West Midlands Fire Service is performing well in some areas, but must make greater progress
West Midlands Fire Service is good at understanding risk and responding to fires, but needs to make improvements in some areas to provide a consistently good service, the fire inspectorate has said.
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Effectiveness, efficiency and people 2023–2025: West Midlands Fire Service
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has graded the performance of West Midlands Fire Service across 11 areas. It found the service was ‘good’ in four areas, ‘adequate’ in four areas and ‘requires improvement’ in three areas.
HMICFRS said that the service has a dynamic risk-based inspection programme in place, which is well informed by its data available, helping it to make sure fire safety staff carry out audits on the highest-risk premises. Inspectors also found that the service consistently meets its five-minute response standard, providing a fast response to the public. The service is also prepared to respond to major and multi-agency incidents and works well with other services during emergencies.
The service has a supportive culture amongst staff and good welfare provisions in place. However, they must make sure staff at all levels are demonstrating the service’s values and behaviours.
Despite progress made, HMICFRS found some areas required improvements. The service needs to have a consistent approach to its risk-critical training to make sure its staff and the public are safe. The current processes for organisational learning aren’t effective and need to be improved. It must also improve its workforce planning.
Inspectors also said that the service doesn’t manage staff performance and development effectively. It must make sure it has processes in place to manage and develop talent in the organisation and increase learning and development to meet the needs of staff.
The service has faced challenges with understanding its financial position, and it needs to make improvements. For example, it needs to make sure there is appropriate scrutiny, challenge and forecasting in place, to make sure the public gets value for money and is sustainable in the future.
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services Lee Freeman said:
“I am pleased with the performance of West Midlands Fire Service and the positive and constructive way in which staff worked with us.
“I recognise the service was facing a turbulent time and difficult challenges during our inspection, with unforeseen changes in key leadership positions and media speculation on the service and its governance.
“Our inspectors continued to apply the same methodology as we use for all our inspections.
“I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of the service in keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks. However, it hasn’t made enough progress since our 2022 inspection, and we have seen some areas deteriorate.
“It must improve in some areas to provide a consistently good service. For example, it needs to make sure its financial assumptions and plans are robust and scrutinised, so they support a sustainable future.
“There are already plans in place to improve these areas and we look forward to seeing how this work progresses.”
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Effectiveness, efficiency and people 2023–2025: West Midlands Fire Service
Notes
- For further information, please contact the HMICFRS Press Office on 0300 071 6781 or HMICPressOffice@hmicfrs.gov.uk.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- Read more information about the 2023-25 assessment framework for fire and rescue service inspections.