Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service
PLEASE NOTE: On 1 April 2021, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service merged with the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service.
This fire & rescue service covers Hampshire, which is the third-most populous county in England, including the cities of Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester, and its largest towns of Havant, Basingstoke, Gosport and Eastleigh.
85 percent of Hampshire is defined as rural and over a third of the county is within National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Hampshire has 11 district councils, 261 parish and town councils and 545,000 households, of which 71 percent are owner-occupied (2011 Census). Tourism is worth almost £3 billion annually to the Hampshire economy. Each year Hampshire is visited by 4.5 million staying visitors and a further 52 million day visitors.
At the close of 2015, the Chief Constable and more than 100 Hampshire Constabulary staff moved into the fire headquarters in Eastleigh, creating the first shared police and fire headquarters in the country.
HMICFRS region and HMI
- Her Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services (HMI): Matt Parr
is HMI for Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service - HMICFRS region: The service is in HMICFRS’s London and South Central fire region
HMICFRS’s role in inspecting this service
For over 160 years, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary independently assessed and reported on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces and policing, in the public interest.
In summer 2017, HMIC (now HMICFRS) took on inspections of England’s fire & rescue services, assessing and reporting on their efficiency, effectiveness and leadership.
Recent news
- Fire and Rescue Services make progress to improve culture, but more must be done to tackle unacceptable behaviour
- Terms of reference: Home Secretary’s commission for a thematic inspection of the handling of misconduct in fire and rescue services
- Fire and Rescue Service inspections 2021/22 – tranche 3
- Fire and Rescue Services improving – but more change urgently needed
- Letter from Sir Thomas Winsor: marauding terrorist attacks
Recent publications
- Standards of behaviour: The handling of misconduct in fire and rescue services
- Terms of reference: Home Secretary’s commission for a thematic inspection of the handling of misconduct in fire and rescue services
- Fire and Rescue Service inspections 2021/22 – tranche 3
- State of Fire and Rescue – The Annual Assessment of Fire and Rescue Services in England 2020
- Responding to the pandemic: The fire and rescue service’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
Neil Odin