Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service has made some good progress, but further improvements are needed

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service has made positive progress in some areas, but further improvements are needed, the fire inspectorate has said.

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Effectiveness, efficiency and people 2023–2025: Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has graded Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s performance across 11 areas. It found that the service was ‘adequate’ in seven areas and ‘requires improvement’ in four areas.

HMICFRS said the service has improved its capacity to make sure staff are trained and assessed promptly in safety-critical skills, such as using breathing apparatus, and completes fire safety audits to a good standard.

But inspectors said the service needs to improve how it promotes the right values and a positive and inclusive culture to all staff. It also needs to make further changes to make sure it uses resources effectively to achieve the best results for the public. 

His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services Roy Wilsher said:

“I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service in keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks, but the service needs to improve in some areas.

“We were pleased to see that the service has made progress against some of the areas for improvement identified in our last inspection. For example, the service has worked hard to address the delays to training and assessing staff in wearing breathing apparatus. But we were disappointed to find the service still needs to address its response to false alarms to make sure its workforce is as productive as it can be.

“We were concerned to hear that some staff have experienced bullying and harassment at work. The service needs to continue to improve its culture of equality, diversity and inclusion and review how effective its policies are at reducing unacceptable behaviour.

“We recognise that the service is currently going through significant changes which are affecting some areas of work. We will keep in close contact with the service to monitor the effect of these changes.”

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Effectiveness, efficiency and people 2023–2025: Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service

Notes

  1. For further information, please contact the HMICFRS Press Office on 0300 071 6781 or HMICPressOffice@hmicfrs.gov.uk.
  2. 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 11 areas and given a grade for each.
  3. 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.
  4. We have expanded our previous four-tier system of judgements to five. These changes mean that it isn’t possible to make direct comparisons between grades awarded in this round of inspections with those from previous years.
  5. A reduction in grade, particularly from good to adequate, doesn’t necessarily mean that there has been a reduction in performance, unless we say so in the report.
  6. Read more information about the 2023-25 assessment framework for fire and rescue service inspections.