Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service: Return to default phase of monitoring
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Letter information
From:
Roy Wilsher OBE QFSM
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services
To:
Louise Harrison
Chief Fire Officer
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service
Sent on:
7 March 2025
In January 2025, we revisited Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. I am pleased to let you know that His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, Sir Andy Cooke, has decided to return the service to our default phase of monitoring, which is known as Scan. This decision is supported by the fact we have been able to close the causes of concern.
Background
On 22 November 2023, we moved Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service into our enhanced monitoring process, Engage. In Engage, we provide additional accountability and support to services when there are causes of concern about their efficiency, effectiveness or people that appear to need closer scrutiny.
We moved Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service into Engage after we identified fundamental issues with its progress in improving equality, diversity and inclusion and how it identifies and prioritises those at risk from fire. We also had concerns that the service didn’t have the capacity and capability to make the required improvements.
Between May and June 2023, we inspected Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service in our Round 3 programme of inspections. During this inspection, we identified that the causes of concern relating to prevention and equality, diversity and inclusion hadn’t been fully addressed. These causes of concern had been issued after our previous inspection in 2021. We also identified a new cause of concern about the service’s protection activity.
On 8 November 2024, we closed the cause of concern relating to prevention as the service had worked hard to address all the recommendations. For the remaining causes of concern we made the following recommendations in our 2023 inspection report:
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.
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.
On 15 November 2023, you submitted an action plan setting out how you would address the causes of concern and our recommendations. We carried out a revisit to review progress against all three causes of concern in May and September 2024.
Between 12 and 17 January 2025, we carried out a further revisit to review progress against the remaining two causes of concern. During the revisit, we interviewed staff who were responsible for implementing this plan, including you as chief fire officer. We also reviewed documents, data and the service’s systems and spoke with staff in a focus group. This letter provides an update on our findings.
Governance
We found appropriate and robust governance arrangements in place to monitor progress of your action plan. As chief fire officer, you continue to chair His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service’s strategic improvement board meetings. You have held these regularly since December 2023.
You have also made changes to your internal governance structure. This includes a culture board to monitor and oversee the service’s progress in improving its culture, fairness and diversity.
Action plan
The service has an action plan that covers all the causes of concern and the areas for improvement. It details the actions against our recommendations from both the service’s own report and our thematic inspection on standards of behaviour.
The action plan identifies senior responsible officers, deadlines and the 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 also continues to monitor its progress against the areas for improvement we identified in our 2023 inspection.
Progress against causes of concern
Equality, diversity and inclusion
The service has made good progress to improve the way it promotes equality, diversity and inclusion. Staff felt this has had a positive effect on the service’s culture and working environment.
It has also recruited a people and culture officer and a director of people and organisational development. Staff in these roles have helped the service to focus its work on equality, diversity and inclusion. They also make sure the work is co-ordinated across the service’s departments. As part of this, staff spoke positively about the service’s first staff networks. There has also been an increase in the diversity of its latest firefighter recruitment.
The service has a behavioural and leadership framework in place and it is providing training in how to challenge inappropriate behaviours. It uses feedback from staff to make improvement plans for station facilities. Facilities include changing and sleeping areas.
The service has ambitious plans to further promote equality, diversity and inclusion using the data it is collecting. It is using new ways to communicate with staff including through the development of the staff networks, staff blogs and a wider range of events to celebrate national awareness days.
We are pleased with the progress the service has made in addressing our recommendations on equality, diversity and inclusion. We will continue to pay an interest in this work and look forward to seeing the effect when we next inspect the service. We have now closed this cause of concern.
Protection
The service has made good progress in improving how its teams prioritise risk. It has further revised its risk-based inspection programme so that it identifies very high-risk and high-risk premises that should be prioritised for regular audit.
The service continues to monitor the completion of audits through its performance management structure and is on track to meet its targets. It has also made improvements to the systems and processes for recording its activity. This is to make sure that staff identify and prioritise the highest-risk premises for audit.
The service has introduced a new role in the protection team to support the development of training and policy. It has also recruited new business engagement apprentices to help with this and to effectively provide advice and guidance to businesses. This action also supports the service to prioritise its protection activity.
During our revisit we reviewed the service’s improvements to quality assurance procedures. These improvements have helped it to manage its protection activity. Through staff feedback, the service has identified and provided additional training. Holding regular protection manager meetings helps the service to be flexible in the way its staff complete protection activities. These also help the service to balance proactive and reactive workloads.
We are pleased with the progress the service has made and it now provides clear direction to its protection teams. We are confident that staff accept the improvements and that these will be sustained. We look forward to seeing the service maintain this approach during its next full inspection. The service has addressed all the protection recommendations and we have now closed this cause of concern.
Conclusion
We were pleased to see the significant steps the service has taken in response to the causes of concern we issued. The service has taken action to address the protection cause of concern. The result of this is that it now prioritises premises most at risk of fire for a fire safety audit. We have now closed this cause of concern.
The service has also worked hard to address our recommendations on equality, diversity and inclusion. We have now closed this cause of concern.
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue service has returned to Scan, our default phase of monitoring, with immediate effect. The service should continue to make sure that it is progressing in its areas for improvement and that it sustains the positive effect of its hard work.
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Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service: Return to default phase of monitoring