HAMPSHIRE fire service is struggling to recruit enough black and ethnic minority staff.

Despite recent improvements just 0.64 per cent, or ten of its 1,569 uniformed staff, come from ethnic minority communities.

By the end of 2006 the service had failed to hit its target of 2.8 per cent to reflect the proportion of ethnic minority workers in the wider population, a performance report revealed.

However, that figure ignores the influx of migrant workers from Eastern Europe since the last census in 2001, which will mean even more ethnic minority workers are needed.

The fire service claims its current recruitment strategy will see 12 per cent of it workforce coming from ethnic minorities.

But performance chiefs declined to put a timetable on the changes.

Performance review manager Philip Webb told a fire authority committee that because turnover was so low it could take years.

"If we need to recruit 40 ethnic minority staff it would mean every single person entering the service would have to come from ethnic minorities. That's not going to happen," he said.

The performance review committee were told that for some black and ethnic minority groups didn't see the fire service as attractive work, such as the Sikh community in Southampton.

The panel also heard how the number of fires, including arson, had continued a downward trend in recent years.

However, the service was failing to hits its own target of reaching all of its 20,000 emergency incidents, which include road accidents and chemical spills as well as fires, within eight minutes.

Firefighters reached 71 per cent within the target time.

Committee members were told parts of rural Hampshire were difficult to reach in eight minutes from some stations but the average was below seven minutes.

Delays were also caused by traffic congestion, badly or illegally parked cars and poor or wrong addresses, a performance report said.

Elsewhere there was a fall in the fire service's workshop productivity by 2,408 hours, or 2.5 per cent compared to the past two years. The fall was blamed on sickness and stress.

However "improved work practices" reduced the need for as much overtime.

Defects in fire service's 260 vehicles fell significantly due to better prevention while the vast majority of broken down vehicles were recovered and fixed within targets.