Buckinghamshire 2021/22

It was a pleasure to return to Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service and I am grateful for the positive way the service connected with our inspection. I want to thank the service for working with us by accommodating the virtual approach of this inspection. Inspections would normally be conducted using a hybrid approach but inspecting against the backdrop of the pandemic meant we had to inspect virtually. I also want to recognise the disruption caused by the pandemic. This has been considered in our findings.

Since there was a gap of only 18 months between our first and latest inspections and much of the intervening time was overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it isn’t surprising that many of our findings are like those in our first report.

The service has worked hard to address the cause of concern from our 2019 inspection about whether its resources can meet its unique model of operational response. It has increased its capacity to meet its public safety plan and so this cause of concern has been closed.

We are encouraged by the service’s work to improve value for money, but we still have concerns about the service’s funding model as its limited reserves are being used to supplement funding of its response functions.

The service operates an innovative, flexible and graduated approach to operational resourcing, designed to cover low level daily demand and infrequent high risk. It knows it needs 12 immediately available fire engines to deal with normal daily demand. There are 19 stations throughout the county with 30 fire engines: the leading 12 fire engines are located to deal with typical incidents. The service plans to increase the number of fire engines and staff when needed for an unprecedented incident, or if several incidents happen at the same time.

There are, therefore, a further 18 fire engines in readiness to resource this 1 percent of occasions. These additional crews are available on ‘delayed turnout’ of 20 minutes, 60 minutes or up to 3 hours and can be called upon to respond to incidents or provide cover arrangements. They have, by design, low availability and although may not cost too much to run on an annual basis, at some stage the little-used stations and fire engines will need capital investment.

Moreover, the daily demand is met by a mixture of current (but reducing) on-call staff, and wholetime staff conducting extra ‘bank’ shifts. We believe it would be a very significant challenge to crew all the additional fire engines it holds should a major incident occur.

The service needs to prioritise how it identifies and works to reduce risk and communicate this to the public. Focus on improving its prevention work is especially important.

Staff are committed to the service and feel pride in the work they do. Many staff, however, feel overworked and under pressure, which negatively affects their productivity and morale. Support for staff, especially under-represented groups, could be better. The service needs to do more to provide a fair, diverse and inclusive place to work.

The service is a valued member of its local resilience forum, through which it worked well with other emergency services and local government to provide support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its support to vaccination centres and community health agencies continues. It functioned well during the pandemic and did a good job of working with its staff in this difficult period.

We look forward to seeing the service build on the improvements it has already made to address these important areas where work is clearly needed.