Durham and Darlington 2021/22

It was a pleasure to revisit County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, and I am grateful for the positive and constructive way that the service engaged with our inspection.

Although the service is performing well, it needs to improve in some areas to provide a consistently good service.

I am pleased with the service’s performance in keeping people safe and secure from fires and other risks. For example, the service has the quickest response times to primary fires among all predominately rural services across England. We were encouraged to find that the people identified as highest risk from fire receive a home fire safety revisit within 12 months, and that the service has a dedicated arson reduction team to tackle fire-setting behaviour.

We were pleased to see the service’s progress since our 2019 inspection. Most of the areas for improvement identified have been addressed. We are pleased with the progress the service has made in the way it looks after its people, but there is still more to do in protection.

My principal findings from our assessments of the service over the past year are as follows:

• the culture of the service has improved;
• staff have been continually productive;
• the service has further developed its apprenticeship programme; but
• the service needs to improve in protection.

The service continues to have well-defined values that are understood by staff. It has developed several ways to engage with staff on issues and decisions that affect them. For example, the chief fire officer has visited every watch this year. We have identified an innovative practice with the service developing a new breathing apparatus washing facility which removes the products of combustion from the breathing apparatus equipment. This further supports the aim of keeping operational staff safe.

We are impressed with the service’s productivity. A large proportion of activities are completed by firefighters. The service’s rates of home fire safety visits and fire safety audits is much higher than the England rate.

The service has an effective and successful apprenticeship programme which we have identified as an innovative practice. The apprentices have been recruited to roles across the service, including firefighters, fire control and in workshops. We were told this has helped positively change the organisation’s culture. In the last cohort, 50 percent of firefighter apprentices were women and 25 percent from an ethnic minority background.

Despite the many positives, the service can still improve in some areas. We found that it doesn’t always have the ability to investigate alleged fire safety offences with a view to prosecution. We were also surprised to find that once prohibition notices are served, most aren’t followed up regularly to check compliance.

Overall, the service has improved since our last inspection, which is reflected in the gradings. We look forward to seeing how the service builds on this improvement in our next inspection.