Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service: Causes of concern progress letter
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Letter information
From
Roy Wilsher OBE QFSM
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services
To
Louise Harrison
Chief Fire Officer
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service
Sent on
8 November 2024
Background
Between May and June 2023, we inspected Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. During our inspection, we identified that the causes of concern relating to prevention and equality, diversity and inclusion issued after our inspection in 2021 hadn’t been fully addressed. We also identified a new cause of concern about the service’s protection activity. On 19 October 2023, we issued the causes of concern and made the following recommendations:
Cause of concern
Prevention cause of concern
Some improvements in prevention have been made since our last inspection. The service has revised its prevention strategy, and this is giving its prevention and response teams better direction. But the service is still not adequately identifying and prioritising those most at risk from fire.
Recommendations
Within 28 days, the service should review its action plan to make sure that:
- it has an effective system to define the levels of risk in the community; and
- its systems and processes for dealing with referrals from individuals and partner agencies effectively manage and prioritise those referrals with the highest identified risk.
Cause of concern
Protection cause of concern
The service hasn’t done enough since our last inspection to address its areas for improvement and provide clear direction to make sure that its teams can prioritise work according to risk.
Recommendations
Within 28 days, the service should provide an action plan that:
- clearly defines its risk-based inspection programme, within a revised protection strategy, which is aligned to its next public safety plan;
- makes sure its increased number of staff complete a proportionate amount of activity to reduce risk and work to effective targets;
- assures the system to record fire safety activity is robust and well supported to enable prioritisation of highest risk;
- makes sure it has an effective quality assurance process so that staff carry out audits to an appropriate standard.
Cause of concern
Equality, diversity and inclusion cause of concern
The service hasn’t made enough progress since our last inspection to improve equality, diversity and inclusion. The service has done enough to complete one of our recommendations by reviewing its equality impact assessment process. But the other recommendations still require action to be taken or completed.
Recommendations
Within 28 days, the service should review its action plan, detailing how it will:
- give greater priority to how it increases awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion across the organisation;
- make sure that it has appropriate ways to engage with and seek feedback from all staff, including those from under-represented groups;
- make improvements to the way it collects equality data to better understand its workforce demographics and needs; and
- be more ambitious in its efforts to attract a more diverse workforce that better reflects the community it serves.
On 15 November 2023, you submitted an action plan setting out how you would address the causes of concern and our recommendations.
Between 20 and 24 May 2024, we carried out a 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 prevention, protection and equality, diversity and inclusion, together with colleagues from their teams. On 31 May 2024, we shared our initial findings with you.
We have continued to review your progress through continued engagement, a checkpoint visit on 23 September and your presentation at the Fire Performance Oversight Group meeting on 22 October. This letter provides an update on our findings.
Governance
We again found appropriate and robust governance arrangements in place to monitor progress of your action plan. You, as chief fire officer, chair the His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) strategic improvement board meetings, which have been held regularly since December 2023.
Action plan
The service has an action plan that covers all the causes of concern. The plan identifies senior responsible officers, deadlines and people assigned to each task. It includes updates on the progress of actions made against each cause of concern and the associated recommendations. The service continues to monitor its progress against the areas for improvement we identified in our last inspection.
Progress against the causes of concern
Prevention
The service has made good progress against the remaining recommendations associated with the cause of concern. It has improved the way it identifies and prioritises those most at risk of fire and other emergencies.
Referrals are quickly triaged, added to the system and prioritised for a visit by staff. All referrals are now prioritised on a highest-risk basis rather than on a first-come, first‑served basis.
The service has started to train all firefighters and staff involved with processing referrals and is regularly assessing the quality of this work.
The key performance indicators help the service to effectively manage these changes and the impact they will have on its performance and on the public. All the recommendations have now been completed and the cause of concern is closed.
Protection
The service has made good progress in improving how its teams prioritise risk. It has used support from the National Fire Chiefs Council and other fire and rescue services to help it review its ways of working.
It has introduced a risk-based inspection programme that identifies very high-risk and high‑risk premises that should be prioritised for annual audit. The service told us in the year to September 2024, it had audited 95 percent of these premises.
The service has introduced a new role in the protection team to support how it develops training and policy and create a standardised approach. Although it has made good progress, we want to be assured that improvements are sustainable and understood and accepted by everyone in the service. We will carry out a virtual revisit to determine whether this new role and the continuation of quality assurance procedures have improved how the service manages its protection activity.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
The service has made good progress to improve the way it promotes equality, diversity and inclusion.
It now has a people and culture officer and a director of HR and organisational development. These two roles are relatively new but will help the service to focus on its work on equality, diversity and inclusion and make sure it is co-ordinated across the service’s departments.
The service has ambitious plans to further promote equality, diversity and inclusion. We look forward to seeing this promising work continue.
Conclusion
We were pleased to see the significant steps the service has taken in response to the causes of concern we issued. The action taken to address the prevention cause of concern has made sure that the service is now prioritising those most at risk of fire for a home visit. This cause of concern is closed.
We will continue to monitor the service’s progress against the remaining causes of concern in protection and fairness and diversity through regular contact and attendance at its improvement boards. And we will carry out a virtual revisit in January 2025 to examine the outcome of the changes the service has made. We will assess whether Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has made satisfactory progress with its action plan and if the service it provides to the public has improved.
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Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service: Causes of concern progress letter