Firefighters in Sussex will today be offered a 16 per cent pay rise by 2004 in a bid to end the bitter industrial dispute.

Fire authority employers have agreed to propose a three-phase pay offer backdating an initial four per cent pay from November.

This would be followed by seven per cent next November with 4.2 per cent from July next year - giving an experienced firefighter £25,000 within 16 months.

The proposed settlement is tied to controversial modernisation savings by introducing new working practices and cutting jobs.

Fire authority employers, who insisted it was a "significant new offer", agreed on the proposal after weeks of talks at the conciliation service Acas.

The deal is dependent on £30m of transitional funding from the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

The cash would bridge a funding gap while savings are made from cutting jobs and modernisation.

Employers are also expected to tell the FBU they are prepared to discuss a formula to trigger pay awards in the following two years.

FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist will present the details of the offer to his ruling executive in central London today. It will be put to local brigade secretaries tomorrow.

The offer is better than the 11 per cent rise over two years proposed in Sir George Bain's controversial service review, which was attacked by FBU leaders.

But it falls short of a 16 per cent two-year offer blocked by ministers at the eleventh hour last November. The FBU had original called for 40 per cent - or £30,000 - per year.

If the offer is rejected, the FBU has plans for fresh stoppages lasting between two hours and four days.

Jim Parrott, secretary of the East Sussex branch of the FBU, said he was disappointed employers were negotiating in the media rather than with the union.

He said: "We will not receive a formal offer until this afternoon, so everything we have got is speculation. We cannot make any comment on leaks to the press."