Overall summary
Our judgments
Our inspection assessed how well West Sussex 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 West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service in October 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 West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.
Read more information on how we assess fire and rescue services and our graded judgments.
HMI summary
It was a pleasure to visit West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, and I am grateful for the positive and constructive way in which the service worked with our inspection staff.
I am pleased with the performance of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service in keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks, but it needs to improve in some areas to provide a consistently good service. For example, through improving fire engine availability, increasing senior officer visibility, and more effective monitoring of secondary contracts to support the welfare of its staff.
We were pleased to see that the service has made progress since our 2022 inspection. For example, it has improved its communication with and service to its communities through effective local risk management plans (LRMPs).
My principal findings from our assessments of the service over the past year are as follows:
- The service has improved the way in which operational staff prioritise prevention activity, leading to a large increase in the number of safe and well visits (SAWVs) for the most vulnerable people.
- The service has implemented an effective risk-based approach to reduce unwanted fire signals through call challenge and a targeted non-attendance policy.
- The service has a positive working culture and has developed team charters to improve staff’s understanding of its values and willingness to challenge poor behaviours.
- The service’s financial and workforce plans, including allocating resources to prevention, protection and response, continue to align with the risks and priorities it has identified in its community risk management plan (CRMP).
- The service has continued to improve its approach to equality, diversity and inclusion but could do more to increase diversity in some management roles.
Overall, I am pleased with West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service’s performance and the improvements it has made since our last inspection. I encourage it to continue to improve in the areas we have highlighted.
Roy Wilsher
HM Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services
Service in numbers
Percentage of firefighters, workforce and population who identified as a woman as at 31 December 2023
Percentage of firefighters, workforce and population who were from ethnic minority backgrounds as at 31 December 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 ‘About the data’.
Understanding the risk of fire and other emergencies
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is good 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 effectively identifies and understands risk in the community
The service has assessed a suitable range of risks and threats using a thorough community risk management planning process. In its assessment of risk, it uses information it has collected from a broad range of internal and external sources. These include critical fire risk maps and the strategic mapping tool from West Sussex County Council (WSCC). It also carries out horizon scanning for local, regional and national influences that may affect service objectives.
The service is part of the Sussex Resilience Forum. This is a group made up of emergency services, local authorities, the Environment Agency and health providers, as well as voluntary organisations and utility providers. Group members identify and share information and publish a community risk register to build a mutual understanding of risk.
The service has consulted with its communities and other relevant parties to understand risk and explain how it intends to mitigate it. For example, it paused the consultation process for its current risk management plan to better understand the responses and target the groups that weren’t responding. This led to a big increase in responses.
It has also created LRMPs for 2024/25 with increased community involvement and staff working with groups specific to their local area. This will better identify and inform risk.
The service has an effective community risk management plan
Once it has assessed risks, the service records its findings in an easily understood CRMP. The current plan covers 2022–26 and sets out five key priorities:
- preventing fires and emergencies from happening;
- protecting people, firefighters and property by making buildings as safe from fire as they can be;
- responding to fires and emergencies quickly and effectively;
- having a safe and valued workforce; and
- making best use of resources.
The plan describes how the service will achieve these priorities using its prevention, protection and response activities to reduce the risks and threats the community faces both now and in the future. It will also fully support its staff and create a modern, professional work environment. It details what the service aims to do for the communities and how it will make it happen.
The achievement of the priorities is further supported through effective LRMPs. These focus on community risk for a specific area and align the service’s resources to the risks in the local community. Working with people in the community helps the service to efficiently reduce the identified risks.
The plan also supports and contributes to the wider WSCC plan’s priorities.
The service effectively gathers, maintains and shares a good range of risk information
The service routinely collects and updates the information it has about the highest-risk people, places and threats it has identified. It does this through familiarisation visits and working with building owners to reduce fire risks. It also works with businesses and organisations to determine short-term risk, for example risk around Goodwood Festival of Speed and Armed Forces Day events.
We sampled a broad range of the risk information the service collects, including:
- system records on the database it uses (Farynor);
- site-specific risk information;
- safe and well visit files;
- protection files; and
- short-term/temporary risk information.
The service effectively collects, manages and shares risk information through Farynor and a portal on the service’s website. Information is also readily available to the service’s prevention, protection and response staff. This means these teams can identify, reduce and mitigate risk effectively.
We did however find that some information could be improved with the addition of tactical plans. The service acknowledges this and is working on it. We look forward to seeing this improvement in the future.
Where appropriate, the service shares risk information with other individuals and organisations, such as care home managers and the Care Quality Commission. This makes joint inspections possible so the most appropriate and effective action can be taken. Risk information is also shared via joint fire control to make sure cross‑border response is effective.
Staff at the locations we visited, including firefighters and emergency control room staff, were able to show us that they could access, use and share risk information quickly to help them resolve incidents safely.
The service uses operational activity to help inform its risk profile
The service records and communicates risk information effectively, and regularly updates risk assessments. It also uses feedback from local and national operational activities to inform its planning assumptions. For example, it considers future risks in its CRMP, such as the effect of climate change on operational activity.
The service has specialist water teams. It has also trained officers to become national tactical advisers in water or flood rescue to help mitigate and support its response to floods.
Joint understanding of risk is also carried out by the service to further inform its risk profile. Generally this is done through the local resilience forum. The service also worked closely with the Environment Agency after some large-scale flooding. The service helped with debriefing and made sure all learning was gathered and shared to improve future effectiveness.
Good
Preventing fires and other risks
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is good 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’s prevention strategy aligns with its overall plan
The service’s prevention strategy is clearly linked to the risks it has identified in its CRMP. The strategy aims to address strategic priority one of the plan – preventing fires and other emergencies from happening. It achieves this through LRMPs that identify and target risk in particular areas.
The service’s teams work well together on prevention. It also works with relevant organisations such as Sussex Police and South East Coast Ambulance Service to improve road safety. They share relevant information when needed. A rural engagement officer also educates and supports local farmers and the wider rural community around fire and accident prevention.
The service uses information to adjust its planning assumptions and direct activity between its prevention, protection and response functions. For example, the annual LRMPs target prevention activity to the risk they identify. Staff also work with partners for a more effective approach. This includes working with WSCC’s social care team to increase expertise and reach.
The service targets prevention activity effectively
During our last inspection, we noted improvements in the service’s prevention work. It is pleasing to see that improvements are continuing.
We identified an area for improvement during our last inspection around making sure “operational staff are productively involved in prevention work”. In this inspection, we were encouraged to see progress in this area. Each station has an LRMP which identifies local risk and also commits teams to relevant prevention initiatives. These include open days, campaigns such as road safety initiatives, school visits and working with the business fire safety team and youth engagement team.
We found that the service uses a risk-based approach to clearly target its prevention activity towards people most at risk from fire and other emergencies. For example, it uses Farynor to record prevention activity electronically. The system grades SAWV referrals as very high, high, medium or low, based on specific risk factors:
- aged over 65
- having a disability
- living alone
- no smoke alarm.
This helps to prioritise activity.
The service uses a broad range of information and data to target its prevention activity towards vulnerable individuals and groups. As well as Farynor, it uses incident data, performance dashboards, Mosaic data and a fire risk matrix.
This has led to a substantial increase in the number of SAWVs carried out by service delivery (operational staff), as well as those carried out by the prevention team. Figures supplied by the service show that 2,115 SAWVs were carried out by service delivery between February 2023 and February 2024. Of these, 84 percent were in high or very high-risk properties. This is an increase from 1,116 during the previous 12 months.
The service carries out a range of interventions, which it adapts to the level of risk in its communities. These include attendance at community group meetings and events, and signposting to the national Online Home Fire Safety Check, where members of the public who are low risk can do a self-assessment of fire risk.
Staff are confident and competent to carry out safe and well visits
Staff told us they have the right skills and confidence to make SAWVs. These visits cover an appropriate range of hazards that can put vulnerable people at greater risk from fire and other emergencies. Staff told us they feel supported by the central prevention teams, who accompany them on some visits. Staff also have access to the supporting resources they need, such as foreign language leaflets, and a SAWV booklet to follow when carrying out visits to make sure they are consistent.
Staff are effective at identifying and raising safeguarding concerns
Staff we interviewed told us they were confident and able to raise safeguarding concerns and gave us examples of when they had. Their training package consists of multiple stages over regular intervals. This package is now also covered in the three-day operational licence course for operational staff.
Staff told us they feel confident and trained to act appropriately and promptly. However, they also described their frustrations around the safeguarding triage process which works through the local council. They reported that its turnaround time is too long. Their perception is also that not enough is being done to follow up regarding referral outcomes, following individuals raising their concerns.
The service routinely collaborates with others to keep the community safe
The service works with a wide range of other organisations to prevent fires and other emergencies. These include Sussex Police and South East Coast Ambulance Service as part of groups such as the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership to promote road safety.
It also works closely with schools and colleges through the targeted education team to target high-risk young people. Its work includes being involved with the half-term feeding project for school children, working with underprivileged children and providing a range of interventions with different age groups. This team received a High Sheriff Community Award from the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) for targeted interventions in the education system.
We found evidence that the service routinely works with partner agencies such as the police, social care, adult mental health and GPs to share risk information to make people who are at risk are safer in all aspects of their lives, not just from fire.
The service is tackling fire-setting behaviour
We found that the service has one the lowest deliberate fire rates in the country. Home Office data shows, in the year ending 31 March 2023, that the rate per 100,000 population in West Sussex is 55.1 while the England rate is 140.1.
We found that despite this low rate, the service has a range of suitable and effective interventions to target and educate people with different needs who show signs of fire‑setting behaviour. This includes an education pack toolkit created by the youth engagement officers. The crews will supply this education pack if there is a spike in incidents.
The service also has the FireWise scheme to address fire-setting behaviour in children and young people. Staff and members of the public can access support from this scheme in a number of ways, including making referrals through the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service website.
The service effectively evaluates its prevention activity
The service has good evaluation tools in place to measure how effective its activity is and to make sure all sections of its communities get appropriate access to the prevention services that meet their needs. An in-depth analysis is carried out quarterly by the teams and the assurance and improvement officer.
Prevention activities consider feedback from the public, other organisations and other parts of the service. For example, by monitoring the activity on social media platforms following events and campaigns within the community, such as the electric blanket campaign, and attendance numbers and feedback from events such as Biker Down events.
The service also uses other types of feedback to inform its planning assumptions and change future activity. In this way, it can focus on what the community needs and what works. A focus on serious incident reviews (fatalities, injuries and accidental dwelling fires) helped to identify areas of vulnerability, such as remote rural communities. The service then took steps to protect rural communities by employing a rural engagement officer. They work with people in these communities to reduce risk.
Good
Protecting the public through fire regulation
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is good 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’s protection strategy aligns to its overall plan
The service’s protection strategy is clearly linked to the risks it has identified in its CRMP. The strategy aims to address strategic priority two of the plan – protecting people, firefighters and property by making buildings as safe from fire as they can be.
Staff across the service are involved in this strategy, exchanging information as needed. For example, inspecting officers and operational staff carry out inspections and audits with local businesses to share information and give advice on how to comply with relevant legislation.
Operational staff also inspect premises determined through the LRMPs. Staff check the premises’ risk assessments, fire escapes, lighting, etc. They refer issues to the fire safety team as appropriate. In the most serious cases, they stay in attendance until relevant action is taken in conjunction with a fire safety officer.
Inspecting officers will share the outcomes of an audit with operational staff who may have raised an issue during a business safety check. They also share information with prevention teams and external partners such as local authority housing.
The service then uses information to adjust planning assumptions and direct activity between its protection, prevention and response functions. This means resources are properly aligned to risk.
The service’s protection activity is aligned to local risk
During our last inspection, we noted improvements in the service’s protection work. In this inspection, we were pleased to see that those improvements were continuing.
The service’s risk-based inspection programme is focused on the service’s highest‑risk buildings. Prioritisation is based on risk factors including:
- buildings 18 m and above or 7 storeys high
- care homes
- hotels
- licensed premises with sleeping accommodation
- schools with sleeping accommodation
- sheltered housing
- heritage sites
- regulated sports grounds
- Gatwick airport.
It also covers intelligence-led prioritising. This allows the service to respond to emerging risks such as those highlighted to the service by its partners, for example, Border Force highlighting premises they were concerned about.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, the service identified 1,194 high-risk premises. The audit target for the same period was 312. It uses the Farynor database to logically prioritise these buildings for inspection. The database calculates risk scores to determine how often a site should be visited, so the highest risk is always prioritised.
The service consistently carries out audits to a high standard
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 risk-based inspection programme;
- 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 completed to a high standard in a consistent, systematic way and in line with the service’s policies.
We reviewed five records for high-risk buildings from the service’s risk-based inspection programme. They had been completed to a good standard with appropriate information and records kept. Appropriately qualified and skilled staff carried out the audits. The enforcement management model was used with variations recorded and justified. Outcomes were communicated promptly, with an offer of support and advice to help the responsible person understand what they needed to do following the audit.
Following enforcement action, we found relevant information being passed to operational and control room staff. There was also effective communication between inspecting officers and incident commanders following post-fire audits.
The service follows a process to quality assure its protection activity
The service carries out proportionate quality assurance of its protection activity in a variety of ways. One way is through the enforcement management model, where a peer reviews the rationale applied by the inspector for upgrading or downgrading the proposed action.
There is also a more formal process every quarter. Staff members will have an audit reviewed and the data looked at to make sure a consistent and appropriate process was followed. Every six months, staff will be scheduled onto a joint visit. Staff are shadowed by a staff member with a higher qualification, and feedback is given. Feedback also gets shared among the wider management team so outcomes can be used to assess the process and policy, and to inform future training and development needs.
Staff told us that although the process is new, it is personally beneficial and will have a positive effect on protection activity.
The service has a positive approach to enforcement
The service consistently uses its full range of enforcement powers and, when appropriate, it prosecutes those who don’t comply with fire safety regulations. It uses an enforcement management model to decide what action to take. It also has a live enforcement register which is updated weekly.
We reviewed three audits which had resulted in formal enforcement notices. We found the inspections were completed by an appropriately trained and skilled inspector. Records were clear; they detailed the failings which led to the enforcement notice being issued. The notices were available on the NFCC website, and the outcome had been communicated to the building owner or responsible person with offers of support where appropriate. Information had also been shared with external organisations such as building control, as appropriate.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, the service issued 161 informal notifications, 15 enforcement notices and 9 prohibition notices. At the time of the inspection, it had a case in Crown Court. This was a breach of prohibition which was subject to prosecution. The service completed five prosecutions in the five years from April 2019 to March 2024.
The service maintains appropriate resourcing in protection
The service has enough qualified protection staff to meet the requirements of its risk‑based inspection programme. As of 31 March 2023, there were 10 competent protection staff (Level 4 Diploma in Fire Safety) and 15 protection staff in development, which is more than the previous year. This helps it provide the range of audit and enforcement activity needed, both now and in the future.
The service maintains the appropriate number of competent staff using the protection uplift grant and through better succession planning. It recognised it could be losing knowledge and experience as staff reach the end of their careers. To combat this, it arranged for coaching, mentoring and shadowing so new staff can benefit from the experience of established and experienced staff. It also encourages recently retired staff to apply for part-time positions to help maintain knowledge and experience.
Staff get the right training and work towards appropriate accreditation. This was evident from operational staff being trained to carry out protection work in their local areas right through to staff with Level 4 qualifications who can issue enforcement notices.
The service has adapted well to new legislation
Since our last inspection, the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 have been introduced to improve the regulation and management of tall buildings.
The service supports the introduction of the Building Safety Regulator. Its good working relationships with local authority housing departments were further strengthened through the building risk review. In 2023, it also provided several sessions on the new Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and invited all local authority housing departments to attend. It also offers help, support and guidance to landlords on the changes in legislation, and it details how to make contact for further help.
The Fire Safety (England) 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.
We found the service has good arrangements in place to receive this information. For example, it has developed a building fire safety regulations section on its website. The website tells people responsible for high-rise buildings what the new law requires them to do and allows them to submit the required information online. This is received by the protection team who add it to premises records and pass the information on to other teams, such as response. This, alongside protection information from fire safety audits and familiarisation visits, is included in the site-specific risk information which is provided for firefighters.
The service works closely with others around fire safety regulation
The service works closely with other enforcement agencies and partners to regulate fire safety, and it routinely exchanges risk information with them, including:
- Sussex Police – safety concerns and safeguarding support;
- local authority housing departments – joint house in multiple occupation audits with Worthing and Arun district housing teams;
- Care Quality Commission – joint care home visits;
- Trading Standards – sharing information on the link between the sale of illicit goods and poor fire safety standards;
- as part of local safety advisory groups.
Effective work with these partners led to quick enforcement action after a takeaway premises was found with sleeping accommodation and no fire detection. The service also oversaw fire safety at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The service responds to all building consultations in a timely manner
The service responds to all building consultations on time. This means it consistently meets its statutory responsibility to comment on fire safety arrangements at new and altered buildings.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, the service responded to 100 percent of building consultations and 100 percent of licensing consultations within the required time.
The service told us that the 100 percent building consultations response rate will be maintained due to succession planning. There are staff in the complex premises team who complete consultations.
The service works effectively with businesses
The service proactively works with local businesses and other organisations to promote compliance with fire safety legislation. Only one member of staff formally works on communicating with businesses. However, protection staff also help business owners to comply with legislation during the auditing process and afterwards. The service has a webpage that gives business owners a walk-through virtual environment where they can pick out virtual risks.
Resilience and emergency teams have held days where they test business continuity plans in the service. The service is also continuing to create partnerships with businesses that meet the values of the service and the WSCC vulnerabilities.
The service has effectively reduced the number of unwanted fire signals it receives
An effective risk-based approach is in place to manage the number of unwanted fire signals. On 1 December 2022, the service introduced a call challenge and non‑attendance policy. It only attends alarm actuation calls in high-risk buildings where people sleep, such as hospitals, care homes and hotels. It doesn’t attend automatic fire alarms in low-risk commercial premises, such as retail or public assembly premises – including theatres, schools, museums and pubs – unless a fire is confirmed at the site.
Alongside this, work has been carried out around call challenging in joint fire control, and local crews liaising with ‘repeat offenders’ to educate them. The service has also given several seminars and information sessions to enterprise groups to better inform companies and alarm-receiving centres.
The service gets fewer calls because of this work. The changes resulted in a 66 percent reduction in unwanted fire signals in comparison to the previous year. Fewer unwanted calls mean fire engines are available to respond to a genuine incident rather than responding to a false one. It also reduces the risk to the public if fewer fire engines travel at high speed on the roads.
Good
Responding to fires and other emergencies
West Sussex 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
Flexibility within the service’s response strategy improves its response to incidents
The service’s response strategy is linked to the risks it has identified in its CRMP. Its fire engines and response staff, as well as its working patterns, are designed and located to help the service respond flexibly to fires and other emergencies with the appropriate resources. For example, the service uses risk information from Operational Research in Health to establish its fire cover model, which is linked to response standards.
Emergency cover is managed using the Dynamic Cover Tool, which matches resources to risk. This shows where the main risks are and where cover needs to be. Officers then work with joint fire control to make sure resource is moved to risk. It is a live model, and all level 2 and 3 officers are trained on it. The day-crewed system has also moved from a five-day to a seven-day model.
The principle of fastest resource is used during mobilising. It has been noted that when crews carry out protection activities in high-risk areas, response times improve.
In 2024, the service introduced a degradation policy which supports implementing the Dynamic Cover Tool. This involves analysing data and making sure there is cover in areas that are hard to reach, for example due to the road network (Chichester North is an example).
The service is meeting its response standards
There are no national response standards of performance for the public. But the service has set out its own response standards in its CRMP. It aims to meet its target response times to critical fires in 89 percent of incidents for the first fire engine and 83 percent of incidents for the second fire engine. And it aims to meet its target response times to reach critical special service incidents 80 percent of the time. The targets it has set are:
- Where the fire risk rating is very high, the first fire engine arrives within 8 minutes and the second fire engine within 11 minutes.
- Where the fire risk rating is high, the first fire engine arrives within 10 minutes and the second fire engine within 13 minutes.
- Where the fire risk rating is medium, the first fire engine arrives within 12 minutes and the second fire engine within 15 minutes.
- Where the fire risk rating is low, the first fire engine within 14 minutes and the second fire engine within 17 minutes.
- For critical special service incidents, the first fire engine arrives within 13 minutes.
The service consistently meets its standards. Data it supplied shows that in the year ending March 2023, the service met its targets and achieved 89.7 percent of first fire engine attendance and 84.9 percent of second fire engine attendance at critical fires. It also achieved 83.9 percent of first fire engine attendance at critical special service incidents.
The service acknowledges the complexity of these standards and plans to review them. We look forward to seeing the benefits of this review during our next inspection.
Home Office data shows that in the year ending 31 March 2024, the service’s average response time to primary fires was 9 minutes and 11 seconds.
This is faster than the average for other similarly rural services, whose response time for the same period was 10 minutes and 15 seconds.
The service is working to increase availability, but further improvements are still needed
To support its response strategy, the service aims to have 100 percent of wholetime fire engines available on 100 percent of occasions, with that figure dropping to 75 percent for its day-crewed and on-call engines.
For the year ending 31 March 2023, the service’s overall availability was 61.4 percent. It achieved 97.6 percent availability for its wholetime fire engines but only 48.6 percent for the on-call engines.
We raised on-call availability as an area for improvement during our last inspection. Since then, it is encouraging to see that the service has introduced methods to increase on-call fire engine availability. For example, during peak hours from 7am to 7pm, the crewing optimisation group assigns firefighters to on-call fire stations and implements county crewing. This brings in staff from various stations to increase availability and improve response times.
The service has provided data to show there has been a slight improvement since these changes; however there is still some way to go. We look forward to seeing further improvements during our next inspection.
The service has effective incident commanders
The service has trained incident commanders who are regularly and properly assessed. Following their initial training and qualification, in line with NFCC guidance, staff’s skills are revalidated every two years. They complete consolidation training in the intervening years. 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).
Control staff are involved in service exercises and debriefs
We were pleased to see the service’s control staff integrated into its command, training, exercise, debrief and assurance activity.
Staff told us they are fully included in exercise programmes. During programme development, control staff are fully involved so that control’s development needs can be integrated into the scenarios.
Staff are also fully involved in debriefs. As well as being invited to attend debriefs, station managers in control also sit on any fatal fire reviews. The service has worked hard to get feedback from control and wants to learn from the experience and knowledge from the very start of the call.
Risk information held in the service is detailed, up to date and accessible
We sampled a range of risk information, 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 on the Farynor system was up to date and detailed. Where there were any minor gaps, the service was aware, and actions were in place to manage them. Encouragingly, risk information collection, input and management are carried out collectively by staff across prevention, protection and response functions.
We found staff could easily access and understand the information in a variety of ways:
- mobile data terminals on the fire engines – with access to site-specific risk information, Chemdata and vehicle crash data;
- incident detail from BOSS mobile on mobile phones; and
- access to service operational procedures and supporting information through iPads.
We also found risk information is routinely distributed across the organisation through personal emails, ops bulletins and weekly newsletters.
The service should implement national operational guidance promptly
We found some evidence that the service has started to implement national operational guidance, but we found that it had made insufficient progress in this area.
We found some positive work, such as the alignment of training to national operational guidance and general compliance with the national operational guidance strategic gap analysis for incident command. But we found other strategic gap analysis work to be inconsistent, unclear and incomplete. We also found a lack of capacity to progress guidance implementation. This is particularly evident in joint fire control.
The service acknowledges that implementation could be more effective, and we would encourage it to make sure that adoption and implementation are prioritised more.
The service evaluates its activities to improve operational performance
As part of the inspection, we reviewed a range of emergency incidents and training events. These included domestic fire incidents, larger-scale flooding incidents and a cross-border exercise.
The service intends to learn from all activity, from an initial ‘hotpoint’ debrief at smaller incidents, the results of which are sent to the operational assurance team via an online debrief team, right through to a formal multi-agency structured debrief such as after the Littlehampton flooding. Learning is then shared via newsletters and ops bulletins.
The service responds to learning from activities to improve future service. For example, a new protocol was introduced following a cross-border exercise. Neighbouring services use different radio channels, which was causing confusion and affecting performance at the exercise. Following feedback, whichever service area an incident or exercise is in, all attending crews will switch to the radio channel used by that service.
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. Staff showed us a recent ops bulletin which showed learning which had been received from an external source that the magnets in some breathing apparatus torches interfere with the operation of breathing apparatus automatic distress signal units.
The service effectively keeps the public informed of ongoing incidents
The service has good systems in place to inform the public about ongoing incidents and help keep them safe during and after incidents. This includes being part of the Sussex Warning and Informing Group in conjunction with the county council, other emergency services and wider partner agencies. The group communicates messages to the public during major incidents. The service also has a duty media team that sends out relevant messages via social media and local radio.
Adequate
Responding to major and multi-agency incidents
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is adequate 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 is prepared to respond to multi-agency and major 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. Alongside the risks already highlighted on the registers, the service carries out horizon scanning and highlights several emerging risks. These include climate change, pandemics, vehicle technology, risks from renewable energy source technologies and, more locally, potential effects of the proposed second runway at Gatwick airport.
It is also familiar with the significant risks neighbouring fire and rescue services may face, and which it might reasonably be asked to respond to in an emergency. The service is supported by joint fire control which also serves Surrey and East Sussex. Relevant risk information is shared here, and joint fire control can also pass information to crews from other agencies. This is done through the multi‑agency incident transfer system, which, at the time of our inspection, the service was trialling and planned to go live in late 2024. It allows for incidents and information to be passed between emergency partners, keeping phone lines free and sharing situational awareness. Operators can also quickly access guidance information directly from their Vision system for all three fire and rescue services (FRSs), which shows relevant information for dealing with major incidents.
The service could improve its ability to respond to major incidents involving tall 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 respond to a major incident at a tall building, such as the tragedy at Grenfell Tower.
We found the service has some policies and procedures in place for safely managing this type of incident, such as a new fire survival guidance procedure. But it needs to develop further procedures and make sure they are consistently understood by all staff at all levels.
In February 2024, the service carried out a cross-border high-rise exercise. This simulated building failure and multiple fire survival guidance scenarios. Following this exercise, and a review of the identified learning, a further exercise is being planned for quarter two of 2024/25. It will be carried out in a different area of the service to test different staff and cross-border working with other neighbouring fire and rescue services. This will test the lessons learned and assure the service that the remaining actions have been fully understood by everyone.
Other than this, the service has carried out only a limited amount of practical training and exercises at tall buildings. It also hasn’t included all staff groups that may be expected to respond to an incident of this nature.
At this type of incident, a fire and rescue service would receive a high volume of simultaneous fire calls. We found that the systems in place in the service were robust enough to receive and manage this volume of calls. But the service relies too heavily on paper-based systems. It doesn’t have an electronic method of sharing fire survival guidance information. Instead, this information is passed from fire control to the incident ground via radio messages. These processes 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. The service recognised this and is looking at different systems it could implement to improve performance. We look forward to seeing the progress the service has made in this area at our next inspection.
The service has the ability to work effectively with other fire and rescue services
The service supports other fire and rescue services responding to emergency incidents. For example, through joint fire control, West Sussex crews are routinely mobilised alongside East Sussex and Surrey crews. And to improve effectiveness, the service is aligning policies and procedures across the three services for when this occurs. Staff are trained to be aware of the differences between the service’s equipment and that of its neighbouring services. For example, information to staff highlights that road traffic collision extrication equipment looks different but can do the same task. It is intraoperable with neighbouring services and can form part of a multi-agency response.
The service has a variety of national assets, such as a high-volume pumping unit and officers who have undergone specialist training to become national tactical advisers in water or flood rescue, wildfire and waste fires. These resources can be deployed nationally by National Resilience Fire Control upon request from an affected service under the National Coordination and Advisory Framework.
The service can also respond effectively to marauding terrorist attacks with East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. The service has a full team capability of 32 marauding terrorist attack specialists including several officers. Theoretical and practical training is given annually. The team can also be combined with staff from East Sussex FRS who also take part in the training and exercises.
The service has effective cross-border working practices
The service has a cross-border exercise plan with neighbouring fire and rescue services, helping them work together effectively to keep the public safe. The plan includes the risks of major events at which the service could foreseeably give support or ask for help from neighbouring services. We were encouraged to see the service uses feedback from these exercises to inform risk information and service plans.
Alongside 17 multi-agency exercises, it took part in 15 exercises with neighbouring FRSs in 2023/24. It also has good arrangements for dealing with cross‑border incidents. For example, it always sends a level 2 officer to a cross-border incident, both as a welfare officer and to make sure relevant procedures are followed to keep staff safe.
The service effectively uses JESIP
The incident commanders we interviewed had been trained in and were familiar with JESIP. Initial incident command training in the service includes JESIP training, and this is refreshed every two years.
The service has trained JESIP instructors. They provide joint training with South East Coast Ambulance Service and have also given new training for a multi-agency approach at different emergency events.
The service told us that the effectiveness of JESIP principles is evaluated during multi‑agency exercises, ranging from small to large-scale operations. The ops assurance and governance team oversees exercise and incident evaluations, co‑ordinating multi-agency debriefs to College of Policing standards. Stations and command teams regularly review JESIP principles during governance meetings and before duty weekend briefings.
The service is active in the Sussex Resilience Forum
Some of the service’s partners form the Sussex Resilience Forum. The service has good arrangements with the forum to respond to emergencies. These arrangements include the Sussex emergency response and recovery plan and liaising regularly with emergency partners and neighbouring FRSs to make sure they can respond effectively to incidents.
The service takes part in regular training events with other members of the local resilience forum and uses the learning to develop planning assumptions about responding to major and multi-agency incidents.
The service is a valued partner of the Safer West Sussex Partnership. It also has a resilience and emergencies team which operates on behalf of WSCC and the fire and rescue authority to make sure that the relevant organisations are trained and prepared to respond to events that affect the safety of the community.
The service considers and contributes to wider learning
The service makes sure it knows about national operational updates from other fire and rescue services, and joint organisational 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 example detailed earlier of magnets in breathing apparatus torches potentially affecting automatic distress signal units was received via the National Operational Learning process. The service took appropriate action and further communicated the relevant information.
The service aligns its processes with the College of Policing debrief system to aid collaboration. Partners are invited to attend ‘hot’ debriefs at incidents and to contribute to more structured debriefs afterwards. There is also evidence of working collaboratively with other FRSs in this area through the south-east operational learning group.
Adequate
Making best use of resources
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is good 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 2024/25 is £36.79 million. This is an 8.4 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
The service’s plans support the achievement of its objectives
The service’s financial and workforce plans, including allocating resources to prevention, protection and response, continue to be consistent with the risks and priorities it has identified in its CRMP. Sufficient resources are allocated to the service’s prevention and protection teams.
The service has evaluated its mix of crewing and duty systems. It has analysed its response cover and can show it deploys its fire engines and response staff to manage risk efficiently. The service has worked closely with its parent authority, WSCC, in the development and implementation of its CRMP. As a result of developing evidence, WSCC has supported the service with increased funding of £1.3 million to better align resources with local risk. It has used this funding to change its day-crewing firefighter duty system in the east of the service area. Firefighters working this duty system are now available seven days a week rather than five days.
Emergency cover is managed well using the Dynamic Cover Tool, which matches resources to risk. The service told us it has been able to proactively redistribute resources according to the dynamic risk.
The service builds its plans on sound scenarios. These help make sure the service is sustainable and underpinned by financial controls that reduce the risk of misusing public money. At the time of our inspection, there was an underspend of approximately £200,000 in 2023/24 due to various vacant posts throughout the year.
The service effectively monitors workforce productivity
We were pleased to see that the service’s arrangements for managing performance clearly link resource use to its CRMP and its strategic priorities. The service’s performance board monitors and scrutinises progress against 30 indicators. This assures the service that it is either achieving or taking action to achieve its objectives. There are clear targets for prevention, protection and response.
During the last inspection, we highlighted workforce productivity as an area for improvement. It is encouraging to see that the service is taking steps to make sure the workforce’s time is as productive as possible. This includes putting in place new ways of working. For example, LRMPs integrate protection and prevention work into operational activity. They also help to target local risks, such as hospitals or community groups, and achieve the CRMP priorities.
An improved process for measuring activity on stations allows the service to assess how cost-effective stations are at implementing different activities.
The service understands how it uses its wholetime firefighters. It uses data on how they spend their time across day and night shifts, for example through station productivity dashboards and the Farynor system. This data can be accessed by both middle managers, to assist in performance management, and by crews on stations, to make sure they are carrying out the activities they are required to and/or they can alter their activity accordingly. Staff we spoke to told us that station activity expectations are clear, but supervisory managers are trusted to manage their time in line with their understanding of local risk and development needs.
The service is involved in effective collaborative work
We were pleased to see the service meets its statutory duty to collaborate. It routinely considers opportunities to collaborate with other emergency responders and agencies. Alongside its ongoing work within the 3F and 4F collaborations it is part of with East Sussex FRS, Surrey FRS and Kent FRS, including joint procurement and training provision, the service has positive relationships with several other organisations.
Collaborative work is aligned to the priorities in the service’s CRMP. For example, it carries out forced entry and other activities with and on behalf of South East Coast Ambulance Service. It also supports flood response in conjunction with the Environment Agency.
It also works with the following agencies to identify vulnerable people and work collectively to reduce risk beyond fire:
- the UK Health Security Agency to support its health agenda;
- GP surgeries in the local primary care network;
- Southern Housing (high, medium and low-rise housing for vulnerable people);
- local falls teams;
- local alcohol ambassadors; and
- local libraries.
We are satisfied that the service monitors, reviews and evaluates the benefits and results of its collaborations. For example, quarterly performance reports and regular performance meetings make sure the service benefits from the joint control collaboration with Surrey and East Sussex fire and rescue services.
The protection team also work with Gatwick airport around the concessions within the airport. Quarterly, they sample the auditing and make sure the airport is managing those concessions well. And the collaborative work with the Environment Agency has resulted in design of couplings that can be used on both FRS and Environment Agency high-volume pumping units so there are extra resources readily available if required.
The service has effective business continuity arrangements
The service has good continuity arrangements in place for areas in which it considers threats and risks to be high. It regularly reviews and tests these threats and risks so that staff know the arrangements and their associated responsibilities.
The resilience and emergencies team (RET) co-ordinates the provision of corporate business continuity policy and service plans for WSCC and the service while maintaining the corporate response and recovery plan. The resilience and emergencies team collaborates with multi-agency partners to maintain the Sussex emergency response and recovery plan. Local plans, such as those around the threat of industrial action, are tested regularly. The service also take part in exercises involving larger, more far-reaching scenarios such as a national power outage.
The service has worked with WSCC to improve its financial management
The service is part of WSCC, which provides finance and procurement support. It also provides other back-office functions such as IT, HR, communications and occupational health.
WSCC’s finance team is represented on the service executive board. There are regular reviews to consider all the service’s expenditure, including its non-pay costs. This scrutiny makes sure the service gets value for money. At the time of our inspection, work was taking place to transfer more budget management responsibilities to station managers to improve understanding of spending at fire stations.
There is a process to approve and review each project and programme of activity. The design authority group provides assurance that value for money has been considered.
The service is taking steps to make sure it achieves efficiency gains through sound financial management and best working practices. It is doing this in important areas such as fleet and procurement. WSCC staff evaluate procurement projects, which are considered by the service before being scrutinised by the WSCC’s procurement board. At the time of our inspection, the service was working with East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent FRSs to jointly procure new breathing apparatus equipment and new incident command vehicles.
Good
Making the FRS affordable now and in the future
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is adequate 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 understands its future financial challenges but is unlikely to meet its income generation requirements
As part of West Sussex County Council, the service has a sound understanding of future financial challenges. West Sussex County Council faces significant financial challenges over the medium term until 2028/29. While the service has received increased funding in recent years, it is expected to mitigate financial risk by finding savings and increasing income.
The service is required to make savings or increase income equivalent to £500,000 in 2024/25. However, at the time of inspection, income target plans were in the early stages. The anticipated £150,000 of income from Horsham training centre is unlikely to be achieved in 2024/25.
The service told us that it has started planning work to identify savings options, should they be required in 2025/26. This work will take place alongside the development of the next CRMP.
The service doesn’t have its own reserves
The service doesn’t hold its own reserves. West Sussex County Council holds these. Its earmarked reserve levels are anticipated to decrease in the future.
The service has clear priorities for its fleet and estates functions
The service’s estates and fleet strategies have clear links to its CRMP. The asset service plan details how estates and fleet provision will address strategic priority five – making best use of resources. It improves efficiency and effectiveness and supports future service provision through changes in its estates and fleet functions. This is supported by planned capital investment of £29.4 million between 2024/25 and 2028/29 to fund fleet, equipment and estates improvements.
The service rotates its vehicles’ locations to extend their working life. It has changed its maintenance schedules to minimise repair costs. As part of contributing towards West Sussex County Council’s emissions targets, the service monitors and reports its fleet emissions. Fleet procurement considers alternative fuel options, such as electric vehicles, and the need to minimise any risk from contaminants to firefighters.
In 2023, the service opened a new training centre and fire station in Horsham. This building has become the service’s blueprint for improvements through the ‘orange guide’, which was developed with the architect. It sets out staff welfare, contamination remediation and accessibility requirements. The service aims to bring all fire stations up to the standards set out in the guide. As part of improvements to fire stations, a heat decarbonisation project is underway.
The service regularly reviews these strategies so that it can properly assess the effects of changes in estates and fleet provision or future innovation on risk.
The service is making better use of technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness
In our last inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should assure itself that its IT systems are resilient, reliable, accurate and accessible.
We were encouraged to see the improvements the service has made since our last inspection. We found the service has developed an IT strategy and roadmap in line with the CRMP. It sets out current and future IT needs and how these will support how it provides its services.
West Sussex County Council provides IT specialists who work closely with the service. Quarterly meetings are held at a senior level so the service can monitor progress and provide feedback. Monthly meetings are also held with relevant managers from the service.
The service actively considers how changes in technology and future innovation may affect risk. It also takes all opportunities to improve efficiency and effectiveness presented by changes in technology. The service has moved away from in-house IT systems to using cloud-based services. And it has bought a new app-based fleet management system. It continues to use technology to support hybrid working. This improves the efficiency and effectiveness of staff and reduces unnecessary travel.
The service has put in place the capacity and capability it needs to achieve sustainable transformation. It has carried out targeted recruitment to appoint staff who have the skills to lead programmes of work to implement the CRMP. The service told us the work has been designed and structured to make sure sufficient funding and capacity are in place to meet its needs.
It also routinely looks for opportunities to work with others to improve efficiency and provide better services in the future.
The service has plans to generate income from Horsham training centre
The service has plans to generate income from its new fire and rescue service training centre in Horsham. It intends to offer training courses for external organisations, including other fire and rescue services. However, the service told us plans are in progress but likely to take longer to introduce. As a result, the anticipated income of £150,000 in 2024/25 is unlikely to be achieved. The service is also considering other opportunities for generating extra income.
In our last inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should consider how it can take full advantage of opportunities to secure external funding and generate income. After this inspection, the service needs to make sure it has adequate plans in place to meet its income generation requirements.
Adequate
Promoting the right values and culture
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is adequate 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
The service has improved its culture and values
In our first inspection in 2018/19, we identified a cause of concern around how staff understood and displayed the service’s expected values and behaviours. During our 2021/22 inspection, we found the service had made limited progress to address this. Therefore, a cause of concern and accompanying recommendations remained. During this inspection, we were encouraged by the cultural improvements the service has now made.
We found significant progress had been made around our recommendations and a detailed action plan had been put in place. The service has worked with an external company to develop a cultural ‘team charter’ in every team, and a culture of psychological safety has been developed and displayed across the service.
The service has also improved feedback processes for staff. These include the introduction of focus groups, so the workforce has the opportunity to feed back on issues around values, culture, fairness and training. The service has made enough progress in this area, so we have closed the cause of concern.
The service has well-defined values, which staff understand. It has adopted the Core Code of Ethics, which we found was promoted, demonstrated and understood across the service. The values are accessible and form part of the performance conversations that all staff have.
We found staff at all levels of the service showing behaviours that reflect service values. Results from our staff survey showed that 84 percent of staff who responded (108 out of 129 respondents) felt that their managers consistently model and maintain the service’s values. This increases to 88 percent (114 out of 129 respondents) when describing colleagues.
There is a positive working culture throughout the service, with staff empowered and willing to challenge poor behaviours when they come across them. While we found confidence to challenge in the staff we spoke to, we also found that a programme of active bystander training is underway to make sure all staff have the confidence to speak up over poor behaviour.
Staff feel that senior leaders could be more visible
As stated, we found evidence of an improved culture and display of expected values, alongside increased staff communication. We wanted to make sure that this was consistent at all levels. During station visits, we found a perception from staff that they didn’t see enough of senior leaders. And of those staff who responded to our survey, only 44 percent (57 out of 129) agreed or tended to agree that senior leaders consistently model and maintain the service’s values.
The service has worked hard through its connectivity plan to offer multiple opportunities for staff at all levels to connect and communicate with senior leaders. These include a new induction event and ‘Meet the Chiefs’ events, as well as the opportunity for staff to request a senior management visit. We would encourage the service to continue work in this area to better understand and address the issue. We look forward to seeing the results.
There are good provisions in place to support staff mental and physical well‑being
The service continues to have well-understood and effective well-being policies in place, which are available to staff. A wide range of well-being support is available to support both physical and mental health, for example:
- occupational health;
- trauma risk management support following traumatic incidents;
- monitoring and follow-up if staff have attended repeated traumatic incidents and not accepted support from the service;
- Employee Assistance Programme;
- Fire Fighters Charity;
- a welfare officer appointed for those on long-term sickness leave where appropriate; and
- established refreshment and hygiene facilities provided at incidents.
There are good provisions in place to promote staff well-being. These include a dedicated well-being manager, four trauma support managers and communications designed to influence and overcome the old culture of not speaking out. This is further supported through a network of well-being champions and communication of available help and support.
Staff told us of their positive experiences of the well-being provision. Staff are encouraged to access the trauma risk management process. They told us it has improved the culture of talking about experiences that could affect mental health. Staff also told us that efficiency of access and waiting times for physiotherapy and the Employee Assistance Programme has improved.
In response to our survey, 88 percent of respondents (116 out of 132) felt satisfied that their personal safety and welfare are treated seriously at work. And 92 percent of respondents (122 out of 132) felt they were able to access support for their mental well-being.
The service has a positive health and safety culture
The service continues to have effective and well-understood health and safety policies and procedures in place. In response to our survey, 95 percent of respondents (125 out of 132) said they understand the policies and procedures the service has in place to make sure they can work safely. And 91 percent (120 out of 132) felt there are clear procedures to report accidents, near misses and dangerous occurrences.
Health and safety performance is monitored regularly against several measures, displayed on a performance dashboard and scrutinised every three months.
We identified an area for improvement during our last inspection to make sure staff with secondary contracts don’t work excessive hours. While some work has been done to address this, and there are regular manager reminders issued, more still needs to be done. There is an ongoing project to amend existing systems to monitor and manage working hours. However, we were told that this wasn’t expected to be in place until August 2024. We look forward to seeing the outcomes of this work.
The service effectively manages absence
We found there are clear processes in place to manage absences for all staff. There is clear guidance for managers, and it was understood by the staff we spoke to. The service manages absences well and in accordance with policy. It monitors absence with regular meetings between HR, managers and staff. Where trends are identified, appropriate support is offered and action is taken.
In the year ending March 2022/23, the average number of days not worked per firefighter due to long-term sickness decreased by 19 percent to 9.8 days/shifts compared to 12 days/shifts in the previous 12-month period.
Adequate
Getting the right people with the right skills
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is good 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 CRMPs. 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 is effective at workforce planning
The service has good workforce planning in place. This makes sure skills and capabilities align with what it needs to effectively carry out its CRMP. For example, it uses current establishment figures for wholetime staff, on-call staff and non‑operational staff to identify gaps. It uses leaver data and identifies trends to help make future projections of requirements. The service has a wholetime staff retirement forecast until 2028. It effectively uses the promotion process to respond to gaps; this is through an annual development centre. Due to these factors, the service has a list of recruitment recommendations until 2025/26, including an on-call to wholetime migration process.
Workforce and succession planning is regularly scrutinised during meetings to discuss requirements. A workforce planning group meets fortnightly to address upcoming recruitment issues over the next 12 months. This feeds into a strategic workforce planning group which meets quarterly and looks at the longer-term picture, over the coming 1–5 years. This shows a holistic approach to planning, with the strategic group analysing data supplied by the workforce group, alongside horizon scanning and anticipating future changes.
The service effectively monitors the skills and capabilities of its staff
Most staff told us that they could access the training they need to be effective in their role. Of those that responded to our survey, 83 percent (109 out of 132) told us they had received sufficient training to effectively do their job. The service’s training plans make sure it can maintain competence and capability effectively. For example, it has introduced an ‘operational licence’. This is an annual three-day module focused on core skills which takes place at its new training facility.
During our last inspection, we identified an area for improvement around making sure the service has an effective, accurate and accessible system for recording and monitoring operational staff competence. It is pleasing to see that since then the service has improved connectivity between the learning system and the maintenance of competence system it uses. This gives a more accurate picture and monitors operational staff competence more effectively. As a result, the people with the right skills and attributes are placed in the right location.
We found good oversight of staff skills, and appropriate action taken if competence isn’t maintained, for example staff being taken off operational duty and supported to achieve the required standard.
We did find some inconsistencies in the service’s approach to the implementation of tall building and fire survival guidance training. We would encourage a more robust plan to maximise knowledge and understanding in this area.
The service has a positive learning and development culture
The service promotes a culture of continuous improvements throughout the organisation, and it encourages staff to learn and develop. For example, in 2023, it introduced a performance conversation process. This sees staff take responsibility for their own learning and development and prepare their own development plans.
We were pleased to see that the service has a range of resources in place. These include e-learning resources. In our last inspection, we identified as an area for improvement that the service should evaluate the effectiveness of its online learning. In 2023, it carried out a review of this area. Now, as courses are reviewed and new courses created, there are course evaluations for staff to complete. The learning and development team review these quarterly to improve the effectiveness of the learning. We welcome this and encourage its continuation so the service can assure itself that the training is having the impact intended.
Most staff told us they can access a range of learning and development resources. Of the staff that responded to our survey, 80 percent (106 out of 132) told us that they were able to access the right learning and development opportunities when needed. This includes less formal development opportunities such as attendance at senior leadership meetings. We also found that development opportunities were consistent across all staff groups. For example, we found non-operational staff could access FRS resources alongside county council resources, and staff in the fleet department could access the Executive Leadership Programme.
Good
Ensuring fairness and promoting diversity
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is adequate 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
The service asks for feedback from staff
The service has developed several ways to work with staff on issues and decisions that affect them. These include methods to build all-staff awareness of fairness and diversity, as well as targeted initiatives to identify matters that affect different staff groups. There are effective feedback systems in place that staff feel confident to participate in. These include skip meetings whereby staff ‘skip’ their line manager and meet with the next level of management for 360-degree feedback, shadow boards that feed back to senior leaders, and the Tell Us, Help Us, Shape Us process which allows staff to access and feed back to the debrief system via a QR code.
The service has taken steps to address matters staff have raised through the increased feedback systems. For example, it has introduced more working groups such as diversity champions groups and now has four-week governance cycles to consider the feedback from these groups.
Representative bodies and staff associations reported that the service works with them well. This communication is regular, and most see it as meaningful.
We did find a reluctance among some staff to complete surveys, with low response rates in both the survey that we sent out prior to the inspection and the internal staff survey. Staff told us that this is partly because historically they haven’t seen any changes as a result of feedback. Also, some staff feel that there are too many surveys being issued. The service recognises this issue and is looking for ways to address it, such as introducing a series of focus groups. These would give the workforce an opportunity to feed back on issues such as values, culture, fairness and training. We look forward to seeing the impact this has.
There is good awareness of bullying, harassment and discrimination in the service
Comprehensive policies help to make sure that staff have a good understanding of what bullying, harassment and discrimination are and their negative effects on colleagues and the organisation. Staff across the organisation told us that they feel a sense of inclusion or belonging at work and are willing and confident to challenge poor behaviours and would feel supported in doing so.
In our survey, 17 percent of respondents (23 out of 132) told us they have felt bullied or harassed at work in the last 12 months. And 17 percent of respondents (23 out of 132) told us they have felt discriminated against at work in the last 12 months.
Most staff are confident in the service’s approach to tackling bullying, harassment and discrimination, as well as grievances and disciplinary matters. Staff told us that they are confident in raising concerns. They know how to, for example through the ‘Say So’ independent and confidential reporting line, or through line management. The service has made sure all staff are trained and clear about what to do if they encounter inappropriate behaviour.
The service could do more to make sure its workforce represents the community it serves
There is an open, fair and honest recruitment process for staff or those wishing to work for the fire and rescue service. The service has an effective system to understand and remove the risk of disproportionality in recruitment processes. For example, managers undergo unconscious bias training, the service uses moderation panels when shortlisting candidates, and processes are reviewed annually taking candidate feedback into account.
The service could do more however to make sure its recruitment processes are accessible to applicants from a range of backgrounds. The policies shared with us by the service don’t set out how they will increase diversity. Recruitment campaigns at all levels don’t target under-represented groups. And the service isn’t leading change in this area to increase the diversity of its workforce. For example, we found limited understanding of positive action among staff that we spoke to. The service acknowledged that it needs to do more to benefit from its use. We also found a lack of diversity in management roles at station manager level and above among operational staff.
The service could do more to increase staff diversity. There has been little progress to improve ethnic and gender diversity. In 2022/23, 59 people joined the service, and 4 percent of them identified as being from an ethnic minority background. The number of firefighters who identified as being from an ethnic minority background has stayed the same from 2021/22 to 2022/23 at 22 people. The percentage has slightly decreased from 4.44 percent to 4.3 percent due to changes in the overall workforce profile, but the number of people is the same. The proportion of firefighters who identified as a woman has increased slightly from 7.4 percent (45 people) to 8.1 percent (51 people) over the same period. This is still below the England average of 8.7 percent.
For the whole workforce, in 2022/23, only 4.7 percent were from an ethnic minority background compared to 15 percent in their local population and 8.4 percent throughout all FRSs. Over the same period, 15.4 percent identified as a woman, compared to an average of 19.4 percent throughout all FRSs.
The service continues to improve its approach to equality, diversity and inclusion
The service has improved its approach to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). It makes sure it can offer the right services to its communities and can support staff with protected characteristics. For example, the service has a network of diversity champions who represent specific groups and aim to improve awareness, support and understanding across the whole workforce. It also has close links with external networks such as the Asian Fire Service Association.
The introduction of a diversity and inclusion manager has had a significant effect on the service’s approach in this area. Staff we spoke to told us about the positive impact and the increase in awareness and understanding of EDI issues, supported by the training that they receive. There is also an increased willingness and confidence to discuss matters that they wouldn’t have previously done. This improved approach has also had a positive impact on the service in the community. Staff with a greater understanding are able to target the more diverse areas of their communities through their LRMPs.
The service also has an effective process for assessing equality impact. It uses people impact assessments to support decision making and implement necessary changes to improve equality and meet the equality duty. Improvements it has made include adjusting promotion development centres to support neurodivergent candidates, and asking for EDI advice to plan recruitment and make sure that arrangements for new ways of staffing fire stations and fire engines are fair.
Adequate
Managing performance and developing leaders
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is adequate 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 effectively manages individuals’ performance
There is a good performance management system in place, which allows the service to effectively develop and assess the individual performance of staff. For example, staff have a performance conversation which covers the service values and self-reflection. It also creates personal, team and role-based objectives. Staff go through this process at least annually, but staff we spoke to told us this occurs on a more regular basis.
In our staff survey, 55 percent of respondents (72 out of 132) discuss how they are performing at work with their manager weekly or monthly, and 71 percent of respondents (94 out of 132) have had at least one formal performance conversation within the last 12 months. Each staff member has individual goals and objectives, and regular performance assessments. Staff generally feel confident in the performance and development arrangements in place.
The service has continued to improve the fairness of its promotion processes
The service has put considerable effort into developing its promotion and progression processes so that they are fair, and all staff can understand them. It has introduced a new process since our last inspection. In our review we found a clear process with clear and objective selection criteria.
Panels are made up of operational and non-operational staff and a people professional, all of whom have received the relevant training. Panel members also aren’t in a line management structure for the candidate. During our inspection, we were unable to review any processes above group manager as these are run by West Sussex County Council, and General Data Protection Regulation retention periods meant the service no longer had the relevant documentation on file.
While the results from our review indicated a fair and open process was in place, only 39 percent of staff who responded to our survey (52 out of 132) agreed or tended to agree that the promotion process in the service is fair. And 60 percent (79 out of 132) felt they are given the same opportunities to develop as other staff. The service would benefit from a better understanding of the reasons behind these perceived inconsistencies in approach to promoting staff into substantive roles.
The service identifies and develop future leaders but could do more to increase the diversity of its leaders
The service has succession-planning processes in place within individual service areas. It holds regular strategic workforce planning meetings to identify service-critical roles and consider retirement forecasts and attrition levels.
The service has a methodical and robust approach to talent identification and development. The identification process starts with ‘everyone has potential’. Those selected are decided by a panel, not an individual manager. Talent management schemes are then used to develop specific staff.
There is a development centre process for operational staff and an ‘Aspiring Leaders’ course (which is WSCC-led) for non-operational staff. The service also plans to run a series of training events for managers in January 2025. These will cover how to have effective conversations with their staff around their aims and what they need to do to achieve those. It is hoped these will further improve the existing process.
The service needs to do more to identify, develop and encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds into middle and senior-level positions. We found limited evidence of the service developing staff and managing career pathways to increase diversity in upper management roles. There was very little diversity between station manager level and the senior leadership team among operational staff.
Adequate