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lowest grading in this tranche. It was also ‘Inadequate’ in the judgement that looked at fire regulation. The inspectors returned to Avon in October but with only four months to make changes, Avon was not going to be able to do much bar add some temporary capacity to the team. The Inspectorate will return to Avon in July 2019 ‘to make sure the contents of the action plan have been addressed and the service provided to the public of Avon has improved’. (See pg 38 for CFO Mick Crennell’s comments on what the service is doing in response). Over in Surrey, the picture is equally as gloomy. With the sudden and unexplained loss of CFO Russell Pearson in August last year, Surrey was the only fire and rescue service in this tranche to be judged ‘Inadequate’ for the Efficiency pillar. The inspection report set out this cause for concern: ‘Surrey Fire and Rescue Service doesn’t use its resources efficiently to manage risk or its financial and physical resources effectively to keep people safe’. They too faced a second visit from HMICFRS in October. Commending Surrey for putting in place resources and governance for the action plan to address the concerns, they wanted to see more progress being made. Like Avon, the Inspectorate will visit Surrey again in July 2019. The only other fire and rescue service to be judged ‘Inadequate’ was Cornwall, joining Avon with the same grading under the Effectiveness pillar. The Inspectorate expressed its serious concerns about Cornwall’s ability to respond to fires and other emergencies. In this fundamental area of fire and rescue service business, the Inspectorate notes under its cause of concern: ‘It is sometimes slow to update mobile data terminals with risk information. Staff often rely on paper records. Staff in the critical control centre aren’t confident in the ICT systems which show availability of staff and fire engines. This leads to increased resources being mobilised or delays in attending incidents’. The Inspectorate did not return for a revisit – perhaps only an ‘Inadequate’ for the whole pillar warrants such action – but given what is set out here, Cornwall is going to need a lot of support to bring itself up to scratch.
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Where to start? A look at the first tranche of inspection reports
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‘Most fire and rescue services are good at keeping the public safe from fire and other emergencies, but there are concerns about how services carry out protection duties and the environment in which their staff operate’. FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin reports on the Inspectorate’s first tranche of reports
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ust before Christmas, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published 14 individual fire and rescue service reports and a summary of findings of tranche one. The timing of publication was terrible, but this does not detract from the fact that this is a big deal. There is a vast amount of information contained in these reports that requires a lot of careful consideration and even more action to get all fire and rescue services up to the same standards. The headlines on the day of publication focused on reductions in the number of fire safety audits carried out by fire safety officers in commercial buildings. This is a post-Grenfell response that sees fire protection rightly highlighted, but there are many other areas of interest in these reports which are set out under each pillar. Here FIRE touches on some of the most interesting findings.
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Key Findings The first tranche is made up of a mixture of combined and county fire and rescue authorities. No fire and rescue service was graded ‘Outstanding’ for any individual pillar; in fact, only Lancashire got an ‘Outstanding’ judgement at all and that was for values and culture. Lancashire and Cambridgeshire have the best grades overall. Avon and Surrey have the weakest grades with the other ten services ranging in between. The People pillar has the largest number of low grades and indicates a real need to improve, but this is really no surprise. It was inevitable that Avon would not do well having been inspected under different arrangements just one year before. FIRE covered the reboot of Avon Fire and Rescue Service in March 2018 under the new stewardship of now CFO Mick Crennell. Avon was judged ‘Inadequate’ for the People pillar, the only fire and rescue service to receive the
10 | February 2019 | www.fire–magazine.com
Three Pillars of Inspection The inspection and the subsequent reports are structured under three pillars: 1. How effective is the service at keeping people safe from fire and other risks? 2. How efficient is the service at keeping people safe from fire and other risks? 3. How well does the service look after its people?