Agenda item

The Chair welcomed HMI Zoe Billingham and asked her to present the findings of the State of Fire & Rescue Report to the Committee.

Zoe explained that this was the first State of Fire & Rescue report and was based on inspections carried out between June 2018 and August 2019. She apologised for the delayed publication of the report and said that this was because of changes to the Parliamentary timetable brought about by December’s General Election.

Zoe said that only 16 services had been graded as ‘good’ for all 3 pillars with the ‘effectiveness’ pillar being the strongest for most services and the ‘people’ pillar the weakest. She added that for the next round of inspections, there would be a greater focus on the ‘efficiency’ pillar.

Zoe highlighted some of the good practice that they had found - in particular, strong response to emergencies and good collaboration between services. She then went on to talk about the areas where services needed to improve such as compliance with fire safety regulations, workforce diversity and a toxic culture in some. She added that overall, there were some serious barriers to change faced by services including - the strength of the FBU; lack of consensus over the role of firefighters; ineffective national staff negotiating mechanisms; unclear demarcation between political oversight and operational leadership; and variable capacity to bring about change . Overall, the inspectors concluded that significant reform was needed across the sector both locally and nationally to address these issues.

Zoe concluded by running through the reports 4 recommendations – (i) Home Office to define the role of Fire & Rescue Services; (ii) Home Office, LGA and NFCC to consider reforming pay negotiation machinery; (iii) Home Office to consider legislating to give Chief Fire Officers operational independence; (iv) NFCC and LGA to produce a code of ethics for Fire & Rescue Services.

Following Zoe’s presentation, there was a discussion amongst members during which the following comments and questions were raised:

·         What was the evidence base for giving CFO’s operational independence? Some members expressed the view that this wasn’t an issue in their authorities and others said that it would risk losing democratic and community oversight, and the checks and balances on decision-making, which Fire & Rescue Authorities bring. Zoe quoted examples of where she had been told that Fire Authorities were blocking sensible operational decisions by CFOs.  Members responded by saying that there were a lot of grey areas between operational and strategic decision-making and that in practice CFOs generally consulted with their fire authorities before making key or controversial decisions. In addition, it was stated that the Police and Fire services were very different when it came to operational decision making and so it was wrong to make comparisons between the two.

·         It was suggested that there was a tension in the report between national and local factors and it wasn’t clear whether more central direction was being recommended. Zoe admitted that this could have been made clearer in the report but she said that, although there would inevitably be some local variation between services, at the moment there was far too much inconsistency, especially with IRMPs.

·         Concern was expressed that FRS’s were not getting the political steer from the Government that they needed in order to fulfil expectations. Jonny Bugg from the Home Office responded by saying that the State of Fire & Rescue report had landed well with Ministers and that one of the key questions for the Home Office was how to boost change capacity in fire services.

·         The report was considered to be a good benchmarking exercise but members queried what came next. With the next round of inspections due to start already later in the year, members felt that more time was required in order to respond to the recommendations from the first tranche. Zoe acknowledged this point and said that HMICFRS had tried to give longer gaps between inspections for the services that required greater improvement.

·         Concern was expressed that, with its recommendations, HMICFRS was in some way stepping into the role that Government should be playing, and that it was becoming more than an inspectorate. Zoe denied that this was the case and said that it would have been strange if they hadn’t come up with some recommended courses of action following all the inspections.

·         Disappointment was expressed that there weren’t any recommendations on the ‘people’ pillar. The conversation at the morning’s Fire Commission meeting about changing the culture in the service was referenced, and it was felt that services that fell short on this pillar should have the spotlight shined on them. Zoe said that they could have made recommendations on many more issues but had agreed that it would be more helpful to focus on four at this stage. She added that the recommendation about adopting a code of ethics was aimed at addressing some of these cultural problems.

·         It was stated that there was a 98 per cent satisfaction rate amongst the public with fire services nationally and that this should be taken into account when making judgements about them.

·         It was stated that many fire services were in need of modernisation in many aspects of their operations and so this report was a welcome wake up call.

·         Members agreed that it would be beneficial to have a wider airing of the report’s recommendations at the LGA Fire Conference in March.

Decision

FSMC Members:

1.    Noted the publication of HMICFRS’s State of Fire and Rescue report.

2.    Thanked Zoe for attending the meeting to discuss the contents of the report.

3.    Agreed the way forward set out in paragraph 11 of the report in response to the four recommendations made by HMICFRS.

Action

·         Officers to arrange a discussion session on the State of Fire & Rescue Report at the LGA Fire Conference in March.