London 2021/22

It was a pleasure to revisit London Fire Brigade, and I am grateful for the positive and constructive way that the brigade engaged with our inspection.

Following our initial inspection of London Fire Brigade published in December 2019, we identified several areas where the brigade needed to make improvements. In February 2021, we also published our report into London Fire Brigade’s progress on implementing the findings from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report. This report doesn’t specifically look at each of those recommendations, but the brigade continues to provide regular updates on progress.

I do not underestimate the significant work which is required to make the improvements identified.

However, I have concerns about the performance of London Fire Brigade in keeping people safe and secure from fires and other risks. In many areas, the strategic intent has yet to lead to demonstrable change in the service provided to the public of London. The brigade needs to improve how it prevents fires and other risks.

There are other areas where we haven’t seen the progress we would have expected since our 2019 inspection. For example:

• the brigade’s prevention activity is still not routinely evaluated;
• the brigade hasn’t maintained a risk-based inspection programme (RBIP);
• responding staff are still not all trained to respond to terrorist incidents;
• brigade values and behaviours aren’t displayed by all staff; and
• the brigade has made slow progress on providing facilities for women in fire stations.

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

In our 2019 inspection we issued a cause of concern around training for staff in risk‑critical skills, such as incident command and emergency fire engine driving. Some staff hadn’t had continuation training in these skills for many years, and there was no individual reassessment of competence for incident command.

We recognise that considerable work has been carried out to support improvements in risk-critical training. Given the progress the brigade has made in these areas, we consider enough action has been taken to close the cause of concern.

The brigade isn’t doing enough to prioritise its home fire safety visits based on individual level of risk. Staff are prioritising referrals based on their judgment, rather than using a systematic prioritisation process. The brigade doesn’t have set timescales for when it will respond to referrals. This means those who are most at risk aren’t always being seen the quickest.

Some behaviour in the brigade isn’t in line with the standards the brigade expects. Staff described behaviour inconsistent with the service’s values. There were limited examples of staff being confident to report their concerns. Often staff do not report concerns for fear of detrimental treatment by others.

The brigade is committed to developing a more diverse workforce, but we were disappointed to find not all staff understood the benefits of this. Staff described examples of discriminatory behaviour directed towards them or others. Staff have limited confidence in challenging unacceptable behaviour or raising concerns, as they feel nothing will happen as a result.

Overall, the brigade leadership have demonstrated a clear intent to addressing the problems identified during our previous inspection; however, we are yet to see any clear indication that this has translated into the improvements required.