Hampshire and Isle of Wight 2021/22

This is our first full inspection of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service as a combined authority. We first inspected Hampshire and Isle of Wight as separate services in July 2018, publishing separate reports on each service’s effectiveness, efficiency and how it looks after its people in December 2018. Both services produced action plans in response to the areas we identified for improvement.

The two services worked jointly before they merged into a combined service in April 2021. Our second inspection, published in January 2021, considered how Hampshire and Isle of Wight were responding to the pandemic as one. This inspection considers for the first time, as a combined service Hampshire and Isle of Wight’s effectiveness, efficiency and how it treats its people.

I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service in keeping people safe and secure from fires and other risks, but more work still needs to be done in some areas we identified for improvement in our 2018 inspections. For example:

• the service isn’t meeting targets for its risk-based inspection programme (RBIP);
• prevention activity isn’t always evaluated;
• the service still doesn’t have an effective process to share learning from operational activity;
• individual performance and productivity aren’t consistently managed.

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

• On-call availability remains a significant challenge and the service isn’t consistently maintaining good levels of available fire engines.
• In our separate 2018 inspections of both Hampshire and Isle of Wight, we issued a cause of concern to both services that they weren’t doing enough to be an inclusive employer. We recognise the work the service has done to integrate equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) into processes such as recruitment and promotion. Staff also reported an improving culture. A clear set of values and behaviours has been introduced, although these values and behaviours aren’t always demonstrated by staff at all levels. Given the progress made, we consider enough action has been taken to close the cause of concern. However, the service needs to continue its work to improve EDI.
• The service is good at identifying those people who are most at risk from fire and other emergencies. The timescales for when the service will respond to safe and well visits aren’t always met. This means those who are most at risk aren’t always seen in the time the service has set itself.
• The service still hasn’t done enough to put an effective system in place to share learning from operational activity. The debrief process isn’t effectively managed, and learning isn’t always recorded and shared with staff.

Overall, the service has shown clear intent to address the problems identified during our previous inspections with some improvement in how it looks after its people. However, more work is required to improve the efficiency of the service and some areas for improvement identified in our 2018 inspections remain. We will continue to review progress.