About the Service Delivery Review

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is carrying out a Service Delivery Review to look at ways of reshaping and modernising the organisation.

The primary aim is to ensure that resources – staff, stations and appliances – are matched to operational risk and demand across Scotland.

There are 23 potential options for change involving more than 30 fire stations across Scotland.

The proposed changes were put forward as part of a 12-week public consultation throughout the summer of 2025. 

More than 800 people attended public consultation meetings and drop-in sessions communities across Scotland where changes are being proposed. We also received more than 3,500 survey responses.

Options for change include the potential closure of eight long-term dormant fire stations, as well as Balmossie, Marionville, Musselburgh, Yorkhill and Cowcaddens.

The options also included the implementation of a day shift duty system in targeted areas and the transfer of resources to better align to operational risk and demand.

There are also plans to repair or rebuild fire stations to ensure firefighters have access to modern facilities.

Next steps

The feedback will now be carefully considered alongside the operational evidence that informed the proposals. This process will be overseen by an independent external research organisation, the Diffley Partnership.

 The next steps in the process will include:

• Independent analysis of all responses by the Diffley Partnership
• Preparation of a consultation report summarising the findings
• Recommendations made to the SFRS Board for final decision in December 2025

Community risk

Data shows that some stations and appliances are not in the right places to meet risk and demand.

The Community Risk Index Model considers historical incident data and captures information about people, including where they are located, the types of buildings and environments they occupy, as well as the way that nature may impact them.

We have used this knowledge to inform all of the options for change.

Our buildings and the backlog of repairs

We have 356 fire stations based in communities across Scotland.

Many buildings require significant repair works to bring them up to modern standards.

Some sites don’t have single occupancy bedrooms, toilets or shower facilities.

Other buildings have structural issues affecting the roof because of RAAC and this needs to be addressed.

This year (2025-26), the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service received £47 million for its capital budget, which is an increase on previous years but there's no guarantee that future funding will remain at this level. The capital budget is allocated for buying and improving assets, which includes building, fleet, equipment and ICT.    

However, it would cost in the region of more than £800 million to bring all buildings and equipment up to required standards, which is not a feasible option with the funding available.

Why now

We haven't changed our operational footprint for many years, but communities have changed in many places.

We must ensure that its resources - staff, appliances and fire stations - are based in the right places to meet the changing needs of communities.

It’s also about freeing up resources that aren't positioned well and redistributing them into other key parts of the organisation where staff can make a greater impact.

Last year we conducted a pre-consultation exercise, ‘Shaping Our Future Service: Your Say’ which has helped to inform our decision-making. All elected officials from the Scottish and UK parliaments and all 32 local authorities were invited to participate in this exercise, alongside our staff, trade unions, members of the public, and key partners.

At the end of April 2025, a larger group of stakeholders (including SFRS staff, key stakeholder partner agencies, trade unions, and members of the public) met in Stirling to evaluate the final list of change option proposals to help inform what would progress to formal public consultation in the summer.

All options were scored as part of the pre-consultation process by representatives from stakeholder partner agencies and members of the public as well as staff representative bodies.

They were scored in terms of impact on workforce, impact on communities, financial viability, deliverability and sustainability.

Read our full report of the Options Development and Appraisal process.

Firefighters are highly skilled to deal with many different types of emergencies, such as fires, flooding and road traffic incidents.

In the event of an emergency, upon receiving a 999 call, staff based at our three Operations Control centres (located in Johnstone, Edinburgh and 
Dundee) will mobilise the nearest available appliance(s) to the scene.

Find out more about how we operate by viewing the video animation.