Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority1 Corporate Safety Plan 2014-2017
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Contents
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Welcome
Page 4
Executive summary
Page 5
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
Page 6
Our Service
Page 7
The challenges we face
Page 8
2011-2014 Our achievements
Page 9
Our principles
Page 12
Our priorities
Page 14
• Priority 1. Risk analysis and planning
Page 14
• Priority 2. Engaging with all of our communities
Page 16
• Priority 3. Culture, leadership and learning
Page 18
• Priority 4. Prevent, protect, road safety and community wellbeing
Page 20
• Priority 5 Response and resilience
Page 22
Performance - how we measure success
Page 24
Our performance 2011-2014
Page 26
Our finances
Page 28
Accountability and transparency
Page 29
Consultation - how we did it
Page 30
Glossary
Page 31
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Welcome
Welcome to Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority’s Corporate Safety Plan for 2014 -2017.
This plan sets out the vision for our Service over the next three years. It recognises the considerable transformation we have made during our current Corporate Safety Plan and looks to build on our excellent work to date. The changes facing all of the public sector with regard to structure and funding continue to present significant challenges, but ones we are confident we have and will continue to overcome. Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service is one of the best performing fire and rescue services in the country. We remain at the forefront of innovative thinking when it comes to ensuring a cost effective, fit for purpose service is delivered to our community. We aim to raise our already high standards to make sure we are delivering our vision of making Staffordshire the safest place to be. Ongoing work has identified that the way that fire and rescue services operate in the future will look and feel different to the traditional approach that has been seen in the past. New technology, equipment and training allow us to look closely at alternative approaches to how we deliver an effective service. Opportunities to work more closely with our communities and partners will allow to us to contribute to improving the health, safety and wellbeing of the public in different ways that will be even more effective. Our focus is still firmly on the fact that prevention is better than cure. We will continue to invest in the proactive, risk reduction activities that have seen the number of fire related casualties fall to their lowest ever levels.
We will also continue to deliver the highest standard of emergency response when it is required, although how we deliver this response will change as we seek to take advantage of new technology and the emerging approaches being developed across the fire sector. We remain committed to our promise that in making the changes we believe are necessary to meet future challenges, we will never compromise the safety of our firefighters or the communities we serve. We are confident that we are well placed to rise to the challenges of the future. We have a positive culture of embracing change, we work with our communities and partners to understand what they need from us as a fire and rescue service and we continually review and assess how we are doing. We know that we have achieved some extremely successful outcomes in the last few years, but also recognise that there is still much more to do. We are fully committed to working together with our partners and communities to improve the health, wellbeing and prosperity for all in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. Councillor Len Bloomer Chair of the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority Peter Dartford Chief Fire Officer/Chief Executive Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service
Executive summary
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Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority have combined the Integrated Risk Management Plan and Corporate Plan to form the Corporate Safety Plan (CSP).
The Corporate Safety Plan for 2014 - 2017 looks to build on the success of the 2011-2014 plan and sets out our five strategic priorities to inform and drive the Service’s vision of “making Staffordshire the safest place to be”.
The National Framework recognises that the Fire and Rescue Authority and Fire and Rescue Service are best placed to identify, plan, prepare and deliver a suitable service to address the risks and challenges faced by the local communities in which they serve.
The plan fulfils the requirement of the Fire and Rescue National Framework for England. The National Framework sets out high level expectations and the following priorities for fire services;
It builds on existing notable practice and identifies the requirement to work in partnership with our communities, local citizens, businesses, civil society organisations and others.
• identify and assess the full range of foreseeable fire and rescue related risks their areas face, make provision for prevention and protection activities and respond to incidents appropriately • work in partnership with their communities and a wide range of partners locally and nationally to deliver their service • be accountable to communities for the service they provide
This plan has been developed by speaking with, and listening to, our communities, staff, partners and other stakeholders. This has made sure we develop an understanding of the expectations and service that is required from their point of view. The consultation has been used to help develop and shape our priorities as we look to tackle the challenges of the future.
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Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire is a landlocked county of approximately 2713 square kilometres. It has borders with Cheshire, Derbyshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Hereford and Worcester and Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service areas.
The largest urban area is the city of Stoke-on-Trent which is administered as a unitary authority. The smaller cathedral city of Lichfield lies to the south of the county. Other major towns include Stafford, Burton-upon-Trent, Cannock, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Tamworth. The area has sharply contrasting landscape from the highly urban areas of Stoke-on-Trent to the county’s heathland and moorlands such as Cannock Chase and the Peak District National Park. Over 80% of Staffordshire is classified as rural with a quarter of the population living in rural areas. The combined population is approximately 1.1 million according to the 2011 Census with 249,000 of those living in Stoke-on-Trent. This is a growth of 3.5% in Stoke and 5.4% in Staffordshire since 2001. Overall the population is ageing and is predicted to continue to age with an indication that there will be an additional 122,300 over 65’s by 2035.
Our Service
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Stoke-on Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority continues to be one of the top performing, yet lowest costing, fire and rescue authorities in the country.
A list of performance statistics would easily demonstrate the impact the Service is having on making Staffordshire the safest place to be - but it would not show the whole picture. We have been at the forefront of the modernisation agenda and introduced many changes that help maintain our success. We are committed to the strategy that prevention is more effective and cheaper than cure but back this up with a first-class emergency response service. The end result is that whatever challenges face the Service now and in the future, the commitment made to the people of Staffordshire that neither community safety nor firefighter safety will ever be compromised, will be kept. The Service currently has 23 retained stations, two day-duty stations and eight 24hr shift stations across the county. We also have a Headquarters site in Stone which houses excellent training facilities and a first class modern transport and engineering facility at Trentham.
Wholetime Stations Retained Stations Day-duty Stations
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The challenges we face
Our biggest challenge is the unprecedented changes to the fire and rescue service and the public sector across the country.
We are currently on track to deliver our target savings of £4 million by 2014/2015 and continue to work to identify the savings that are likely to be required for the foreseeable future. We will use new and innovative solutions to deliver the highest standard of service to our communities. We are fully committed to our promise to never compromise the safety of our community or our firefighters. We recognise that collaboration with our public sector partners and the wider community are essential to realising the vision of making Stokeon-Trent and Staffordshire the safest place to be. We continue our work to identify the most vulnerable people in our communities. Vulnerability can mean different things to different people. In this context it means those that we know are at increased risk from fire. We will look to work effectively with our partners in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire to improve their overall health and wellbeing through truly collaborative working. It is recognised that the vulnerabilities we see as a fire service are often the same issues that our partners are looking to address. Working together we can have a positive effect on people’s lives across a wide range of problems.
The challenges of growth in population and changing demographics alongside the impact of welfare reform, housing availability and provision, reduction in available public services, and other factors are continually reviewed and assessed when we are looking at developing and delivering our services to improve safety. The changes to our environment and the increase in unpredictable weather have changed the type of incident demand we face. For example, although our overall call numbers have reduced the number of flooding calls has risen. This has challenged the planning and provision of our response arrangements. We continue to review our contingency and planning preparations along with active participation in the Staffordshire Resilience Forum. This ensures appropriate response and recovery arrangements are in the right place at the right time.
2011 – 2014 Our achievements
The following are some of our achievements against the four corporate aims outlined in our Corporate Safety Plan for 2011 to 2014.
Prevent and Protect The Service invests heavily in prevention and protection activities to drive down the number of fires, deaths, injuries and road traffic collisions in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. One of the Service’s latest investments is a Fire Engineer who works directly with the construction industry in designing greater levels of safety into new building projects such as schools, care homes and industry. We continue to reduce emergency incidents through proactive work with communities and partners for example; incorporating wide-ranging assessments such as the RNIB’s Eyes Right test into our Home Fire Risk Checks. Our focus continues to be fire safety but we also work in the wider areas of community health and wellbeing.
We continue to take a leading role in lobbying central government to make changes in legislation that will make sprinklers compulsory in all new homes. Through our leading role in the Chief Fire Officer’s Association we have supported the Welsh Assembly Government in introducing this type of legislation. We work closely with local authorities, housing associations, schools, colleges, architects, planners and developers on the installation of sprinkler systems in new building developments and refurbishment programmes whether this be for homes, schools or commercial premises. Work continues both locally and nationally to lobby to make it a requirement for all landlords to have working smoke alarms in their properties.
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2011 – 2014 Our achievements
Respond Other changes to the Service include streamlining our management structure as well as implementing a new crewing model that will keep fire appliances available to attend incidents during the busiest times. This has meant reviewing both our wholetime and retained duty systems to make sure we have the right number of people available to crew and provide the most appropriate response. We have recently introduced an intelligence-led mobilising system that ensures the quickest and right resources are always available and dispatched to deal with incidents. Our Strategic Cover Review was completed in 2012 and looked at the location and provision of specialist appliances and equipment across the Service in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our operational response. This process used risk based modelling to reflect the changing number and type of calls against the changes to risk within the community. We also completed an extensive consultation with the public, our partners and members of staff. The changes included the staged removal of specialist Rescue Tenders from the Service. We have ensured the same high standard of response by the upgrading of our hydraulic rescue equipment on all front line appliances.
Work is ongoing on the Shared Fire Control Project a joint venture with the West Midlands Fire Service. The mobilising of appliances now takes place using the shared “Vision� mobilising system. This enables control room operators to identify the quickest appropriate appliance to send to an emergency in the county. The project work is progressing at a great pace in order to deliver a shared fire control facility which will go live in April 2014. We have invested significantly in the provision of enhanced training facilities at our headquarters site. This means that our operational staff receive the most up to date and professional incident command and multi agency training available. We continually assess and review our operational training programmes to make sure our operational crews have the skills and knowledge to respond safely and effectively to the broad range of incidents they may have to face.
Engage We have seconded members of staff to both Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Staffordshire County Council in the role of partnership engagement officers. Their role is to work alongside our partners to understand how we can share and shape services to the most vulnerable in our communities. Supporting all of our community engagement activity is the Safer Communities Community Interest Company (CIC). The CIC is a partnership between the public, private and voluntary sector with the aim of providing opportunities to improve the health, safety, social and economic wellbeing of the communities of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.
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The opening of our new Community Fire Stations and refurbished stations provides us with new opportunities to bring local communities together to engage with us, and with each other, whilst using the new community facilities at each station. We currently have 100 trusted partners who can access the community facilities and over 1500 hours of community room use each month. We have engaged with our partner agencies to shape the services we can co-deliver in response to the challenges faced by all public sector organisations. The Olive Branch and Let’s Work Together projects are examples of best practice which look to share information and referrals between partner agencies.
Deliver Building on the successful delivery of our Private Finance Initiative (PFI), where three new and ten re-built Community Fire Stations were delivered on time, we have successfully bid for a second round of PFI funding to rebuild a further 11 Community Fire Stations. This increases our ability to be at the heart of the communities in which we serve. It provides modern, fit for purpose facilities for the community and the fire service. Work has already started on the construction phase and will continue for the next two years. Many of the stations not already involved in the PFI have undergone a programme of upgrading to make them accessible to the community.
We seek to continually learn and improve and during 2012/13 requested a number of external audits/ peer challenges which targeted health and safety, equality and diversity and operational assurance. The health and safety audit report concluded that: “Safety in a cultural sense is embedded as reflected by continuous improvement in accident performance and increased near miss reporting over an extended period. A pro-active approach to health and safety has allowed the Service to benefit from the learning identified by the HSE’s Consolidated Report following their inspection of Fire Services nationally along with the learning provided by a three yearly County Council audit and a five yearly Regional Peer Review audit process.” The success of our approach to operational assurance was confirmed by a Local Government Association (LGA) Operational Assurance Peer Challenge which concluded in January 2013 that: “Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service is a very high performing Service with a very positive and unique culture which is open, honest and challenging. The culture drives improvement and change across the organisation ensuring that everyone is engaged. There is a strong pride from the people that work for SFRS and the communication channels are effective resulting in a consistency of understanding of the challenges ahead right across the organisation. This places SFRS in a good position going forward which will enable us to make those tough decisions that lie ahead.”
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Our principles
Our work is underpinned by a set of core principles. These are implicit in everything that we do.
Our Cultural Framework This framework clearly identifies the values, attitudes and behaviours that are central to creating the right environment to achieve the high level of performance and success that is expected from individuals and teams.
Embed equality and diversity across all we do Engaging and embracing the diversity within our communities gives us a true understanding of their aspirations and needs. This will help us to shape and deliver the service they need to remain safe. We will meet our duties by:
Our people
(a)
eliminating any unlawful discrimination,
We recognise our greatest asset is our people. The continuous learning and development of our staff is essential to delivering a safer Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. We will make sure we recruit and continually develop the right people with the knowledge and skills to ensure we deliver the service our communities expect and deserve.
(b)
advancing equality of opportunity, and
(c)
fostering good relations between different groups.
A continually improving health and safety environment The health and safety of all our staff is of the highest importance to us. We promote an open and transparent approach to make sure that safety is “owned� by all and that any learning and improvements are shared both internally and in the wider safety community.
Protecting the environment We are committed to reducing our impact on the environment both in day to day activities and during emergencies. We proactively monitor our energy usage and waste management.
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Help our communities help themselves We recognise that true success is helping communities to take control and responsibility for themselves. They are central to shaping the services they receive from all public and voluntary organisations as they are best placed to understand the challenges they face as individuals, families and communities. We will involve local people, where possible, in the decisions about the Service that affect them and promote ownership and participation in shaping the service we deliver.
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Our priorities
Priority 1. Risk analysis and planning The principle – To know and understand vulnerability in our communities, identify current and emerging risks to our organisation and prepare our firefighters for the emergencies they may face.
Why is this principle important to us? The communities of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent acknowledge that their fire and rescue service is high performing and excellent value for money. We aim to maintain this strong reputation and deliver the safest and highest quality services in the right place, to the right people and at the right time with no compromise to community or firefighter safety. To do this we will continue to listen to, work with, and educate our diverse local communities to find out what matters most, to help them better understand their vulnerability, the risks they may face, how we can make them safe from fire, safer on our roads and safer in the face of the new threats we see in our daily lives whether that be from the impact of extreme weather or acts of terrorism. Through obtaining and analysing information, data and feedback we will be able to plan, prepare and prioritise our efforts on the most vulnerable in society, reducing waste work whilst helping our communities to improve their health, wellbeing and quality of life, whether children and young people, families or our ageing population.
Through gathering information on risks across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire and making this available when needed, we can make sure that our firefighters can be fully prepared to deal with any incident, keeping them safe and unharmed, protecting our organisation and everyone involved with it.
Through engagement people have told us what they want from us Our communities said: ‘Reduce the risk of me having an emergency incident at home, at work or on the road’ Our staff said: ‘Help to keep me safe when I respond to an emergency incident’ Our partners said: ‘Work with us to better understand what people need and want so that we can deliver services in a better way’ Young people said: ‘Young people have problems of their own. Take time to listen and understand rather than tell us what you think’
Our priorities set out what we want to achieve and why it is important to us. Our practices set out how we are going to achieve our priorities.
Our practices - to deliver against this principle we will • Analyse current and potential local and national risks to increase our knowledge and understanding of the problems facing our communities, our organisation, our staff and our partners. • Gather data and intelligence to get to understand our local areas and what our diverse communities look like. • Assess the vulnerability of individuals and groups and how it impacts on the demands on the Service and our partners so that we can target the right resources to those most in need at the right time. • Determine the right questions to ask in order to support other sources of information and to fully understand what people really need to improve their health, safety and wellbeing. • Use information to help us focus and shape how we do things across the Service and locally, reducing demand and the likelihood of emergency incidents happening, making us better prepared for all emergencies should they occur.
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• Make sure that any change in how we deliver services is based on knowledge and evidence and that no group is discriminated against or disadvantaged. • Obtain and use risk information to assess the risks posed to our firefighters and use this to inform how we train and prepare them to safely tackle emergency incidents in their communities when they happen. • Develop secure and effective ways to share information between all partners both locally and nationally to help us do things better together. • Use the right resources in the right place at the right time, contributing to the wider community health, safety, welfare and crime reduction agenda whilst reducing waste, saving money and making our staff and communities safer. • Develop measures to capture meaningful data which will help us assess how we have performed and to learn and improve. • Ask our staff, communities and partners what they think of the services we provide and how they think we can improve.
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Our priorities
Priority 2. Engaging with all of our communities The principle – To understand our communities, businesses and partners to improve quality of life by delivering the highest quality, fit for purpose public service.
Why is this important to us? We need to work with the whole community to understand individual and group needs. Listening helps us to understand the issues important to them. We want to help people lead better, safer and longer lives whilst ensuring we deliver a joint public service which best delivers what individuals, business, groups and communities need. By listening to, and learning from our communities and partners we can unlock their potential and skills. We can give people a say in shaping their futures and reduce the overlap and multiple involvement of partner agencies. The pressures, changes and risks to our communities due to things like welfare reform, an ageing population, increased living costs, social care costs and environmental changes mean we need to work more closely as the public sector to deliver against shrinking budgets and services. Our community fire stations sit in the heart of the community and we will use every opportunity to listen and talk to our local communities. We will build on the initial foundations of a local community meeting place to increase the level of integration between our staff and local people. We will promote volunteering opportunities and help people take responsibility for themselves and their community.
As a public service partner we will seek opportunities to share services, explore delivering services by commissioning and examine new and innovative ways of working to make sure we maintain the aim of making everyone in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire safer. We will look at the co-production of prevent activities with our partners and communities.
Through engagement people have told us what they want from us Our communities said: ‘Help me to live my life better and to help others’ Our staff said: ‘Engage with and educate our communities to help them to help themselves and allow me to use my time better to support those most at risk’ Our partners said: ‘The untapped potential in our communities can reduce demand and help us all improve how we work’ Young people said: ‘Most people forget that young people also have a lot to offer and not all of us are trouble makers. Let us help’
Our priorities set out what we want to achieve and why it is important to us. Our practices set out how we are going to achieve our priorities.
Our practices - to deliver against this principle we will • Identify all relevant and worthwhile international, national and local, public, private and voluntary sector partners who can help us to deliver safe, effective and efficient prevention, protection and response activities. • Invest in and enhance our consultation, engagement and involvement with local communities, partners and business with the aim of clearly establishing customer expectations. • Educate our communities to help them understand our purpose and what we do in order to help shape their fire and rescue service. • Build strong relationships with local people and encourage all community and voluntary groups to use our Community Fire Stations to bring people together to support each other. • Investigate how we can deliver our own activities and support the delivery of partner activities in innovative ways to reduce costs whilst maintaining quality and safety. • Explore the opportunity to develop and produce a partnership register to enable effective monitoring and evaluation of all partnerships across the Service.
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• Make sure that we procure services and goods and enter into commissioning and partnership arrangements in an ethical way which underpins our social responsibility, promoting social value, equality and environmental sustainability. • Allow community and voluntary groups greater choice in how they can become involved with their fire and rescue service through volunteering to support and add value to what we do; using a wealth of local knowledge, skills and experience to help us shape and deliver the services they need, to play an active part in helping to solve local problems and to work together to improve their own lives and to make their local communities a safer and great place to live. • Expand our successful Community Interest Company to support the delivery of a wide variety of community safety activities and functions for the benefit of all local people. Involve our communities, staff, partners and the private sector in the development of the Community Interest Company. This will enable us to reinvest in innovative projects which will improve the awareness, health, safety and wellbeing of our communities and provide financial resilience in challenging economic times.
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Our priorities
Priority 3. Culture, leadership and learning The principle – Invest in and develop our workforce to ensure that we continue to be a high performing organisation.
Why is this principle important to us? As owners of their fire and rescue service we want to make sure that all of our staff are given the right learning and development to be safe and do their job well, contributing to and feeling they are part of a high performing organisation, maintaining our current strong cultural position and our preparedness for change going forward. The people who work for your fire and rescue service are professional, dedicated and passionate about keeping their local communities safe from fire and other emergencies. We will continue to invest in their learning, development, health, safety and wellbeing to make sure that they can do their job well throughout a positive and fulfilling career ensuring that we have the right people with the right skills and behaviours in the right place and at the right time.
Through engagement people have told us what they want from us Our communities said: ‘Make sure your staff can do their job safe and well’ Our staff said: ‘Invest in me to allow me to do the best that I can to make myself and my community safe’ Our partners said: ‘Help us to create the same strong culture seen within Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service which places a unique value on every person’ Young people said: ‘We want to know how the fire service can give us career advice as well as opportunities to learn and gain experience to help us to find work in the future’
Our priorities set out what we want to achieve and why it is important to us. Our practices set out how we are going to achieve our priorities.
Our practices - to deliver against this principle we will • Invest in our people for the future, recognising that their health, safety, and wellbeing is a priority. • Celebrate and reward success and support continual improvement through learning. • Make sure that our staff appraisal process is simple and effective, providing a focus for individual investment and improvement. • Provide our staff with high quality training, development and learning opportunities to make sure that they work safely in whatever job they do. • Make sure that we are a flexible learning organisation, unlocking the potential in our people to help us deliver the best possible services despite being a smaller team and facing unprecedented financial challenges and increased demand. • Develop opportunities for all staff to gain transferable skills enabling them to undertake meaningful roles in support of different areas of the Service giving us capacity, resilience and flexibility for the future.
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• Provide all staff with opportunities to engage in all aspects of volunteering, particularly to support our broad community safety work and successful initiatives providing opportunities for people of all ages in our communities. • Build upon our strong culture of openness, honesty and trust, with the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff central to being a successful organisation. • Reduce the likelihood of injury and ill health to all staff with the focus on a safety event reporting system that promotes the use of a ‘cause for concern’ and ‘near miss’ to help improve learning and development throughout the Service. • Reduce the likelihood and impact of sickness through a strong culture of health and wellbeing and through evaluating the support we give to all staff to better understand the success and quality of service we provide to them as highly valued employees. • Raise awareness in our communities about our purpose and what we do to underpin recruitment and volunteering opportunities to help us to shape our services to reflect the needs and profile of local communities, ensuring we have the right people, with the right skills in the right place at the right time.
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Our priorities
Priority 4. Prevent, protect, road safety and community wellbeing The principle - Educate communities and business to raise awareness about fire safety, help them understand the risks they face, reduce fires, mitigate the economic impact of fire and contribute to the wider issues which impact on community safety and wellbeing. We will also work in partnership to improve road safety for everyone living in or travelling through Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.
Why is this principle important to us? We want to work with and educate our local communities to help them enjoy safer lives, reducing fire deaths and injuries in the home and in business whilst contributing to wider community safety and wellbeing issues, tackling the root causes of fire through working with partners to educate all and protect those most at risk. We want to work together to make people safer on our roads whether travelling by motor vehicle, pedal cycle, motorcycle or on foot, investing in everyone regardless of whether they live in or travel through our county. Deaths and injuries on our roads remain at an unacceptably high level and together we must reduce the numbers and severity of accidents, working with partners to design roads which are safer, reducing the impact on families and communities following these tragic events. Through working with local designers, architects, planners, builders and occupiers and by continuing to influence national policy we can make sure that buildings in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire are safe from fire and protect the lives of those who occupy them and are safe for firefighters who may need to go into them to extinguish a fire if it happens.
Fire is an unfortunate result of many underlying issues, whether it occurs following deliberate action, antisocial behaviour or accidentally due to vulnerability caused by factors such as disability, physical or mental health, social stability, financial security or unemployment. By knowing and understanding our communities we will be better placed to target our resources and contribute to the work of our partners to add value and make a difference.
Through engagement people have told us what they want from us Our communities said: ‘Work with others and educate us to help make our lives safer’ Our staff said: ‘Work together to stop fires and other emergencies happening’ Our partners said: ‘Encourage early investment and help others to understand that prevention is better and cheaper than cure’ Young people said: ‘Help us to understand rather than just tell us about the risks’
Our priorities set out what we want to achieve and why it is important to us. Our practices set out how we are going to achieve our priorities.
Our practices - to deliver against this principle we will • Use information to shape our services, offer opportunities for people to learn about safety and target what we do to those who are most at risk from fire and who need the most help. • Help our communities to prepare and educate them regarding fire safety in the home and how they can take responsibility for their own safety and Wellbeing to reduce vulnerability to fire and stop accidents happening. • Work with our citizens to co-produce safety initiatives such as prevention campaigns and volunteering activities. • Work with local communities and partners on campaigns and initiatives to reduce the number and impact of deliberate fires and anti-social behaviour. • Share information and learning with our communities and partners to help us tackle the underlying issues which impact on the wider community and business safety agenda. • Support businesses to promote fire safety awareness. We will advise and support building owners, occupiers and employers regarding effective fire safety management using effective fire safety audit process and enforce the Fire Safety Order 2005 where appropriate. • Contribute to the design of homes and buildings which are safe, affordable and sustainable through use of fire engineered solutions including sprinklers and modern fire safety equipment.
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• Develop strong working relationships with local architects, building control and planning teams to make sure that we are fully involved with the design and construction of all buildings across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. • Continue to lobby central government to bring about a change in national policy to legislate for sprinklers to be fitted in all new homes and buildings as demonstrated in Wales. • Establish a post incident support (domestic and business) process which provides assistance to people and further enhances support for individuals and businesses following an emergency, capturing feedback to help us improve how we deliver services in the future. • Help our communities and businesses to recover after a fire, reducing the impact on families, friends, the wider community and the economy. • Work with communities, partners, schools, local authorities and the Highways Agency to influence the design and maintenance of roads which are safe for everyone. • Work alongside the Staffordshire Safer Roads Partnership to educate and change the behaviour of drivers, motor cyclists, pedal cyclists and pedestrians when using our roads, cycle routes and pathways. • Work with national groups such as the Chief Fire Officer’s Association to make sure we give consistent messages and information about the hazards and risks on our roads.
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Our priorities
Priority 5. Response and resilience Our principle – To ensure we provide safe, effective, efficient and resilient response arrangements.
Why is this principle important to us? Although we continue to work hard to prevent emergencies occurring we want to maintain a high quality response to emergencies when they happen and to make sure we have resilience in the face of all demands. Now and in the future we will be responding to very different risks and emergencies and must also meet the tough economic challenges ahead. This means that we need to adapt our vehicles, equipment, training and systems of work to succeed and keep our communities and firefighters safe. To meet these new risks the role of a firefighter will need to develop to meet the risks they may face, with local areas requiring different skills and knowledge including more specialist roles requiring increasingly technical and complex skills to make sure that they stay safe and do their job well. Whilst many of these emergencies can occur anywhere, evidence tells us that we must now explore opportunities to respond differently and in a targeted way, not in isolation but alongside our communities and partners.
Through engagement people have told us what they want from us Our communities said: ‘Be able to deal with emergencies when they happen’ Our staff said: ‘Make sure that we have the right information, trained staff, equipment and procedures to safely deal with any emergency when it happens’ Our partners said: ‘Be able to provide the same first class service despite the challenging economic pressures we must face together’ Young people said: ‘Young people don’t always understand the consequences of what they do and the dangers faced by firefighters because of it’
Our practices - to deliver against this principle we will • Plan and prepare to respond to local , regional and national emergencies, working hard to prevent emergencies happening in the first place. We will make sure we have appropriate resilient and robust response arrangements in place to meet our ever changing demand. • Adapt how we respond to emergencies to meet the changing risks and demands we face. We will consider the demands due to the challenges of climate change, changes in risk, the threat of terrorism and other demands as they become evident.
Our priorities set out what we want to achieve and why it is important to us. Our practices set out how we are going to achieve our priorities.
• Make sure that we have competent people in the right place at the right time, appropriately trained, ensuring that they are able to balance risks against benefits, specifically in their wider role to protect the public and property, while meeting their health and safety duties as employees to protect themselves and others. • Evaluate how we perform in order to learn and improve. • Undertake a full review of our emergency vehicles, their locations and how they are crewed to make sure we continue to provide the fastest response with the right resource when needed. • Clearly set out the response standards we expect to meet. • Complete a full review of our duty systems to make sure that they deliver the service needed to meet the demands now and in the future. • Make sure that our operational crews have information on all risks they are likely to respond to available to them when needed. • Undertake fire safety and operational site specific audits through a risk based inspection programme to ensure the safety of firefighters, the environment and mitigate the social/ economic impact of fires. Make this information available to operational crews at incidents. • Ensure that all staff are trained to respond to the risks they are expected to face, recognising that there may be a requirement to develop and maintain different skills in different areas. • Explore opportunities to co-respond with medical teams to provide the quickest response to those requiring medical aid and interventions.
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• Explore opportunities for future innovation, developing new equipment and technology carried on appropriate specialist vehicles to meet the existing risks and changing demands of the future. Our Staffordshire Efficient Response Option (SERO) project is looking outside the traditional “fire appliance” based approach. This will enable us to develop a fit for purpose risk assessed response, based on up-to-date vehicles, equipment and crewing options, providing an effective and efficient service to our community. • Plan, prepare and train for major threats and emergencies to make sure that we have the capacity and capability to meet demand alongside national, regional and local emergency services and local resilience partners. • Make arrangements to share our resources and receive help from others in order to support regional and national resilience arrangements. We will consider the commissioning of specialist rescue capability to see if it is the most effective way to respond. • Make sure that we have robust business continuity plans in place to provide assurance that we can deliver our services at all times. • Make sure that we make best use of our workforce to supplement our resources at short notice if demand increases significantly. • Build additional capacity through expanded roles for volunteers to help us undertake post incident surveys to capture the thoughts of those affected to enable us to learn and improve.
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Performance - how we measure success
The key to our success is to understand our purpose. As a Service we chose to state our core purpose in the simplest way possible.
We will respond: Put out fires & rescue people. A natural expectation of our communities and a statutory requirement.
We have been using a systems thinking approach to transform the way we do business. We have formed an internal Business Transformation Team that has being working with all the departments across the Service to embed a culture of continuous challenge; “Why do we do things the way we do?” The aim is to develop a better understanding of how every individual and team contributes to the continued improvements being made across the Service. We are continually looking at new and innovative methods of delivering a service that is fit for purpose. This will make sure we are in the best place to deal with the challenges in the future. The aspiration of the Service is to ensure that this is embedded as a continuous business as usual process throughout the whole organisation.
We will prevent & protect: Do sensible things to prevent fires and incidents occurring. Using our professional judgement to reduce the demand on our response service and fulfil our statutory obligations. Our overall success will be measured by reducing the number of incidents we attend across all our response types and making sure we deliver the high standard of service expected whilst still providing value for money.
We have developed the measures required within departments and teams to enable them to actively monitor what impact the work they complete has on our overall performance. The question that we ask to all our staff is ‘how does the work I do contribute to achieving our overall purpose?’ Our overall performance is monitored using eight high level indicators. More detailed performance indicators and measures are used to inform day to day activities and to identify work activities and improvements to the service delivered to our communities.
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The eight high level performance indicators we will report on are: • Total number of incidents attended. • Number of accidental dwelling fires. • Number of business property fires. • Number of accidental fire deaths and injuries. • Number of road traffic collisions (fire service attended). • Number of killed and seriously injured at road traffic collisions. • Number of automatic fire alarms attended. • Number of Home Fire Risk Checks completed. These indicators and the underlying measures will be regularly reviewed to ensure they clearly inform the impact on our performance.
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Our performance 2011-2014
As an emergency service we are fully committed to the belief that prevention is better than cure. We are committed to the aspiration of reducing the occurrence of fires, road traffic collisions and other emergencies to negligible numbers.
The Service will continue to look at the root causes of emergency incidents and look to work in partnership to help make Staffordshire the safest place to be. The following looks at our performance over the time of the Corporate Safety Plan for 2011 to 2014. Over the last three years we have seen reductions in areas such as deaths and injuries as a result of fire in the home and the overall number of incidents we attend. We continue to review and analyse the type and number of emergency incidents that we attend to help us develop the most effective ways of preventing them occurring in the future. Over the three years of the Corporate Safety Plan 2011 – 2014 we have delivered an average of around 30,000 Home Fire Risk Checks each year. These, alongside a range of prevention and protection activities have meant an overall reduction in the number of emergencies we attend year-on-year. The number of road traffic collisions (RTCs) the Service has attended has remained at over 600 per year. We continue to work with our partners to reduce the number of these life changing events.
Total Number of Incidents
11,654
2011-2012
9,291
2012-2013
7,461
2013-2014*
Accidental Fires in Dwellings
598
2011-2012
562
2012-2013
412
2013-2014*
Accidental Fires in Dwellings Casualties
6
2011-2012
2012-2013
* 2013-2014 figures show up to 31st Dec 2013 to be updated prior to publishing
2013-2014*
21
4 3
16 Deaths
13
Injuries
Unwanted Fire Signals 2011-2012
2,140
Accidental Fires in Dwellings Casualties
6
2011-2012
2012-2013
2013-2014*
Deaths
13
Injuries
2,140
2011-2012
2013-2014*
1,834
224
83
212 Deliberate
146
Accidental
27259 32256
2012-2013
2013-2014*
21382
Road Traffic Collisions attended by the Service 2011-2012
413
2013-2014*
Home Fire Risk Checks 2011-2012
652
Road Traffic collision Killed & Seriously Injured
103
74
635
2012-2013
Commercial Fires
2012-2013
21382
2013-2014*
2011-2012
2,097
2012-2013
2011-2012
32256
Road Traffic Collisions attended by the Service
Unwanted Fire Signals
2013-2014*
27259
2012-2013
16
3
27
2011-2012
21
4
Home Fire Risk Checks
635
2011-2012
34
2012-2013
30
2013-2014*
-
197 169 -
Road Traffic Collision Killed and Seriously Injured information supplied by Staffordshire Safer Roads Partnership – Source: Staffordshire Police, Stats 9 Database (maintained by SCC)
Killed Seriously Injured
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Our finances
Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority continue to be one of the most efficient and low cost Fire and Rescue Authorities with an average cost per head of population of around £38.
The annual revenue budget for the Authority was set at £41.5m for 2014/15. Overall funding has reduced by £4m in the last two years as part of the austerity measures announced by Government during the Spending Review period from 2011/12 to 2014/15. Further significant reduction in funding have already been announced for 2015/16 and anticipated for the remaining period of this Corporate Safety Plan. The Authority receives its funding two main sources, a Settlement Funding Assessment from central government (which includes a share of local business rates), and also Council Tax which is collected on our behalf by 9 local authorities. The Authority has managed to Freeze Council Tax for the fourth year in 2014/15 with a Band D council tax payment remaining at £67.64, around £1.30 per week.
How we spend your money Annual Revenue Budget 2013/2014 £41.5m
Accountability and transparency
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As a high achieving organisation we understand the requirement to be accountable for the service we provide to our communities.
Future funding As part of the austerity measures placed on local authorities by Central Government, cuts in funding of around ÂŁ4.2m are anticipated during the period of this Corporate Safety Plan, and along with other public sector bodies we recognise that the financial challenge is also likely to continue beyond this date. We are committed to identifying different and innovative ways of delivering the high level of service expected within these financial constraints, without compromising the safety of our firefighters or the communities that we serve. Through the ongoing work of the Business Transformation Programme we have already delivered considerable efficiencies and savings; and we believe we are in as strong a position as any public sector organisation to face the financial challenges in the future. A full Statement of Accounts are published and available on our website at www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk. Printed copies can be obtained by contacting our Finance Department on 08451 221155.
We want everyone to be able to see how well we are performing, and what difference we are making in order for them to live safer and healthier lives. We understand that being accountable and transparent is not only a legal responsibility but an opportunity to truly engage with our communities, staff and partners. Accurate, meaningful and timely information helps the community understand what it is we do and helps them to participate in shaping how we will deliver the right services in the future. We want to continue to learn and grow by building on our ways of communicating with our staff and with our communities. Understanding the “Why and How?� we can most effectively communicate and share information to improve the scrutiny we need to help us to learn and grow as an organisation. We want to recognise and celebrate our success and as importantly understand and share when we have not got it right, and how we can do it better. This will only be achieved by building the systems and processes that support an open and transparent approach to engaging and communicating with all our staff, partners and communities. We publish information about the Service and our activities through our website www.staffordshirefire. gov.uk. We are also making increased use of other on-line channels such as Twitter and Facebook, alongside traditional print and broadcast media, to inform the local community about what we do.
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Consultation - how we did it?
In order to deliver the 2014-2017 Corporate Safety Plan in a timely and effective way the task was established as a project, reporting through our management and governance procedures under a project guideline and timetable.
Initially ten priority areas were identified in line with delivering our vision and giving due consideration to the National Framework for Fire and Rescue Services 2012 and agreed by Fire and Rescue Authority members on 12 March 2013. The content and detail of the priority areas were developed and progressed through a process of continual discussion and consultation with a wide variety of stakeholders both internally and externally.
Contact was made with the Consultation Institute for them to appraise the rationale and approach being followed for the initial stage of the Corporate Safety Plan. The Consultation Institute is a national organisation that promotes high standards in public, stakeholder and employee consultation by initiating research, publications and specialist events in order to disseminate best practice and improve subsequent decision-making.
A decision was taken in the initial stages to take an innovative and inclusive approach to consult in the development of the priorities. This was instead of the traditional approach of consulting on a set of finalised proposals and asking for a rubber stamp of approval.
The outcome of the discussion was that we were commended for engaging stakeholders prior to drafting our plan because this gives a tangible sense of involvement in shaping the ideas rather than ‘rubber stamping’. The Service was encouraged to continue to be aspirational about what it intends to achieve and to be clear about its anticipated activities when consulting to make sure that stakeholders are clear about the questions being asked of them.
One of the methods of engagement was a Hall Test. Members of the public were interviewed at a variety of sites across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. Detailed information was provided to give a better understanding about the challenges facing the fire and rescue service both locally and nationally and then a series of questions were asked. This gave us informed and detailed information on what the public expect from us in the future.
Glossary
Service Delivery Groups: The Service is divided into three geographical areas North, West and East. Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP): Our development planning and risk analysis process. Retained: Stations that have firefighters on call from their work or home address. Whole time: Stations that have firefighters available 24 hours a day. Day crewing: Stations that have firefighters available during normal office hours and are then on call from work or their home address. Staffordshire Resilience Forum: A partnership made up of local councils, hospitals, emergency services and the voluntary sector. They work on plans for a variety of major emergencies, such as severe weather, flooding, widespread fires, pandemic flu and illnesses. Fire Engineer: A technical fire safety qualified member of staff who advises on the fire protection requirements of buildings.
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RNIB: Royal National Institute of Blind People. CFOA: Chief Fire Officers Association. Fire Control: Emergency call handling centre. Intelligence Led mobilising system: A method of sending the required appliances and specialist equipment to emergency incidents. Strategic Cover Review: The review of provision of specialist appliances and equipment. Olive Branch: A partnership safety initiative looking to identify people most vulnerable to fire. Let’s Work Together: A partnership information and referral project aimed at identifying and sharing information between partners. Unwanted Fire Signals: Accidental or deliberate operation of fire alarms which require the attendance of the Fire Service. Home Fire Risk Checks (HFRCs): Free service to domestic households to highlight safety hazards and provide advice on how to stay safe from fire.
Service Headquarters, Pirehill, Stone, Staffordshire ST15 0BS Telephone: 08451 22 11 55 Fax: 01785 898395
For a FREE Home Fire Risk Check Contact
0800 0241 999 www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk
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