Avon Fire and Rescue Service: Cause of concern revisit letter

Letter information

From
Michelle Skeer
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services

To
Simon Shilton
​Chief Fire Officer
​Avon Fire and Rescue Service​

Sent on
22 May 2024

Background

Between May and July 2023, we inspected Avon Fire and Rescue Service. During our inspection, we identified an accelerated cause of concern about its mobilisation system. On 16 August 2023, we issued this accelerated cause of concern and made the following recommendations:

On 19 September 2023, you submitted an action plan setting out how you would address this accelerated cause of concern and our recommendations.

Between 4 and 8 December 2023, we carried out our first revisit to review progress. On 19 January 2024, we published our findings.

Revisit

Between 19 and 20 March 2024, we carried out a second revisit to review progress against the action plan. During the revisit, we interviewed staff who were responsible for developing this plan, including you as chief fire officer. We also interviewed managers and staff with responsibility for fire control. On 22 March 2024, we shared our initial findings with you. This letter provides an update on our findings.

Governance

We found appropriate governance arrangements in place to monitor progress of your action plan. These include regular:

• meetings with the lead officers to make sure progress is being made;
• reporting to the fire and rescue authority chair; and
• service improvement board meetings with external partner organisations to provide additional support.

Action plan

The service has an action plan that covers the accelerated cause of concern. The plan identifies senior responsible officers, deadlines and people assigned to each task. The plan includes updates on the progress of actions made against the accelerated cause of concern and the associated recommendations. The service has consulted with the National Fire Chiefs Council and other fire and rescue services in England on its action plan and its approach to resolving the accelerated cause of concern.

At the time of our revisit, the service had marked the action plan (with specific reference to the mobilisation system) as complete. The service would benefit from having an additional assurance process in place to review whether the actions have been fully completed. This process should include assessing the effectiveness of the actions and the extent to which they have solved the problems identified.

Progress against accelerated cause of concern

The service’s mobilisation system still isn’t free from technical faults

During our last inspection, we reported that the mobilisation system crashed on some consoles while the fire control operator was taking emergency calls. This unnecessarily delays the mobilisation of resources and results in the public receiving a slower response to emergencies. During our revisit in March 2024, we were encouraged to find that the system was more reliable, after action had been taken to escalate the matter with the third party supplier. But the system still wasn’t free from technical faults.

The service, alongside its third-party supplier, had identified the diagnostic tool (also known as the lock tool) as the fault causing some consoles to crash during emergency calls. The diagnostic tool collects data logs and stores them locally on the clients’ consoles. Engineers then dial in to the consoles for retrieval and investigation. The tool has been removed, which has resulted in the mobilisation system being more reliable and has prevented any further crashes. The operating system in fire control and its secondary control room has been updated to Windows 10, which has helped with the stability of the system.

However, an unrelated issue has occurred with the mobilisation system. We were told that, during a recent emergency incident, the nearest available fire engine didn’t show as available due to a technical fault. This required a manual intervention by the fire control operator who contacted firefighters from the nearest fire station to check their availability before deploying them to the incident. This led to a delayed response, although the service still attended the incident within its targeted response time. The service reported the issue to its third-party supplier.

Following the revisit, the service told us this issue was due to human error. Another fire control operator (who was shadowing the call) was, unknowingly, holding back the fire engines which led to confusion and the delay. The service was putting arrangements in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

At the time of our revisit, the service was planning to reinstall and test the diagnostic tool on two consoles over a longer period before reinstalling it on the live system. The staff we spoke with were more confident about the reliability of the mobilisation system. But there were some reservations and concerns about the diagnostic tool being reintroduced because it had previously caused some consoles to crash.

The service has improved how it communicates and reports issues

During our last revisit, we reported that a control user group has been set up that allows two-way communication between fire control staff and managers to report any issues or concerns. The staff we spoke with were positive about this group because regular meetings take place to report and address any concerns.

The service hasn’t provided welfare support to all fire control staff

One of our recommendations was that the service should put welfare support in place. Members of the health and safety and well-being team have visited fire control staff and provided training, which staff spoke about positively. But not all staff in fire control have received this training. Although the action plan shows this recommendation as complete, the service should assure itself that all staff (including managers) have received the appropriate support and training from the well-being team. The service should make sure that staff continue to receive this support as required and refresher training should also be available.

Conclusion

We were pleased to see the significant steps the service, led by you as the chief fire officer, had taken in response to the accelerated cause of concern we issued. For example, updating the consoles to Windows 10 and providing fire control staff with a platform to give feedback. The fire control staff we spoke with now have more confidence in the mobilisation system.

We recognise the diagnostic tool is an important feature of the mobilisation system because it provides the third-party supplier with data needed to investigate and resolve any faults. The service is planning to reintroduce the diagnostic tool. We will need to be assured that the original problems with the mobilisation system have been fully addressed and won’t happen again. The service should continue to make sure the system is rigorously tested over a sustained period before the diagnostic tool is reintroduced on its live system. During our next revisit, we will review the effectiveness of the mobilisation system.

The service would benefit from revisiting the action plan to make sure all the completed actions are also effective. To achieve this outcome, as well as reviewing the plan, senior leaders should regularly scrutinise the actions taken and challenge their effectiveness if necessary.

We will continue to monitor the service’s progress as part of our next scheduled inspection of the service.

We will return to Avon Fire and Rescue Service in September 2024. We will assess whether the service has made satisfactory progress with its action plan and if the service provided to the public has improved.

HM Inspector Wendy Williams oversaw this inspection until 31 March 2024, when her tenure ended. These are her conclusions about the service’s performance. This letter will be published on our website. At the time of publication, Michelle Skeer is HM Inspector for Avon Fire and Rescue Service.

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Avon Fire and Rescue Service: Cause of concern revisit letter