSs will wish to co-locate the dogs with their USAR teams. However, for those FRSs who do not wish to host a canine capability, CLG is content that the funding can be used to contract-in a dog and handler to provide the same level of capability. Any further costs resulting from contracting-in a dog and handler will be a matter for the FRA and CLG will not fund any additional costs resulting from this.
  Leicestershire Fire Authority has been established as the lead authority for the USAR canine capability and will be funded an additional £24k for a part-time role to ensure that the training and coaching/assessments for the dogs and handlers is co-ordinated, the capability is established, and the canine availability rota is managed.
 
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