Overall summary

Our judgments

Our inspection assessed how well Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service has performed in 11 areas. We have made the following graded judgments:

In the rest of the report, we set out our detailed findings about the areas in which the service has performed well and where it should improve.

Changes to this round of inspection

We last inspected Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service in September to November 2021. And in July 2022, we published our inspection report with our findings on the service’s effectiveness and efficiency and how well it looks after its people.

This inspection contains our third assessment of the service’s effectiveness and efficiency, and how well it looks after its people. We have measured the service against the same 11 areas and given a grade for each.

We haven’t given separate grades for effectiveness, efficiency and people as we did previously. This is to encourage the service to consider our inspection findings as a whole and not focus on just one area.

We now assess services against the characteristics of good performance, and we more clearly link our judgments to causes of concern and areas for improvement. We have also expanded our previous four-tier system of graded judgments to five. As a result, we can state more precisely where we consider improvement is needed and highlight good performance more effectively. However, these changes mean it isn’t possible to make direct comparisons between grades awarded in this round of fire and rescue service inspections with those from previous years.

A reduction in grade, particularly from good to adequate, doesn’t necessarily mean there has been a reduction in performance, unless we say so in the report.

This report sets out our inspection findings for Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service.

Read more information on how we assess fire and rescue services and our graded judgments.

HMI summary

HM Inspector Wendy Williams oversaw this inspection until 31 March 2024, when her tenure ended. These are her observations on the service’s performance. At the time of publication, Roy Wilsher holds responsibility for Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service.

It was a pleasure to revisit Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service, and we are grateful for the positive and constructive way in which the service worked with our inspection staff.

However, we have concerns about the performance of Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service in keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks. In particular, we have serious concerns about the following areas:

• arrangements for inspecting buildings and taking action to make sure they and the people in them are safe;
• how it promotes its values and establishes a positive workplace culture; and
• how it promotes the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

In view of these findings, we have been in regular contact with the chief fire officer as we do not underestimate how much improvement is needed.

We are concerned the service’s departments don’t always work together very well. For example, we saw that the work of firefighters isn’t always aligned to the plans of central teams such as prevention. We also saw occasions when the service was more focused on trying to increase the numbers of safe and well visits, rather than on making sure visits are targeted on people who were most at risk.

Despite the service’s intent and considerable effort, we were disappointed to see that it hasn’t made the progress we expected since our last inspection in 2021. For example, progress on addressing the causes of concern we identified in 2021 has been slow. We were also concerned to note the lack of progress on most of the areas for improvement from our last inspection.

We understand the service has concentrated a great deal of effort and resources on addressing the causes of concern. However, we hope the current inspection will also help the service focus on a more holistic approach to its improvement activity.

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

• The service doesn’t have enough trained and experienced protection staff with the skills required to inspect buildings and use its full range of enforcement powers.
• More work is needed to address our causes of concern for values and culture and promoting EDI, although we recognise there have been some signs of improvement.

We did find that the service had made improvements in some areas we highlighted as areas for improvement in 2021. These include:

• making sure firefighters have access to information about risks they are most likely to encounter in neighbouring services, so they can keep themselves and the public safe;
• being able to provide updates about emergency incidents to the public so they know what to do to protect themselves; and
• improved budget planning and showing how it is achieving value for money.

Overall, therefore, while the service has deteriorated in some areas since our last inspection, we recognise there have also been some improvements. The service should take encouragement from this as it continues to make further improvements. We will continue to work closely with the service and its leadership team to review the progress it is making.

Roy Wilsher

HM Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services

Service in numbers

Percentage of firefighters, workforce and population who are female as at 31 March 2023

Percentage of firefighters, workforce and population who are from ethnic minority backgrounds as at 31 March 2023

References to ethnic minorities in this report include people from White minority backgrounds but exclude people from Irish minority backgrounds. This is due to current data collection practices for national data. For more information on data and analysis in this report, please view the ‘About the data’ section of our website.

Understanding the risk of fire and other emergencies

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at understanding risk.

Each fire and rescue service should identify and assess all foreseeable fire and rescue-related risks that could affect its communities. It should use its protection and response capabilities to prevent or mitigate these risks for the public.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service should improve the way it collects and uses community risk information

The service has assessed a suitable range of risks and threats to support its community risk management planning process. The risk assessment is set out in its community risk profile (CRP). The CRP uses information the service has collected from a broad range of internal and external sources and datasets. These include the service’s incident data, information from home safety visits and building safety inspections, indices of multiple deprivation, and national and local community risk registers.

In our 2021 inspection, we found the service had carried out only limited consultation with vulnerable communities, such as those with disabilities or living in remote rural areas. As a result, it had a limited understanding of risk in these areas. We highlighted this as an area for improvement. There has been little progress on this, and the CRP hasn’t been updated since our last inspection. As such, the area for improvement remains.

The service has made better use of its CRP to develop its community risk management plan (CRMP). However, the risk information in the CRP hasn’t been used to provide local risk profiles for firefighters at stations. There has been some early work to develop station risk profiles. But we found that most firefighters at stations weren’t aware of these and didn’t know how to find specific information about the risk in their local communities. This was an area for improvement we highlighted in 2021 and will remain.

The service has improved its CRMP, but it needs to make clearer links to the risks it has identified

The service’s CRMP explains how the service has assessed risk and sets out a range of risk factors under the headings of:

• deprivation;
• population growth;
• economy;
• environmental and climate impacts; and
• transport

The risks identified in the CRP aren’t separately explained in the CRMP, so it is not easy for the public to link the work described in the CRMP with the risks the service has identified.

The CRMP describes how the service intends to use its prevention, protection, and response activities to mitigate or reduce the risks and threats to its community, both now and in the future.

The service has improved its CRMP by including performance measures. These can be used to show the public how effective the plan is at reducing risk. The service should consider how it can make this information clearer and more accessible for the public, for example, by including targets. Therefore, this area for improvement, which we identified in 2021, has been closed.

The service needs to improve the way it collects information about risk

The service has a team which collects and updates information about the highest-risk people, places and threats it has identified in its area. This includes information about specific risk sites such as industrial areas, hospitals and high-rise buildings.

However, we found that staff numbers in the team had reduced significantly. Some staff had moved to other roles and ineffective workforce planning had led to some vacancies not being filled. As a result, in September 2023, the programme to review and update risk records was temporarily stopped.

There were also delays in uploading amended risk information to the service’s risk database and sharing it with firefighters. It wasn’t clear how the service received and updated information about short-term and temporary risks such as sporting events and home oxygen users. The service should take prompt action to assure itself that risk information is being collected and updated effectively and on time.

We sampled a range of the risk information the service collects, including about Sharpness Docks, Cirencester Hospital and Clapham Court, a residential tower block. The information we reviewed was up to date and complete. However, for some records, it wasn’t presented in the most user-friendly way. For example, the evacuation information for a medium-rise block of flats wasn’t easy to find as it appeared towards the end of a long document.

The service uses several systems to share risk information with staff. These include:

• mobile data terminals on fire engines;
• access to the risk information system in fire control;
• email; and
• staff hub.

We found it was starting to use its health and safety document management system to share information between prevention, protection and response departments. This was very recent and we look forward to seeing this become established.

There were some examples of the service sharing risk information with other organisations. These included:

• safeguarding information shared with NHS and other safeguarding partners;
• building safety information shared with local authority housing; and
• information about high-risk sites shared with neighbouring fire and rescue services.

Most staff at the locations we visited, including firefighters and emergency control room staff, could access and use risk information quickly to help them resolve incidents safely.

The service uses national and local risk registers effectively to develop its CRP

We found evidence to show the service was using information from national and local operational activity to inform its planning assumptions. For example, it used information from the national and local community risk registers to develop its CRP. As a result, flooding, and woodland and forest fires are listed among the highest risks it plans for. There were also some examples of the service improving its procedures to manage risk using national operational learning, joint organisation learning and incident debriefs.

Preventing fires and other risks

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service is adequate at preventing fires and other risks.

Fire and rescue services must promote fire safety, including giving fire safety advice. To identify people at greatest risk from fire, services should work closely with other organisations in the public and voluntary sectors, and with the police and ambulance services. They should share intelligence and risk information with these other organisations when they identify vulnerability or exploitation.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service has a new prevention strategy, but resources remain limited

The service has introduced a new prevention strategy for 2023–26, which is clearly linked to the CRMP. However, like the CRMP, it doesn’t set out who is most at risk.

The strategy sets out a number of objectives, including:

• minimising the risk of fire in the home and reducing fire-related injuries and deaths;
• safeguarding vulnerable people; and
• improving road safety.

The strategy outlines the work the service plans to do to meet these objectives. There is more detail about how the service intends to achieve this in a separate prevention delivery plan.

In our last inspection in 2021 we highlighted the need for an updated strategy. This area for improvement has been closed. However, the service should make sure that it clearly sets out in future publications and plans who is most at risk, so the public understand why they may be at risk and what they can do to reduce that.

We found examples where limited resources restricted the amount of prevention activity the service was able to complete. These included not always meeting its target for the time to complete safe and well visits, limited capacity to do road and water safety work, and co-ordinated prevention campaigns being largely based on media and social media.

The service has taken some steps to address these areas. For example, it has provided a range of community safety information on its website, and it is working with the Vision Zero South West partnership on road safety. It had submitted a request to Gloucestershire County Council (GCC), its parent authority, to fund additional posts. However, this wasn’t due for consideration until after our inspection. We aren’t assured the amount of prevention work the service does is determined by risk rather than funding. As a result, this will remain an area for improvement.

The service’s teams work with other appropriate organisations and share relevant information when needed. For example, it receives referrals for safe and well visits from partners, including South West Ambulance Service, Gloucestershire Police and social care partners.

The service needs to improve the way it targets safe and well visits

The service uses a risk-based approach to prioritise its prevention activity towards people most at risk from fire and other emergencies. For example, it has adopted the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Person Centred Framework to prioritise safe and well visits for those who are most at risk.

It uses a range of information and data to target its prevention activity at vulnerable individuals and groups. These include:

• demographic information from GCC;
• local and national incident data;
• South West Fire Service’s review of fatal fire themes; and
• NFCC research and associated risk factors.

It carries out a range of interventions. These include:

• safe and well visits;
• safety education and bespoke programmes through the service’s community safety centre, SkillZone;
• some road and water safety partnership work; and
• community safety messaging through social media and online communications.

The service is dependent on referrals from partners to identify the highest-risk residents for its safe and well visits. However, at the time of our inspection, there weren’t enough referrals. This meant the service wasn’t meeting its target for 80 percent of safe and well visits to be targeted on the highest-risk people. Data from the service showed that between 1 April and 30 November 2023, just 37 percent of its safe and well visits were to people assessed as high risk.

Firefighters at fire stations have a monthly target for the number of safe and well visits they complete. With a shortfall of referrals, they often go to an area and knock on doors offering safe and well visits. While local knowledge is helpful, without current local risk profiles to help staff identify the right areas and people, those receiving a safe and well visit in this way are often not in the high-risk category the service is trying to target. This area for improvement, which we identified in 2021, will remain.

Staff are suitably prepared to complete safe and well visits effectively

Staff told us they receive appropriate training and are confident to complete safe and well visits.

Specialist prevention advisers are trained to complete safe and well visits when they join the prevention team. They carry out a number of visits with a colleague before they start to complete visits by themselves. Wholetime firefighters receive training from colleagues on station. There was some evidence of on-call staff being trained to complete safe and well visits, but these were mostly firefighters with dual contracts who received training during their wholetime work.

Training for safe and well visits covers an appropriate range of hazards that can put people at greater risk from fire and other emergencies. These include:

• use of candles, fire and heaters;
• cluttering and hoarding;
• smoking; and
• medicines and medical devices.

Staff are confident to respond to safeguarding concerns

Most staff we interviewed knew about the service’s safeguarding procedures and how to make a safeguarding referral. Specialist prevention advisers receive an advanced level of safeguarding training, while other operational staff complete standard training.

Staff told us about safeguarding information and forms which are available on the service’s intranet staff hub, so they know how to take the right actions when they identify safeguarding problems. This had recently been improved, with safeguarding forms now available from a tablet computer allocated to fire engines. Fire control also sends a message to prompt staff to consider safeguarding at all relevant emergency incidents.

The service collaborates with other organisations to improve community safety

The service works with a range of other organisations to prevent fires and other emergencies. These include:

• the NHS for safeguarding;
• Gloucester County Council, Gloucestershire Police and the Vision Zero South West partnership for road safety; and
• Gloucester City Homes to manage and reduce the effect of hoarding.

We found evidence that it routinely refers people at greatest risk to organisations that may better meet their needs. These organisations include local social care teams and the Gloucester Domestic Abuse Service.

The service also has arrangements to receive referrals from a range of other organisations. These include:

• the NHS;
• South West Ambulance Service;
• adult social care services;
• Gloucester Domestic Abuse Service; and
• Gloucester Deaf Association.

And the service acts appropriately on the referrals it receives. For example, referrals are reviewed, prioritised and allocated to either firefighting staff at stations or specialist advisers to complete a safe and well visit.

The service exchanges some information with other public sector organisations about people and groups at greatest risk. It uses this information to challenge planning assumptions and target prevention activity. For example, the service uses demographic information provided by GCC to prioritise some safe and well visits.

However, we found that a lack of effective data sharing agreements had reduced the service’s ability to identify and target those who are at the highest risk. The service should review its data sharing arrangements and make sure it has appropriate agreements in place so it can identify and target those who are at the highest risk.

The service works to reduce deliberate fire setting

The service provides some proactive and reactive services to target and educate people who show signs of fire-setting behaviour. These are primarily focused on children attending the service’s SkillZone safety centre where they are taught about the dangers and effects of deliberate fire setting.

The service also receives referrals for people who have been involved in deliberate fire setting. Specialist advisers provide education and advice to help reduce the likelihood of repeated fire setting. Where necessary, they will signpost or refer people to other organisations.

The service has started to improve the way it evaluates its prevention work

We found evidence that the service has started to improve its evaluation arrangements. It told us that it now completes quality assurance of its safe and well visits internally. It uses this information to highlight learning points with staff and improve the quality of its visits.

It carries out surveys with visitors to its SkillZone safety centre to learn about their experiences and see if the visit has improved their safety awareness. It uses the outcomes to improve the way it runs SkillZone. The service also showed us examples of it contributing to the evaluation of partnership safety work.

It has started work to introduce the NFCC evaluation tools for prevention work and plans to evaluate its road safety partnership. However, the service’s work was less advanced in these areas, and we weren’t able to fully review its progress.

We look forward to the service further developing and consolidating its prevention evaluation arrangements and making improvements as a result. Therefore, the area for improvement relating to this from our 2021 inspection has been closed.

Protecting the public through fire regulation

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service is inadequate at protecting the public through fire regulation.

All fire and rescue services should assess fire risks in certain buildings and, when necessary, require building owners to comply with fire safety legislation. Each service decides how many assessments it does each year. But it must have a locally determined, risk-based inspection programme for enforcing the legislation.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service has introduced a new protection strategy

The service has introduced a new protection strategy which is linked to its CRMP. The strategy commits to focusing its protection resources to work on the highest-risk buildings and events.

Staff across the service can recognise protection risks and are aware of the need to share information about these with the protection team. For example, firefighters are trained to carry out business safety visits. If they identify a safety issue during a visit, such as a blocked escape route, they will pass the information onto the protection team. The protection team will then arrange to complete an audit and take appropriate action to make sure the building and the people in it are safe.

The RBIP focuses on the areas of highest risk

In July 2023, the service introduced an updated RBIP. It was developed using information from a number of sources including the CRP, a model RBIP used in other fire and rescue services, local and national incident data and data from the service’s building audit records.

As a result, the service plans to focus its protection work on the buildings it has assessed as highest risk. These include:

• hospitals;
• care homes;
• hotels;
• licensed premises; and
• other sleeping accommodation.

The service has arrangements to respond to other risks as they emerge. It carries out audits following a fire in a building. It also reviews complaints about fire safety in buildings and will complete an audit where required.

The service doesn’t have enough staff to complete important protection work

The service doesn’t have enough qualified protection staff to support its audit and enforcement activity. At the time of our inspection, it had two staff who were being trained to complete audits and 3.4 qualified staff working on its RBIP. It told us it aimed to have eight staff working on the programme.

Recruiting and training protection staff takes time. This is made worse by a competitive recruitment environment, with other services also experiencing challenges recruiting protection staff.

These issues aren’t new. The service should make sure it plans its needs for protection staff far enough ahead to take account of the recruitment difficulties and the time it takes to recruit and train new staff.

The biggest effect of staff shortages is on the RBIP. At the time of our inspection, the new programme was significantly behind schedule. Data from the service showed that in the first five months of the new programme (between July and November 2023) it had only completed 147 audits against a target of 275.

The service’s arrangements to provide specialist advice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and to take urgent action to make sure people are safe, are still not fully resilient. We identified this as an issue during our inspection in 2021.

The need to provide enough protection staff was an area we highlighted as requiring improvement in 2021. We have included this in a new cause of concern for protection.

The quality of audits is satisfactory, but feedback to those responsible for buildings needs to be more consistent

We reviewed a range of audits that the service had carried out at different buildings across its area. These included audits carried out:

• as part of the service’s RBIP;
• after fires at premises where fire safety legislation applies;
• after enforcement action had been taken; or
• at high-rise, high-risk buildings.

The audits we reviewed were generally completed to a good standard in a consistent, systematic way and in line with the service’s policies. However, there were some elements of high-rise building information where better recording was needed. The records we reviewed didn’t hold information about the building’s evacuation policy or whether it had unsafe cladding.

While the service routinely provides feedback to those responsible for the buildings which have been audited, the way this is done varies. Some responses were sent by post using a standard letter format while others were sent by email and were less structured.

The service should make sure it consistently collects and records appropriate information about the buildings it audits. It should also make sure that correspondence and feedback following audits is presented in a consistent format, so it is clear to the recipient and avoids misunderstanding.

The service still needs to establish regular quality assurance

Since our last inspection, the service has introduced a new quality assurance process for its protection activity. However, more work is needed to make sure this is used regularly to improve the consistency and quality of protection work.

We found little evidence of the quality assurance process being applied to the service’s protection work. None of the audits we reviewed had received a quality assurance review or been signed off by a manager.

Without regular and consistent quality assurance, the service can’t assure itself of the consistency and quality of the work its inspectors do. It will also miss opportunities to identify learning and good practice to share with its protection staff.

This was an area for improvement we highlighted in our last inspection, which will remain.

The service lacks enough staff with the confidence needed to take appropriate legal and enforcement action

The service doesn’t use its full range of enforcement powers consistently. We found that the service didn’t often take formal enforcement action. Some protection staff lacked the experience and confidence to take formal enforcement action and some previous enforcement notices had been withdrawn because the service was concerned they weren’t robust enough.

In the year ending 31 March 2023, the service issued no alteration notices, 72 informal notifications, two enforcement notices and two prohibition notices. It didn’t carry out any prosecutions and hadn’t done so for the five years to 31 March 2022.

While some staff are trained to complete formal investigation and prosecution, this is limited. The service also lacks the capacity to complete investigations without affecting its RBIP. As a result, it can’t take legal action and, where appropriate, prosecute those who don’t comply with fire safety regulations without affecting its RBIP. This was an area for improvement we highlighted in 2021, which we have included in the new cause of concern.

The service has done limited work to prepare for the new building regulator

There was limited evidence to show how the service is supporting the introduction of the Building Safety Regulator. The service is working with the regional NFCC building safety reform and strategic protection forum. But there was little detail about how it would prepare for working with the Building Safety Regulator and the effect it would have on the service. The service should assure itself it understands the requirements of working with the Building Safety Regulator and has plans to meet these.

The Fire Safety Regulations 2022 introduced a range of duties for the managers of tall buildings. These include a requirement to give the fire and rescue service floor plans and inform them of any substantial faults to essential firefighting equipment, such as firefighting lifts. The service’s website has arrangements for managers of tall buildings to provide this information to the service by email.

The way the service works with others is improving

The service works with other enforcement agencies to regulate fire safety and it exchanges risk information with them. It has improved its relationship and information sharing with partners in recent years. For example, it works with a local housing association to make sure buildings are safe and the appropriate agency takes enforcement action when required. The housing association told us that better communication with the service in the past two years had led to a better working relationship and more consistent information sharing.

The service has improved its response to building consultations but needs to do more

We found the service has recently improved the timeliness of its response to building consultations. In the year to 31 March 2023, it responded within the required time on 82.7 percent (363 of 439) of occasions. It told us there had been difficulties allocating work to inspectors promptly, which it had addressed. It provided us with data to show that in the seven months to 31 October 2023 it had responded within the required time on 93.9 percent (231 of 246) of occasions.

The service should consider how it can sustain this improvement, so it consistently meets its statutory responsibility to comment on fire safety arrangements at new and altered buildings.

The service needs to do more work to support businesses

The service could do more to work with local businesses and other organisations to promote compliance with fire safety legislation. It has committed to work with and support businesses in its protection strategy.

However, we found this work was limited to information on its website, social media messaging and some ad-hoc discussions with building managers during building inspections or visits. There are no primary authority partnerships or other structured work to help businesses understand what they need to do to keep their buildings and people safe and comply with fire safety legislation.

The service told us that lack of staff was preventing it working further with businesses. It has requested funding from GCC for additional staff so it can provide resilient support and advice for businesses. This request was due to be considered in January 2024 and hadn’t been approved when we inspected.

We highlighted the need for the service to provide more support to businesses as an area for improvement in 2021. As the service has made limited progress, this area for improvement will remain.

The service is doing only limited work with businesses to reduce unwanted fire signals

The service’s control staff challenge calls from automatic fire alarm systems. This reduces the number of unwanted calls it responds to. As a result, in the year to 31 March 2023, it didn’t send an emergency response to 66.2 percent of the false alarm calls it received. Fewer unwanted calls mean fire engines are available to respond to a genuine incident rather than attending false alarms. It also reduces the risk to the public if fewer fire engines travel at high speed on the roads to respond to these incidents.

High levels of unwanted fire signals create business disruption and can point to other problems with the fire safety management of a building. We found limited evidence of the service highlighting this issue and working with businesses to reduce the number of unwanted fire signals. It could do more to highlight to businesses the problem of unwanted fire signals and how they can better manage these.

Responding to fires and other emergencies

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service is adequate at responding to fires and other emergencies.

Fire and rescue services must be able to respond to a range of incidents such as fires, road traffic collisions and other emergencies in their areas.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service has completed modelling to support proposals for new response arrangements

The service’s response strategy is linked to its CRMP. As part of its CRMP action plan, it commissioned consultants to review the location and use of its fire engines and response staff. The review was comprehensive. It included how often the service responded to risks in its area, the location of incidents and how often it met its response times. In September 2023, this work was completed.

The service stated that the review provided assurance that its fire stations were in the right place. But it recognised there was scope to look in more detail at where its fire engines were located and the working patterns of its firefighters.

It developed a range of options based on the review modelling. It told us it planned to start consultation on these in January 2024, but required political scrutiny and approval first. We look forward to seeing this work progress and the improvements the service makes as a result.

The service has made a slight improvement in meeting response standards

There are no national standards for emergency fire response for the public. However, the service has set out its own response standards in its CRMP. It uses average response time standards for three categories of incident:

• dwelling fires – average response of 9 minutes or less;
• commercial fires – average response of 10 minutes or less; and
• primary fires – average response of 10 minutes or less.

Since we inspected in 2021, the service has improved its response times and meets its standards for commercial fires. However, it still doesn’t meet its standards for dwelling fires or primary fires. Home Office data shows that in the year ending 31 March 2023, the service’s response was:

• dwelling fires – 9 minutes and 49 seconds;
• commercial fires – 9 minutes and 29 seconds; and
• primary fires – 10 minutes and 38 seconds.

In its CRMP, the service commits to review its current response standards. We look forward to seeing this work progress.

Some fire engine availability has decreased

To support its response strategy, the service aims to have its wholetime fire engines available on 100 percent of occasions, with on-call fire engines available on 90 percent of occasions. The service doesn’t always meet this standard. In the year ending 31 March 2023, its wholetime fire engine availability was 100 percent, but overall on-call availability was 77 percent. This compares with 100 percent and 91 percent in 2021.

The service told us it was looking at ways to improve the availability of its on-call fire engines. This included arranging for firefighting staff working in other service roles to work from on-call stations to improve fire engine availability. This was a recent change. While it has the potential to improve availability, it wasn’t clear if there would be a negative effect on the primary roles of staff being asked to work in this way. The service should assure itself that it has fully assessed the effect of this approach and it doesn’t compromise its work and performance in other areas.

The service has improved command training, but more work is needed to maintain the skills of incident commanders

The service has trained incident commanders, who are assessed regularly and properly. The service has improved its validation and monitoring of incident command skills since our 2021 inspection. Incident commanders are revalidated every two years. The senior leadership team monitors compliance. This helps the service safely, assertively and effectively manage the whole range of incidents it could face, from small and routine ones to complex multi-agency incidents.

As part of our inspection, we interviewed incident commanders from across the service. They were familiar with risk assessing, decision-making and recording information at incidents in line with national best practice, as well as the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

We found that development support for new incident commanders had improved. Training to maintain skills and competence and experience between validations had also improved. However, not all incident commanders we spoke to knew they could access this improved training. Where training exercises take place, it isn’t a requirement for incident commanders at level two or above to attend these. This can lead to gaps in experience, particularly for commanders who attend fewer incidents.

The service had started to provide more structure to the training programme to make sure all incident commanders attend exercises. This work was in its early stages. The service should assure itself that all incident commanders are aware of the opportunities available to them to develop and maintain their skills. It should set clear expectations for attending these and provide suitable oversight to make sure this happens.

Control staff aren’t always included in training and debrief

We were disappointed to find that the service’s control staff aren’t always included in its command, training, exercise, debrief and assurance activity. The control staff and managers we spoke to had mixed experiences. There were more examples of staff being involved in training exercises than debriefs. There were no examples of control staff being involved in exercising the service’s high-rise evacuation arrangements.

Control staff are an important part of a service’s incident management and response and they bring a unique perspective to training and incident debrief. The service should make sure it consistently includes its control staff in its command, training, exercise, debrief and assurance activity.

There is up-to-date risk information available to firefighters

We sampled a range of risk information for residential and commercial risks, including the information in place for firefighters responding to incidents at high-risk, high-rise buildings and the information held by fire control.

The information we reviewed was up to date and detailed. However, we remain concerned that the service’s arrangements for reviewing and updating this information appear under-resourced. At the time of our inspection, the service wasn’t able to review and keep its risk information up to date.

Most staff could easily access and understand the risk information from mobile data terminals on fire engines. We were pleased to see the service has provided additional information about car construction and safety processes. The information helps firefighters decide the safest way to release people who are trapped and to make vehicles safe. The information is available on a separate tablet computer so firefighters can carry it closer to the scene of the incident.

The service needs to improve its incident debriefing

As part of our inspection, we reviewed a range of emergency incidents and training events. These include fires in domestic and commercial premises, road traffic collisions and training exercises.

The service has recently amended its debriefing policy. Most operational staff we spoke to knew about the debriefing process and how to contribute to it. However, we were disappointed to find the service wasn’t always following the policy and there were some issues with the debriefing arrangements. For example, some of the incidents we reviewed hadn’t been debriefed, notably a fatal fire, which took place more than six months before our inspection.

With other incidents we reviewed, we found that limited team capacity meant the service hadn’t completed the review or shared the outcomes within the time set by its policy. There was one notable incident, which had highlighted the need for improvement and extra training, which some senior managers weren’t aware of.

Other problems included examples of debriefs which didn’t have all relevant documents attached, and some debrief records which couldn’t be found on the recording system. In April 2023, the service changed the system it uses to record debrief information. As a result, it was unable to access any learning and records before April 2023 during our inspection. The service should assure itself that these records can be accessed as it was unclear how long it would take to resolve this.

The service shares safety-critical learning from incidents using the training recording system. Users are required to read and acknowledge the notifications when they log into the system. Other learning is shared using operational information notes; debrief reports, snapshots and related debrief learning is recorded on the service’s intranet. Some staff we spoke to were either unaware of this or were unable to find information on the intranet. There were no examples of the service sharing learning from debriefs with other agencies or partners.

We highlighted the debriefing process as an area for improvement in 2021. As there is still work needed, this will remain an area for improvement.

We were encouraged to see the service is contributing towards, and acting on, learning from other fire and rescue services or operational learning gathered from emergency service partners. This includes learning following a chemical incident involving cleaning fish tanks.

The service has made limited progress to introduce national operational guidance

We found that until spring 2023 the service made very limited progress with its plans to introduce national operational guidance.

The service has recently made this work a greater priority. It developed a new plan in early summer 2023 but hasn’t yet completed the strategic gap analysis, where it assesses itself against the national standard. During our inspection a new team was being introduced to support implementation. The plan appeared thorough and robust. However, it was very new, and all staff weren’t in place, so we were unable to fully assess the effectiveness of these arrangements.

We look forward to seeing this work progress, particularly as this was an area for improvement highlighted in 2021. However, because the progress is so recent and not all staff were in place, this will remain an area for improvement.

The service has improved arrangements for keeping the public informed

We were pleased to see the service now has good systems in place to inform the public about ongoing incidents and help keep them safe during and after incidents. This includes dedicated communications officers from GCC available during the day, with out-of-hours support available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Fire and rescue service and council social media accounts are used to update the public.

For larger and protracted incidents, the local resilience forum (LRF) will agree the communications approach, with GCC leading on the messaging.

We have therefore closed this area for improvement from 2021.

Responding to major and multi-agency incidents

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at responding to major and multi‑agency incidents.

All fire and rescue services must be able to respond effectively to multi-agency and cross-border incidents. This means working with other fire and rescue services (known as intraoperability) and emergency services (known as interoperability).

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service needs to improve its preparedness for major and multi-agency incidents

The service has effectively anticipated and considered the reasonably foreseeable risks and threats it may face. These risks are listed in both local and national risk registers as part of its community risk management planning. For example, wide area flooding and wildfires. In Gloucestershire, flooding is seen as the most significant risk.

However, the service needs to do more to make sure all operational staff attend practical major and multi-agency exercises so that they are prepared to attend such incidents. Examples of training we heard about were mainly through incident command group training or with the LRF. In early October 2023, shortly before our inspection, a large, multi-agency exercise was held. The exercise had recently been debriefed when we inspected. However, only a few people we spoke to had attended the exercise.

When exercises are organised, station-based staff are invited to attend, but the oversight of this is ineffective. As a result, staff on stations don’t regularly practise the service’s major and multi-agency response procedures. This was reiterated by staff we spoke to and those who responded to our staff survey. In the survey, 53 percent (128 of 242) who responded stated they hadn’t attended training or exercising with other agencies in the last year. The service should make sure it has a clear programme of major and multi-agency incident training and exercising with effective managerial monitoring and oversight.

The service is familiar with some of the significant risks in neighbouring fire and rescue services, which it might reasonably be asked to respond to in an emergency. But it has more to do. For example, it recognises it needs to improve its assessment and planning with its neighbours for incidents. It was able to provide only limited examples of neighbouring service risks for which it had major-incident response plans.

We were pleased to see there have been some improvements since the last inspection. The service exchanges risk information with its neighbours using the Resilience Direct system. This is uploaded to fire engine data terminals. Most staff we asked about this knew about and were able to access the risk information. Therefore, this area for improvement, which we identified in 2021, is now closed.

The service needs to further improve the way it deals with incidents in high-rise buildings

In our last inspection, we focused on how the service had collected risk information and responded to the Government’s building risk review programme for tall buildings.

In this inspection, we have focused on how well prepared the service is to actually respond to a major incident at a tall building, such as the tragedy at Grenfell Tower.

We were disappointed to find that the service hasn’t given this work the priority it needs. It has developed some policies and procedures for safely managing this type of incident. These include additional guidance for control staff taking calls from people trapped in a tall building (fire survival guidance), and a procedure for recording details of people trapped in a building and sending these to firefighters at the incident to help them locate and rescue people.

Not all staff at all levels properly understand the policies and procedures the service does have in place. We found a good level of understanding among some incident managers, control staff and some firefighters. However, most firefighters we spoke to had little or no knowledge of the new procedures.

There has been some training and exercising of high-rise building procedures. This was primarily for supervisory managers. Few firefighters and control staff we spoke to had received the training. There was one practical high-rise exercise at Clapham Court.

The service recognises it needs to do more in this area. It should arrange practical training and exercises for all staff who would reasonably be expected to use the tall building evacuation procedure. This will fully test the procedure, highlight further improvements needed and allow staff to learn how to apply the procedure.

At this type of incident, a fire and rescue service would receive a high volume of simultaneous fire calls. The service’s arrangements to access additional control staff capacity to manage a high volume of calls are consistent with other fire and rescue services. However, not all staff were confident this would provide enough support to handle high call volumes. The service should assure itself it has robust and tested arrangements to provide additional staffing support in the control room.

The service relies too heavily on paper-based systems to record and transfer details of people trapped in buildings. Information is largely recorded by hand in notebooks or on evacuation boards. It is transferred between the control room and incident by handheld radio.

These systems are too open to operator error. They also mean that staff in the emergency control room, at the incident and in assisting control rooms can’t share, view and update actions in real time. These systems could compromise the service’s ability to safely resolve a major incident at a tall building.

We viewed the systems the service was using during an incident control exercise. We saw that information wasn’t communicated accurately between the control room and the incident location. This caused doubt about the reliability of the information being received and led to a decision to make an unnecessary full evacuation of a number of floors of the building.

There are some arrangements to work with other fire and rescue services

The service supports other fire and rescue services responding to emergency incidents. It borders six other fire and rescue services and has introduced agreements to formalise these response arrangements. It told us its planning arrangements with its neighbouring services have improved in recent years, but recognises it needs to do more in this area. The service told us it takes opportunities to learn from responding with its neighbours. It showed us an example of an operational information note providing guidance for its firefighters when using breathing apparatus with colleagues in neighbouring services.

The service has successfully deployed to other services. It has used national assets such as a high-volume pump which has been used for flooding incidents and an enhanced logistics support vehicle which is used to manage resources at large incidents.

The service needs to improve its arrangements for cross-border exercising

The service needs more effective arrangements for its operational staff to train and exercise with their colleagues from neighbouring services, and better oversight of the exercising programme.

The service’s cross-border exercise plan had limited reference to exercises planned to take place with neighbouring fire and rescue services. It has recognised it needs to improve in this area and has recently introduced new exercise planning guidance. It has also changed the way that incident commanders are allocated to exercises so more can attend. It will take more time for this to become established and make sure all staff attend exercises with neighbouring services when required.

In the year to 31 March 2023, there were three exercises with neighbouring services. We spoke to staff on fire stations, many of whom told us they hadn’t been involved in exercises or training with neighbouring services. Of those who responded to our staff survey (September to October 2023), 60 percent (144 of 242) said they hadn’t taken part in training or exercising with a neighbouring service in the past year. This was an area for improvement in 2021, which will remain.

Incident commanders are experienced in JESIP

Most incident commanders we interviewed had been trained in and were familiar with JESIP. They clearly knew about and were confident in using the principles to work effectively with other agencies.

The service could give us evidence that it consistently follows these principles. This included:

• knowledge and use of the joint decision model;
• aide-memoires and guidance provided for incident commanders; and
• use of decision recording.

The service works effectively with other partners

The service has arrangements in place to respond to emergencies with partners that make up the Gloucestershire LRF. These include officers attending the strategic and tactical co-ordination groups and hosting the silver command cell at the service’s headquarters.

The service takes part in training events with other members of the LRF. These include a recent large-scale exercise to simulate the loss of power over a wide area. However, it wasn’t clear how well the service uses the learning from these exercises to develop planning assumptions about responding to major and multi-agency incidents.

The service has arrangements to keep up to date with learning from other organisations

The service makes sure it knows about national operational updates from other fire and rescue services and joint organisation learning from other organisations, such as the police service and ambulance trusts. It uses this learning to inform planning assumptions that it makes with partner organisations.

The service needs to do more work to prepare staff to respond to terrorist incidents

The service has a team of firefighters who are trained to provide a specialist response to a marauding terrorist attack (MTA). The team’s skills are revalidated every year. However, we found that there wasn’t enough additional exercising and training to allow the specialist responders to maintain their skills and experience for attending this type of incident, which happens infrequently. We weren’t assured all specialist staff had the experience and confidence to respond to an MTA incident when needed.

We also found that the service was only providing training for some of its non‑specialist staff. The service told us that it had started a programme to train firefighters who may arrive at an MTA incident before the specialist team. However, the service’s on-call staff weren’t getting this training. As a result, a significant number of on-call firefighters, who make up a large proportion of the service, won’t receive training about what to do to keep themselves and the public safe at an MTA incident. This was an area for improvement in 2021 and will remain.

Making best use of resources

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at making best use of its resources.

Fire and rescue services should manage their resources properly and appropriately, aligning them with their risks and statutory responsibilities. Services should make best possible use of resources to achieve the best results for the public.

The service’s revenue budget for 2023/24 is £20.677m. However, the fleet management unit and associated budget was moved to a GCC directorate at the same time. Taking this into account there is an effective 9.7 percent increase from the previous financial year.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

Financial planning has improved, but the service needs better forecasting to make sure departments are appropriately resourced

We were encouraged to see the service has started to make improvements to how it forecasts and plans its budget, and how it aligns its resources to the risk management objectives in its CRMP. But more work is needed to make sure departments have enough staff.

We found it has realigned its budget planning and submission arrangements, so they align to the budget preparation cycle of GCC, its parent council. This has resulted in improved and timely budget submissions, with growth in revenue and capital funding.

It has introduced a financial management group in which department leads can identify future financial requirements and emerging budget pressures. This will help the service improve its budget forecasting, but it would benefit from looking further ahead. This will help make sure it has enough time to plan, build and maintain capacity, particularly in areas such as protection where it is challenging to recruit staff, and training and developing them can take over a year.

We found the service is increasingly aligning its resources to the risk management objectives in its CRMP. However, it hasn’t consolidated its succession and workforce planning arrangements into a single plan. As a result, we found that some areas such as protection, prevention and managing risk information didn’t have enough staff to do the work they had planned to meet the CRMP objectives. It also needs to determine how much of the increased resources, which are currently supporting improvement work and adding capacity, will be required on a permanent basis. The service can then build this into its base budget. This will remain as an area for improvement.

As part of the work it committed to in its 2022/26 CRMP, the service commissioned a consultant to review the location of its fire stations, and provision of emergency vehicles and staff. The review work was comprehensive.

The service told us it was satisfied with the location of its stations but recognised that it could make better use of its resources by changing the work location and working patterns of some staff. It developed some options, which it planned to consult on in early 2024. We look forward to this work progressing and the outcomes of the consultation.

There was an improving relationship with GCC with both sides developing a better understanding of each other’s planning and operating requirements. This has led to the council helping the service to meet additional budget pressures such as inflation. The medium-term financial strategy was clear and contained reasonable planning scenarios. The service and council have effective financial controls in place to make sure public money is used appropriately.

There is limited monitoring and management of performance and staff productivity

The service recognises it needs to improve its performance monitoring and management arrangements. It has started work on this, but we saw limited progress.

The prevention, protection and response strategies are linked to the risk management objectives in the CRMP. Each department has a plan which shows how its work contributes to the service objectives and CRMP. However, performance measures in the CRMP lacked targets and other contextual information to show how they would be measured. It isn’t easy for the public to find reports showing progress against these measures.

The service told us it was working towards a more focused performance management culture. There were examples of the senior leadership team monitoring and managing performance and reporting to the fire authority and scrutiny panel. There were plans to provide performance dashboards for all station, team and department managers. This would give managers up-to-date information so they can review progress and manage performance. We saw an example of the dashboard, but it wasn’t yet available to managers.

However, more work is needed to make sure all staff, particularly those working at fire stations, recognise the importance of their prevention and protection work in reducing risk, and that their productivity is assessed and managed.

The objectives in the CRMP have been included in the new appraisal process. But the service told us 40 percent of staff hadn’t received an appraisal at the time of our inspection. Once all staff have an up-to-date appraisal, with objectives set based on the CRMP, they will be clearer about how their work links to the service’s overall risk reduction objectives.

We found performance monitoring and management arrangements at stations were inconsistent. They often depended on the knowledge and enthusiasm of local managers.

The service has set performance indicators for staff at stations. These are primarily related to completion of safe and well visits, business safety visits and risk site visits. Staff we spoke to didn’t always understand the rationale for the home safety visit targets. Firefighters focused on the number of visits they made, rather than targeting them on people most at risk. Staff didn’t always understand the link between the work they were doing and the service’s CRMP objectives.

In some areas, this led to the plans developed by central teams not being understood or carried out by firefighters in stations. Firefighters didn’t always see prevention and protection visits as part of their role. The service should make sure that staff are clear about the work their role requires and how this links to the service’s objectives.

The service has made limited progress towards understanding how firefighter time is used and managing staff performance and productivity. In early 2023, it completed an assessment of working time at stations. However, its data collection system was flawed and produced inconsistent information. The service told us it planned to review the methodology with staff and rerun the worktime assessment, but this hadn’t happened when we inspected. The service needs to do more to better understand how staff time is used on station and introduce clearer arrangements for managing staff productivity.

The service continues to collaborate with partner organisations but at the time of our inspection it hadn’t started to evaluate this work

We were pleased to see the service meets its statutory duty to collaborate. It is a member of the Gloucestershire emergency services collaboration board and routinely considers opportunities to collaborate with other emergency responders. Examples of its collaborative partners and activity include:

• South West Ambulance Trust – co-responding; ambulance driving; sharing buildings.
• Gloucestershire Police – sharing buildings; prevention initiatives.
• NHS South West Collaborative Commissioning Hub – accommodation and support for COVID-19 vaccination programme.
• Severn Area Rescue Association – sharing buildings.

The service has some arrangements in place to manage its collaborations. These include the use of service level agreements; memoranda of understanding; and formal lease agreements for sharing buildings. However, it doesn’t routinely evaluate the benefits and results of its collaborative work.

It recognises it needs to be more robust and evaluate its collaborations. It has developed a draft collaboration framework. This was due to be introduced shortly after our inspection, so we couldn’t assess its effectiveness. This was an area for improvement we highlighted in 2021, which will remain.

The service hasn’t updated some business continuity plans

The service has up-to-date business continuity plans in place for most areas, including those in which it considers threats and risks to be high. But there are some gaps in review and planning arrangements.

The service requires its business continuity plans to be reviewed and updated every 12 months and tested every six months. Given the staffing limitations in the protection team, we were surprised to see that the department’s business continuity plan hadn’t been reviewed or updated since 2021/22. The plan for the for logistics and resources department hadn’t been updated for the current year. We saw correspondence showing both departments had been asked to update their plans. The service’s business continuity plan for industrial action hadn’t been reviewed since January 2022.

The service has introduced plans to demonstrate value for money

The service has started to take action to understand and reduce non-pay costs. This was primarily through the development of an efficiency plan, benchmarking and the use of procurement frameworks.

As a council department, the service isn’t required to produce an efficiency plan. So, we were particularly pleased to see it has developed an efficiency and productivity plan for the period 2023–26. This covers a range of areas where departmental managers expected they would be able to show savings and improvements in efficiency and productivity. At the time of our inspection, the plan was complete and in the early stages of implementation. Although there hadn’t been a formal evaluation, there were anecdotal examples of efficiencies which had been made. These included savings from improved scheduling of leave and using day staff to cover crewing shortfalls at on-call stations.

The service also told us about a new approach it was developing for higher value procurement. It is working with the GCC procurement team to develop a value for money reporting system. This would allow budget holders and managers to review a procurement exercise after it was completed, to see if it implemented what the service had expected. It had plans to pilot this, but this hadn’t started at the time of our inspection.

We recognise the work the service has put into this area and the potential these two schemes offer for showing how the service achieves value for money. We look forward to seeing this work develop. Therefore, this area for improvement from our 2021 inspection has been closed.

There is better support for emergency call management systems 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

In 2021, we highlighted that the service didn’t have adequate, resilient support for its emergency call management and associated systems. It couldn’t guarantee support for these systems 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and this had the potential to compromise its ability to receive and respond to emergency calls.

We were pleased to see the service has improved the arrangements it has to support its call management and associated communications systems. Therefore, this area for improvement has been closed.

Making the FRS affordable now and in the future

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at making the service affordable now and in the future.

Fire and rescue services should continuously look for ways to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. This includes transforming how they work and improving their value for money. Services should have robust spending plans that reflect future financial challenges and efficiency opportunities, and they should invest in better services for the public.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service has made clear progress on future budget forecasting and planning, but this will take time to be consolidated

The service has worked with GCC to develop an improved understanding of future financial challenges. It has aligned its financial planning to the council’s planning timetable. It has started to identify emerging service financial risks and budget pressures through its financial management group. This will lead to improved future budget forecasting. It has used reasonable planning scenarios in its budget planning. These include:

• global financial uncertainty;
• continued inflationary pressure;
• a changing workforce profile;
• future pension liabilities; and
• delays in the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme and unknown costs of the Emergency Services Network.

The service has some plans in place to mitigate its future financial risks. However, there are some areas where risks aren’t fully addressed. For example, funding for additional staff posts, which were introduced to support the service’s improvement programme and build capacity, is subject to annual request and hadn’t been added to the base budget. The service needs to clearly determine its future staffing requirements and make sure it has sustainable funding for these. The corporate risk register identified a risk of reduced funding in the future, but the service carried out limited mitigation action and identified only limited contingency arrangements. Inflation in road vehicle fuel costs wasn’t included in budget settlements.

The service has developed an efficiency plan, which identified efficiencies and savings. At the time of our inspection this was in its first year. We look forward to seeing this progress and how the service measures the expected benefits.

The service has made reassuring progress in this area and has clear plans to move forward with this work. We look forward to seeing this progress and the service’s future budget forecasting and strengthened scenario planning being put onto a firmer footing. However, because some changes were recent and the service needs to develop a clear position about future staffing requirements, this will remain an area for improvement.

The service can access reserve funding from its parent council if needed

The service is a department of GCC. As such, financial reserves are held by the council and not the service. There are suitable earmarked reserves for the service’s training centre. There are also general reserves which the service can apply for if required.

The service needs to show more clearly how its fleet and estates plans are linked to the CRMP

The service has developed an up-to-date fleet strategy which covers the period 2023–26. The document is one of the service’s enabling strategies, which were introduced as part of its improvement work.

The fleet strategy is a high-level document, which commits to strategic objectives, including ethical and sustainable procurement, reducing adverse environmental effects and demonstrating best value for money. However, there need to be clearer links to the risks identified in the CRP and the risk management plans set out in the CRMP. There is a statement about meeting the requirements of the CRMP. But without more explicit links to the plan, the service can’t show clearly how it plans to specify and procure fire engines and equipment which support its plans to manage and reduce these risks.

The service procures fire engines and equipment through GCC, its parent council. It told us it has experienced some difficulties and procurement delays because the CRMP and the council fleet strategy aren’t aligned. It reviews the CRMP every three years and GCC reviews its fleet strategy every ten years.

The service is working with the council to better align its fleet plans and CRMP and improve procurement arrangements. It should also make sure that future fleet strategies show clearly how it has considered its fire engine and equipment requirements when developing the CRMP.

The service’s estates and maintenance requirements are provided through the council’s One Public Estate Programme. The service gave us some examples of planning for a new building and making best use of existing facilities. This included plans for a new training centre and arrangements for sharing its properties with police and ambulance services. However, these aren’t consolidated into a single plan. And there is very limited reference to the service and its premises requirements in the council’s current estates strategy. This means it can’t show how it plans to support its risk reduction and response arrangements with appropriate buildings and facilities.

The service told us it was working with the council to make sure its requirements are included in the next five-year estate plan, which was due to start in April 2024. We look forward to seeing this develop. However, as it isn’t currently clear how the fleet and estate strategies link to the CRMP, this will remain an area for improvement.

IT needs to work more closely with other departments to develop better IT systems that support the service’s work

We found the service doesn’t always take advantage of developments in technology and IT systems to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its staff. We found examples where ineffective IT systems were affecting the service’s ability to easily complete daily tasks:

• an ageing prevention database system which was described by staff as “clumsy and unreliable”;
• a problematic system for recording information about buildings the service’s protection staff inspect;
• slow progress on a project to link the service’s mobilising, staff attendance recording, training recording and mobile data systems; and
• little progress on plans to develop an IT system for sharing information between control and the bridgehead (the position where firefighters are carrying out firefighting operations) at large fire rescue incidents.

In some areas there were plans to develop new systems. But we found there was too much responsibility for this put on staff in the departments that needed the new systems. These staff tend to lack specialist knowledge of systems and need greater support from the IT department. The service should assure itself that its arrangements to specify and provide new systems are built on effective working between all relevant departments.

We were pleased to see the service does consider how it can use new and innovative technology to improve its effectiveness and efficiency. Examples the service told us about included:

• solar panels on fire engines to reduce the wear on other vehicle parts;
• plans to introduce electric vehicles to reduce carbon emissions; and
• provision of tablet computers on fire engines to support safety visits, respond to emergency incidents and provide information for firefighters.

The service doesn’t have enough capacity and capability to carry out routine work and implement its improvement programme

In previous years, the service faced challenges with the capacity and capability it needed to bring about lasting, sustainable change alongside providing its day-to-day work activities. Since we last inspected in 2021, it introduced additional posts to manage and support its improvement programme and help reduce staff workloads. It also commissioned support from external commercial organisations to help with specialist areas of improvement, such as cultural awareness.

Despite the increased capacity, the service has made limited progress in areas where it needs to get better. It hasn’t made enough progress for its causes of concern to be closed, and many of the areas for improvement highlighted in 2021 remain. Nor has it sustained earlier improvements in protection. We aren’t assured the service has the capacity and capability it needs to make sustainable change while also providing its day-to-day services. This will remain an area for improvement.

Promoting the right values and culture

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service is inadequate at promoting the right values and culture.

Fire and rescue services should have positive and inclusive cultures, modelled by the behaviours of their senior leaders. Services should promote health and safety effectively, and staff should have access to a range of well‑being support that can be tailored to their individual needs.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

There has been slow progress towards improving culture, behaviours and values

The service hasn’t made the progress we expected in this area. After a slow start, it made determined efforts to engage its staff in work to develop a clearly defined set of behaviours, ethics and values. The resulting workplace charter was introduced in the summer of 2023. It includes the Core Code of Ethics and NFCC leadership framework.

Many staff we spoke to told us about the work to involve them. They had been consulted and felt they had the opportunity to contribute to the charter. Most staff understood the importance of the charter and its contribution to improving the service’s workplace culture. Of those who responded to our staff survey, 94 percent (286 of 303) said they knew about the service’s values.

The service has also developed an organisational vision. It sets out the service’s commitment to create a positive workplace culture and support staff to provide the highest standard of services to its communities. It sees this as the primary focus for service culture in the future, but this wasn’t yet fully understood by staff.

We were pleased to see the work the service has done in this area and the level of staff consultation and involvement which has taken place. When we inspected, the charter and vision were both relatively new. The vision, in particular, needs more time to become fully established and become one of the foundations of the service’s culture. But we are satisfied the service has done enough work to satisfy two of the recommendations from the cause of concern we issued in 2021:

• improve how it engages with its staff to gain their commitment to the service’s values and associated behaviours; and
• make sure all staff understand the behaviours that are expected of them and how these relate to the service’s culture.

The service still has more work to do to fully establish the new workplace culture and make sure all staff understand and behave in line with its ethics and values. We found that the culture of the organisation doesn’t always align with its values. Some behaviours we saw or were told about didn’t meet the standards expected by the workplace charter and we heard examples of bullying, harassment and discrimination. But we heard about fewer of these than when we inspected in 2021.

While there have been some improvements, we found there wasn’t a strong culture of challenging poor and unacceptable behaviour. We spoke to managers who weren’t confident to challenge and manage poor behaviour. Some staff told us they weren’t confident the service would deal appropriately with those who didn’t uphold the behaviours and values which were expected. Some were fearful of repercussions if they did raise a concern about poor behaviour.

The service recognises it has more to do. It has started providing training for managers in how to have ‘courageous conversations’. A development programme is planned to support the service’s new workplace development plan, known as ‘career pathways’. This will include sessions on challenging and managing poor behaviour. The service should move quickly to establish a culture where behaviours that aren’t in line with service values are routinely challenged. Not doing so has the potential to undermine the work it has already done to improve its workplace culture.

We were disappointed to find that staff felt that senior leaders didn’t always act as positive role models. We heard about and saw behaviours from some senior managers which weren’t aligned to the behaviours, ethics and values in the workplace charter. Of the staff who responded to our survey, 36 percent (102 of 286) stated that senior leaders didn’t model and maintain the service’s values.

Staff also told us that not all leaders were visible enough. Some staff described not seeing or being able to talk to their manager regularly. Some senior leaders were only seen when attending a meeting, rather than making a specific effort to visit a group or team. This was an area for improvement in 2021 which will remain.

It wasn’t clear how well the service was managing this and making sure that all its leaders model the expected behaviours and values to present a strong, consistent image of united leadership.

The service has improved staff knowledge about well-being support but needs to do more to provide fair and equal access to all

The service has a range of well-being provisions in place to support the mental and physical health of staff. These include:

• post-incident defusing for staff who have attended traumatic incidents;
• access to counselling;
• an occupational health service; and
• a well-being information booklet.

Most staff we spoke to knew about the well-being facilities and how to access them. Ninety-one percent (276 of 303) of respondents to our survey agreed or tended to agree that they would be able to access services to support their mental well-being.

However, while the provision and understanding of well-being has improved, there are still some areas which need further work, to make sure all staff have fair and equal access to appropriate well-being support.

Well-being provision isn’t well tailored to the needs of staff with protected characteristics. The service knows it has work to do in these areas. It held a number of engagement sessions to help it understand what else staff need. It has recently started working on specific policies for menopause, neurodiversity and medical capability. Towards the end of our inspection, the service introduced reasonable adjustments guidance and a Health Adjustment Passport, which the service calls a reasonable adjustment passport. The occupational health service isn’t tailored to the needs of the service, and it can take a long time to arrange appointments.

The service has started to introduce measures to monitor staff workloads and make sure they are better managed. Appraisals include a well-being discussion with the manager and a stress assessment questionnaire for staff to complete. This will signpost staff to additional advice and support. If specific concerns are highlighted, these will be flagged to the individual’s manager.

The appraisal process started in May 2023 so needs more time to become fully established. At the time of our inspection, the service told us almost 40 percent of staff had yet to receive an appraisal. While there have been improvements, some staff told us workloads were still too high. Data from the service shows that for the year ending 31 March 2023, stress remains the second highest reason for long-term sickness in the service.

The service has clear health and safety management arrangements, but more time is needed to establish effective monitoring of staff workloads

The service has effective and well-understood health and safety policies and procedures in place. It has an up-to-date health and safety policy. A dedicated team has responsibility for overseeing and managing the service’s health and safety management arrangements and risk assessments. The team link in with their counterparts in GCC, working with the council’s health and safety improvement team.

The service is aware of some areas where it needs to improve its health and safety policies, but progress has been slow. They told us they needed to review and update the lone working policy, but work has yet to start on this. The service also told us about a working group which was looking at how to manage the effect of contaminated firefighting clothing on firefighters’ health.

Most staff are aware of and have confidence in the service’s health and safety policies and approach to safety management. In our staff survey, 90 percent (273 of 303) of respondents agreed or tended to agree they understood the policies and procedures to make sure they could work safely. Ninety-four percent (284 of 303) of respondents agreed or tended to agree the service had clear procedures for reporting all accidents, near misses and dangerous occurrences. The staff representative bodies which responded to our survey tended to agree the service managed health and safety well and usually involved them in decisions on matters concerning staff health and safety.

The service told us it had introduced a process to monitor operational staff working hours through the response admin team. When we inspected, the service had recently communicated this to staff. However, there was limited understanding of this among the staff and managers we spoke to. We look forward to seeing this become established and all staff understanding the arrangements for monitoring their working hours. This was an area for improvement we identified in 2021 which will remain.

There have been improvements in the service’s arrangements for monitoring the inspection and testing of specialist rescue equipment. The service told us about and showed us the system it uses to record and manage this. Many team members had access to the system. Therefore, this area for improvement, which we identified in 2021, has been closed.

The service has clear and supportive arrangements to manage absence

We found there are clear processes in place to manage absences for all staff, with guidance for managers.

Most staff we spoke to told us the service manages absence well and are supportive, particularly for staff who are absent for a long time. However, some staff felt the absence management policy was sometimes applied too aggressively. And some staff believed that repeated absence would lead to formal disciplinary action at a much earlier stage than was intended by the policy. The service should assure itself that staff and managers properly understand and apply its absence management policy.

The senior leadership team monitor staff absence. The service currently has high levels of absence due to stress and musculoskeletal injuries. There were some examples of actions the service is taking to address these and reduce the absence rate. These include the introduction of more proactive stress recognition and management processes, resilience training for managers and increasing awareness of well-being support available to staff. We expect this work to continue and develop and look forward to seeing improvements in all staff absence being sustained.

Getting the right people with the right skills

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at getting the right people with the right skills.

Fire and rescue services should have a workforce plan in place that is linked to their community risk management plans. It should set out their current and future skills requirements and address capability gaps. This should be supplemented by a culture of continuous improvement, including appropriate learning and development throughout the service.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service has made some improvement in workforce planning, but more work is needed

The service has started to improve its workforce planning arrangements. However, it has more work to do, as it doesn’t yet have a consolidated workforce plan which sets out its current and future skills and capability requirements and aligns them to the objectives in the CRMP.

The service’s people plan 2023–26 sets out its strategic approach and commitments to people management in the service. There are some processes which support this, but they aren’t always consistent or joined up. For example, future training requirements are determined on a department-by-department basis. And succession planning for some roles was better than for others. There were clear procedures in place for some senior leader roles. But with other roles the service often waited until staff moved or had left before the process for their replacement started. During our inspection, we saw several important areas where there weren’t enough trained staff. This was most notable in protection, where the specialist nature of the role means it often takes a long time to train staff after they have been recruited. We highlighted the need for improved workforce planning as an area for improvement in 2021. This will remain.

The service was due to introduce career pathways for all staff towards the end of our inspection. These are an important part of the service’s workforce planning arrangements. But it has been very slow to complete the development work on these, which was started before our last inspection in 2021.

Not all staff we spoke to knew about the development pathways, and it was too soon for any benefits to be assessed. We look forward to seeing this initiative develop.

The service prioritises risk-critical skills, but more training is needed in some areas

The service now has better arrangements to make sure operational firefighters complete risk-critical skills training and revalidation on time. The learning and development team monitors completion of breathing apparatus, incident command and emergency driver revalidation and reports quarterly to the senior leadership team. Staff who don’t attend revalidation in the required time frame can’t continue with that part of their role until they have received further training and/or had their skills revalidated.

We reviewed a sample of records for risk-critical skills and found they were up to date. Therefore, this area for improvement, which we identified in our last inspection, has been closed. However, the service should assure itself that it introduces a similar level of scrutiny for the core skills training of control staff, where compliance levels were lower.

We were surprised to see how many operational staff were still in the development phase of their training. This is a routine stage which firefighters progress through from initial training to becoming fully skilled and experienced. The service told us approximately 50 percent of its firefighters are still in development. This is partly due to a relatively new workforce. But it is also partly due to a lack of effective monitoring and management to make sure staff complete the appropriate learning and assessment. The service told us it had recognised this was an issue and was starting to introduce support to make sure staff progress through this stage sooner. We look forward to seeing this approach become established and the number of staff in development reduce.

There is a range of training available for staff, which isn’t solely focused on operational skills. This includes skills for prevention staff, completing equality impact assessments for managers and specific training for staff in the finance team, supported by apprenticeship funding.

However, there are several areas where there isn’t enough training for staff. We have identified these earlier in this report. They include:

• training for high-rise firefighting and tall building evacuation;
• training for specialist and non-specialist staff in MTA response procedures; and
• training with neighbouring fire and rescue services.

We previously highlighted a lack of development support for new managers. We found a mixed picture in this area. There have been some improvements, but not all staff were aware of the support available to them.

The service recognises it needs to do more in this area. In particular, not all managers had received training to help them recognise and manage poor behaviour, manage staff grievances and investigate discipline cases. It told us that it had started to provide support, particularly for staff who were managing grievances. It is also considering using an external provider to investigate discipline cases as it has limited capacity to do this. This will remain an area for improvement.

Managers at local stations plan and oversee training to maintain operational competence. We were pleased to see a largely consistent approach to this, with managers demonstrating how they monitored staff competence levels and scheduled training to make sure this was maintained in a timely manner. The service has provided additional time for on-call staff to complete their training. It also provides additional training support for on-call stations where needed. The service told us this has led to a notable improvement since the last inspection, with compliance now at 82 percent. This compares with just over 40 percent during our 2021 inspection.

The service has improved the way it promotes learning and improvement

There were some examples of the service promoting learning and improvement. These included learning outcomes from incident debrief, which are recorded on a tracker and communicated through the operational improvement group. Priority items are uploaded to the training recording system which requires staff to read them before using the system. The operational assurance team now follow up on learning during station audits.

In response to feedback from staff, the service is starting to consolidate the learning it is sharing, particularly from debriefs, into a new format it calls Snapshot. This is so staff can easily find and read the key learning points. When we inspected, Snapshot was relatively new and not all staff we spoke to were aware of it.

There is a range of specialist skill and operational training available for staff. This is available as part of routine skills maintenance or can be requested through appraisal or discussion with the line manager. Most staff responding to our survey were positive about the learning and development opportunities available to them. Seventy-seven percent (233 of 303) agreed or tended to agree that they could access the right learning and development opportunities when they needed to.

The service has recognised it needs to take a more proactive approach to monitoring staff completion of training and booking mandatory training. We found some examples of training, such as safeguarding, EDI, and health and safety, which hadn’t been completed within the required time frame. The service told us that this would improve once it had introduced the new career pathways and supporting development programme. We look forward to seeing this work develop.

Ensuring fairness and promoting diversity

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service is inadequate at ensuring fairness and promoting diversity.

Creating a more representative workforce gives fire and rescue services huge benefits. These include greater access to talent and different ways of thinking. It also helps them better understand and engage with local communities. Each service should make sure staff throughout the organisation firmly understand and show a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. This includes successfully taking steps to remove inequality and making progress to improve fairness, diversity and inclusion at all levels of the service. It should proactively seek and respond to feedback from staff and make sure any action it takes is meaningful.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

There were signs that senior leadership engagement and response to staff feedback were improving

The service has made concerted efforts to build trust and improve the way it involves staff. This is starting to show results, but more work is needed to develop this further, establish it as the service norm and make sure early progress is sustained over the long term.

Senior leaders and managers have started to visit, involve, and seek feedback from all staff and teams more often. This may be for specific reasons, such as consultation on the workplace charter, having a general discussion or dropping in on the way to another meeting. Many staff we spoke to recognised this and reported seeing senior leaders more often. They also told us they had increasing confidence to provide feedback and challenge. Staff gave us examples of issues they raised being addressed and leaders responding to questions.

This wasn’t the case for everyone we spoke to or heard from. Some staff remain unconvinced about the intent and ability of senior leaders to make lasting and sustainable improvements to the service’s culture. We heard examples of staff who hadn’t seen notable increases in senior leader visibility, staff who still didn’t feel their voices were being heard and staff who remained uncomfortable raising issues and didn’t feel it was safe to challenge the service. We also heard that staff at all levels weren’t being challenged if they failed to demonstrate the service’s values or uphold the commitments in the workplace charter.

The service has a variety of other arrangements to involve and seek feedback from all staff. These include:

• a service newsletter, ‘Ever Forward’, which includes a section on service feedback to staff questions, ‘You said: we did’;
• leadership connection sessions with middle managers;
• staff work groups – Service Improvement Group: Making Us Better and EDI allies;
• ‘ask the chief’ email inbox; and
• independent confidential reporting arrangement introduced following our values and culture spotlight report.

Our staff survey showed staff felt increasingly confident to raise issues with senior leaders and ask questions. Sixty-seven percent (203 of 303) of respondents agreed or tended to agree it was safe to challenge the way things are done in the service. Sixty-five percent (197 of 303) agreed or tended to agree they were confident in processes for providing feedback at all levels, and 60 percent (181 of 303) agreed or tended to agree they felt confident their ideas or suggestions would be listened to. While there is room for further improvement, we recognise these compare positively with the 2021 survey where the respective responses for these questions were 52 percent, 50 percent and 54 percent.

While there is still work to do, the improving picture of engagement with staff, and seeking and acting on feedback means we will close the related recommendation from the 2021 cause of concern.

The service needs to do more work to deal effectively with bullying, harassment and discrimination

The service is taking steps to remove bullying, harassment and discrimination. It has policies in place which help staff understand what bullying, harassment and discrimination are and their negative effects on colleagues and the organisation.

Most staff we spoke to knew about the policies and there was a growing confidence to raise a concern or challenge inappropriate behaviour from colleagues or managers. A programme of ‘courageous conversations’ training has started to help managers challenge poor workplace behaviours. The service has a ‘speak up if it’s not right’ scheme for staff to report concerns and has extended this with an independent confidential freephone reporting service.

Despite this progress, more work is needed to consolidate these changes and give staff confidence that when they report an issue it will be dealt with effectively with no negative repercussions. We were disappointed to hear some recent examples of bullying, harassment and discrimination. Not all staff were confident to report these, nor were they confident that they would be dealt with effectively if they did report them.

This was supported by our staff survey, in which 16 percent (49 of 303) of respondents stated they had felt bullied or harassed and 16 percent (48 of 303) discriminated against at work in the last 12 months. Compared with our last staff survey in 2021, this is a 2 percent increase in the proportion of staff who experienced bullying and harassment, while there was a decrease of 6 percent in the proportion of staff reporting discrimination.

Not all staff are confident to report inappropriate behaviour. Twenty-seven percent (13 of 49) of respondents hadn’t reported bullying or harassment and 50 percent (24 of 48) hadn’t reported discrimination. The main reasons for not reporting bullying, harassment and discrimination are a lack of confidence anything will happen; concerns about confidentiality; being victimised; and being labelled as a troublemaker.

The service needs to do more to increase staff confidence in its ability to take effective action in response to reports of bullying, harassment and discrimination. This should include reviewing their bullying, harassment and discrimination policies to see how effective they are at reducing inappropriate behaviour. This area for improvement, which we highlighted in 2021, will remain.

The service has reviewed and made improvements to its grievance procedure. The revised procedure was issued in September 2023. The service told us there was some evidence of increasing staff confidence in the process, as more staff were using the procedure to raise concerns. This wasn’t reflected by all staff we spoke to, and some weren’t aware of how they could raise a grievance.

While this is positive progress, more time is needed for the new procedure to become fully established and to build staff confidence in it further. The service recognises it has more work to do to reduce the time taken to conclude a grievance complaint. It also needs to make sure it has enough trained staff who are experienced in managing grievances.

There are improved recruitment arrangements, but the service needs to do more work so staff understand the need for positive action

The service recognises it needs to do more to increase the diversity of its workforce. It has continued to work on improving its recruitment processes to help achieve this. It has put considerable effort into their development to make sure they are fair and all potential applicants can understand them. However, the recruitment policy doesn’t apply to all roles in the service, with corporate professional staff recruitment being managed through a separate GCC procedure.

The service’s recently revised recruitment policy includes a clear commitment to recruiting a diverse workforce. It has introduced a variety of measures to support this. These include:

• using positive action to involve local communities and encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds;
• advertising roles through representative organisations such as Women in the Fire Service and the Asian Fire Service Association; and
• having diverse staff members on recruitment panels and providing training to remove bias and create consistency.

The recruitment policy states the service is a disability confident employer and will offer reasonable adjustments to support applicants in the recruitment process. However, this wasn’t clearly advertised in two of the three recruitment campaigns we reviewed. The service couldn’t tell us what positive action their recruitment consultant had taken to encourage a diverse pool of applicants for recent senior leadership vacancies.

Most staff we spoke to understood and supported the service’s efforts to recruit a more diverse workforce. However, some staff continued to misunderstand positive action, its importance in the recruitment process, and how it supports increasing workplace diversity. As part of its positive action plan, the service told us that it planned to provide positive action training for staff from January 2024.

We were pleased to see the service has made improvements to increasing staff diversity in the organisation. In 2022/23, 25 percent of new joiners self-declared as being from an ethnic minority background. The proportion of firefighters that are from an ethnic minority background has increased from 7.2 percent (24) in 2021/22 to 9.8 percent (34) in 2022/23. The proportion of firefighters who identified as a woman has increased from 19.8 percent (85) to 20 percent (86) over the same period.

For the whole workforce, in 2022/23, 9.4 percent are from an ethnic minority background compared with 11.6 percent in their local population and 8 percent throughout all fire and rescue services. And 26.3 percent are people who identified as a woman, compared with an average of 19.4 percent throughout all fire and rescue services.

The service needs to do more to improve EDI

There is a commitment from senior leadership to improve the service’s approach to EDI. This is also expressed in the service’s people plan. However, more work is needed to turn the commitments in the people plan into a clear, co-ordinated action plan which shows how the work the service is doing or has planned will contribute to EDI improvements in the service.

The lack of a clear plan, and an initial focus on improving service culture, means progress in this area has also been slow. This has led to frustrations among staff: some think that improving EDI is not a high enough priority for the service.

The service recognises it has more to do to effectively promote the importance of EDI in the workplace. And it needs to better engage with and understand the make-up of its local communities so it can be sure it is offering the right services. It told us it needed to start improvements in its culture before it could begin discussions about EDI.

It has started some work, including:

• introducing the workplace charter, which has a commitment to EDI;
• staff attending local community and Pride events;
• firefighters supporting positive action ‘have a go sessions’; and
• promoting staff groups such as the EDI allies, Black Workers Network and Women in the Fire Service.

There are other areas which have yet to begin or are in their early stages. These include:

• including positive action throughout its work with communities and helping staff understand its importance;
• developing a wider understanding of all protected characteristics; and
• effective messaging and communications tailored to diverse community groups.

Staff we spoke to had mixed opinions about a recent programme of ‘cultural awareness’ training for crew managers and above. Some were positive about the training, while others felt it was ineffective, with some staff not ‘buying into’ the training or understanding why they were doing it.

The service should make sure it provides greater clarity to show how its work on EDI will come together to create improved outcomes for staff and its local communities.

Work to encourage staff to declare their diversity data has also been slow. For example, in the year ending 31 March 2023, 19.1 percent of staff hadn’t declared their ethnicity to the service. This is only a small improvement since year ending 31 March 2021 when the figure was 21.6 percent.

The service told us it regularly encourages its staff to provide this information. But staff we spoke to didn’t always see the value of sharing their diversity information. Some told us there was a lack of trust about how the data would be used. Others found the system for recording and updating personal information difficult to access or use.

With a limited understanding of the profile of its workforce, the service won’t be able to fully test the effect of its management and policy decisions on staff, particularly those who share a protected characteristic.

The service’s new approach to assessing equality impacts needs more time to become established

The service has recently introduced a new process for completing equality impact assessments. It has adopted a model approach produced by the NFCC, so it can assess the effect of its policy and managerial decisions on staff and local communities.

We saw evidence of the process being followed and impact assessments being completed. An initial group of managers has been trained to complete equality impact assessments, with further training planned. The service has started to consult some staff and internal stakeholders as part of the assessment but has yet to involve external stakeholders.

As the process was introduced shortly before our inspection, more time is needed to see that it is properly established and effective. Ten policies had been assessed when we visited. The service told us it had a programme to review its remaining policies over the next 12 to 24 months. We look forward to seeing this work progress and the impact assessment process becoming firmly established as an important element to support the service’s commitment to EDI.

Managing performance and developing leaders

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at managing performance and developing leaders.

Fire and rescue services should have robust and meaningful performance management arrangements in place for their staff. All staff should be supported to meet their potential and there should be a focus on developing staff and improving diversity into leadership roles.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Main findings

The service has a new appraisal process, but more work is needed to manage individual performance

In May 2023, the service introduced a new appraisal service. This is linked to the service’s values and the objectives set out in its CRMP. It also includes a stress questionnaire. This signposts staff to support resources and will highlight to their line manager if excessive stress is affecting an individual.

The appraisal system hasn’t been used consistently and not all staff have received a recent appraisal. Thirty-eight percent (114 of 303) who responded to our staff survey said they hadn’t received an appraisal in the past year. Of those who had received an appraisal, 70 percent (133 of 189) found it helpful. The service told us it has now set a 100 percent target for completion of appraisals. It told us that, as the procedure was new, it had extended the usual completion time frame for the first year. The service told us that at the end of our inspection, approximately 40 percent of staff had yet to receive an appraisal.

More work is needed to establish the new appraisal process, so staff see its value and its link to service performance. Some staff we spoke to found the appraisal process onerous and didn’t see the benefit of it. And some managers hadn’t received training in using the new process. While most of the appraisal is recorded on the service’s training record system, there is no arrangement for recording one-to-one discussions between staff and their managers.

We found some aspects of individual staff performance aren’t effectively managed. Staff told us that there were no clear capability or performance management arrangements for dealing with staff who don’t follow the commitments in the workplace charter or demonstrate expected workplace behaviours. Some described the discipline process being used when a robust and recorded professional discussion would have been more appropriate. Others expressed frustration that staff who didn’t demonstrate behaviours in accordance with the workplace charter weren’t effectively and promptly held to account.

The service should make sure it has effective and well understood arrangements in place to promptly and appropriately manage staff performance and behaviour.

There is increasing confidence in the fairness of the promotion process, but more work is needed on career management and succession planning

The service has worked hard to develop the promotion process it introduced in May 2021. It has made amendments to the process and supporting arrangements so that they are fair, and staff can understand them. The process is comprehensive and applies to all operational staff. Corporate professional staff promotion is managed by GCC.

Most staff we spoke to saw the process had improved. They thought it was open, transparent and fair. However, not all staff agreed, as 44 percent (133 of 303) of those responding to our survey disagreed or tended to disagree that the promotion process was fair. The service should consider how it can further build confidence in the promotion process.

The service has started to make improvements to its succession planning and arrangements for managing the career pathways of its staff. However, more work is needed to consolidate this into a coherent plan which meets the needs of staff and the service.

We found limited planning had led to staff and skills gaps which were restricting its ability to perform important roles such as fire protection. There were also examples of staff being moved, sometimes at short notice and without clear rationale, between roles and work locations. The service told us that, because of its limited resources, it used what it called an ‘agile workforce management approach’. We aren’t assured that this was the case, as it appears to be due to limited capacity and a lack of longer‑term planning.

The service told us that work on career pathways for all service roles was close to completion. The pathways were due to be introduced shortly after our inspection concluded. As a result, it wasn’t possible for us to assess their effectiveness in actively managing all staff careers. This was an area for improvement we highlighted in 2021, which will remain.

The services needs to do more work to increase leadership diversity

The service knows it needs to do more to increase workforce diversity, especially in middle and senior management. It has begun to put plans in place to address this.

There are examples of positive action to support recruitment of a diverse workforce and it has reviewed its promotion policy and procedures to make sure they are fair and open. However, it couldn’t show us if the recruitment consultant used positive action to recruit to senior roles.

The service advertises nationally for senior roles to attract a broad range of applicants. It told us that the shortlist for its recent recruitment of an assistant chief fire officer included one female, one Black male and two White males. By codifying the approach, and reviewing what worked well and what didn’t, the service should aim to replicate any successes it has achieved.

It recognises it has more work to do and was working on a positive action plan during our inspection, although this doesn’t specifically focus on increasing diversity at middle and senior management levels.

We look forward to seeing this work progress and the service having a more diverse workforce, particularly at middle and senior management level.

The service has made limited progress on developing future leaders and high‑potential staff

The service has begun to work on developing the careers of high-potential staff and future leaders at all levels. It told us that it had tested a new process to provide ‘direct entry’ for two members of staff who had been identified as having future potential. The process was based on the NFCC direct entry pathways. We found this was in its early stages and the process hadn’t yet been adopted.

The service does provide some opportunities for staff to take on additional work which will support their development. These included:

• joining working groups which were looking at new equipment and fire engines;
• working on staff groups such as the Service Improvement Group: Making Us Better; and
• working on specific projects.

However, the service doesn’t have any talent management schemes to identify and manage the careers of high-potential staff and future leaders. The service should consider putting in place more formal arrangements to identify and support members of staff to become senior leaders. This was an area for improvement we highlighted in 2021 which will remain.

In December 2022, the Fire Standards Board published two new standards – leading the service and leading and developing people. These provide useful leadership and staff development frameworks for fire and rescue services. The service told us it had started work to adopt these standards but didn’t provide any plans or progress reports to support this. It should make sure it has effective plans to implement these standards in a timely manner.

Further information

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Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service 2023-2025

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Concerns about Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service’s performance

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Useful links

Fire and rescue national framework for England 
National Operational Guidance website
National Fire Chiefs Council website