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Sketching out the standards landscape
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FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin reports on the Professional Standards Body project which in six months’ time will present the Fire Minister with a business case for clarifying and bringing consistency to standards in the Fire and Rescue Service
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heresa May talked about standards when she was Home Secretary. She said during her speech at Reform: “I welcome the Chief Fire Officers Association’s proposals to develop a coherent and comprehensive set of professional standards, building on the work of the National Operational Guidance Programme.” She went on to say: “There are many legitimate reasons why collaboration can fail – competing aims, conflicts of leadership, differing financial positions – but a lack of consistent professional standards is not one of them.” At that point, standards were placed firmly in the context of collaboration and today of course there is a duty to collaborate. Three months later and Brandon Lewis as Minister for Policing and the Fire Service told CFOA at its autumn conference that: “I want [these] reforms to be sector-led. The Home Office will play its full part not least to legislate, where necessary creating the new inspectorate, supporting the development of the new standards body and driving greater transparency.” But by February 2017, the tone changed when the Fire Minister spoke at another event hosted by Reform. “Like everyone in this room, I want all fire personnel, whether full time, on-call or a mixture of both, to be the
best trained and most professional in the world. And to help this, I will be establishing a new professional standards body for everyone in the Fire and Rescue Service which will build a comprehensive professional framework of standards for the Service.” From commending CFOA’s proposal, to the Home Office supporting the work and on to the Minister saying he will establish a standards body, the narrative has changed in the space of eight months. While that may demonstrate its growing importance or could just be an inconsistent speechwriter, it does show that the subject of standards deserves a bit of scrutiny to see exactly what it is all about. So is it time to have national standards? Well, not quite, says Joy Flanagan lately of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme and now Deputy Senior Responsible Officer for the Professional Standards Body (PSB) project. She is part of this new project that will in just six months present the Fire Minister with a business case for clarifying and bringing consistency to standards in the Fire and Rescue Service in England. With just three others to keep her company, the project team is small – and virtual, they have no offices – and has a big job to do. At the end of April, with the project team in place, the Fire Minister wrote to all chief fire officers and asked for their support for the project. The Home Office is
“There are many legitimate reasons why collaboration can fail – competing aims, conflicts of leadership, differing financial positions – but a lack of consistent professional standards is not one of them” Prime Minister Theresa May 12 | June 2017 | www.fire–magazine.com
Government & Politics
“I want all fire personnel, whether full time, on-call or a mixture of both, to be the best trained and most professional in the world”
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Minister for Policing and the Fire Service Brandon Lewis
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clearly keen to get this project right: they are chairing and providing the secretariat for the project board and have provided funding for what is in effect a research and development project. The plan is to have the business case in front of the Minister by the end of September. The project is focused on three discrete activities: • Information gathering • Standards setting process • Developing the operating model. Well into the information gathering stage, the project team is currently receiving feedback from fire and rescue services about the range of standards that currently apply. From HR to health and safety and beyond, their data collection exercise is looking at standards that impact at an organisation, or individual level. Each service now has a single point of contact to arrange for the collection of all this data and is responsible for collating that and sending it on to the PSB team. In addition to this, the team is talking to
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Joy Flanagan is Deputy Senior Responsible Officer for the Professional Standards Body project
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other fire sector groups like the Fire Sector Federation to get industry perspective. Joy talks about this work leading to the creation of a “standards landscape for England”. She says that it has been a useful exercise and has shown that services are open to sharing this information. To help oil the wheels of this exercise, Joy and team have been out and about talking to all parts of the fire sector, sharing the project’s aims and dispelling any rumours or anxieties about the project and its scope. Putting the PSB project firmly in the context of the impending fire inspectorate has certainly helped focus minds. Knowing what fire and rescue services already work with in terms of standards is a useful exercise, but not every business activity is necessarily covered. The second strand of work for the project is about the standard setting process that will be required, what it will involve and the resources needed. Joy and team have been to see BSI to look at BS O:2011, the standard for producing standards to make sure they get it right from the start. In the third strand of work, the project team is developing the business case that will set out the options for the operating model. It is early days on this one and it relies on the outcomes of the first two activities. Joy says many times during the interview that the PSB project wants to learn from others and in particular from the College of Policing. ‘Better Standards for Better Policing’ is the strapline for the College’s Authorised Professional Practice. Quite how far the PSB will go to emulate this approach is hard to fathom at this stage. There are others that the PSB project team can learn from in terms of developing the options for its operating model. The Police ICT Company is one. It is a private company
Project Team
Project Plan Chris Bigland Senior Responsible Officer Joy Flanagan Deputy Senior Responsible Officer
Karl Smith Project Support
Home Office Project Consultee / Support
Steve Buchanan-‐Lee Project Officer (NOS & QualificaHons)
Voluntary / Commissioned Support
September 2017
March 2017
Literature Review
OperaHng Model Review
Standard Seang Review
Literature review • ConsolidaHon of research • IdenHfy current standards in use (survey) • Categorise standards against business areas • Confirm scope of standards • IniHal gap analysis
Business Case Produced
ConsultaHon
Standard se<ng review • Research recognised models for -‐ new standards -‐ amendments • ScruHny /Approval • Delivery
Opera1ng model review • Governance • Staffing / LogisHcs • Funding • Scope (of PSB)
Stakeholder engagement and communicaHons
www.fire–magazine.com | June 2017 | 13
“I will be establishing a new professional standards body for everyone in the Fire and Rescue Service which will build a comprehensive professional framework of standards for the Service” Minister for Policing and the Fire Service Brandon Lewis
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will have been reviewed, updated and organised into one national digital resource. That is an impressive feat and one that others, including the PSB project, may wish to copy. Indeed, it may be the case that the NOG Programme has proven that the Fire and Rescue Service can run a large programme, delivered to time and quality without going over budget. Perhaps it has given the Home Office reassurance and confidence to mimic its success elsewhere, starting with standards. The other consideration is of course the National Framework. Work is underway to refresh the Framework and given it is not been updated since 2014, there may be significant changes to reflect the direction of the fire reform programme. It is timely for the PSB project and may offer an opportunity to put its work onto a more formal footing. “It’s a tall ask” says Joy. She is right; there is a lot of work to do in not a lot of time. Joy’s enthusiasm and commitment to delivering this project by end of September is impressive and her determination will get her a long way. Whether it is enough to deliver a business case to create a new professional standards body that is acceptable to the Fire and Rescue Service as well as those with a keen interest remains to be seen. “I expect the new inspectorate will also inspect against the standards this body sets and in turn, for the standards body to carefully consider the inspectorate’s findings when setting their standards.” Brandon Lewis said this back in February and yet will only receive the business case for the PSB in September. With the first inspection due to take place by the end of 2017, the inspectorate will not be using the PSB in the short term. Even as these two strands of fire reform develop at different speeds they have a vested interest in each other’s success if they are to meet the Minister’s expectations. Fire reform is easy to say, but then it is so much harder to achieve. For more information email PSBProject@ukfrs.com
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limited by guarantee, established by police and crime commissioners to support policing to make the public safer through better ICT. Like National Operational Guidance, each police service pays a service charge and as a result of doing so benefits from a national approach – in the case of the Police ICT Company, the economies of scale of buying say, Adobe licences. The PSB project team will use the Treasury Green Book guidance on developing business cases and adopt the so-called Fire Case Model that includes: • Case for change – the strategic case • Public value – the economic case • Commercially viable – the commercial case • Affordable – the financial case • Achievable – the management case. It is a lot of work to develop a detailed, costed business case that considers all the options. Looking at what is happening in the world of PCCs again, the Fire Minister announced only recently that nine PCCs would receive a share of £1 million to develop their plans for consulting on new governance models. Essex PCC alone spent £100,000 for PA Consulting to develop its local business case – the consultation period for which ended in early May (they got this money back from the Transformation Fund). The team is taking a flexible and pragmatic approach to resourcing, keeping it under review. This is certainly wise, as just one look at the Essex PCC local business case demonstrates why they went down this road: it is complex work and cannot be done on a shoestring or in a hurry. Given a professional standards body has not existed to date, what difference will it make if and when it does appear? Perhaps the PSB will be like operational guidance: there was lots of it, built up over decades and scattered about. London Fire Brigade sorted that one out and kick-started the National Operational Guidance Programme. In March 2018, after six year’s work, all the operational guidance
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Finance department & services
Technical Services
Health and Safety FRS
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14 | June 2017 | www.fire–magazine.com
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