Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service: Cause of concern revisit letter

Letter information

From
Roy Wilsher OBE QFSM
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services

To
Kathryn Billing
Chief Fire Officer
Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service

Sent on
22 May 2024

Background

Between March and April 2023, we inspected Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service. During our inspection, we identified a cause of concern. In September 2023, we issued the cause of concern and made the following recommendations:

On 20 October 2023, you submitted an action plan setting out how you would address the areas of concern and our recommendations.

Revisit

Between 5 and 6 March 2024, we carried out a revisit to review progress against the action plan. During the revisit we interviewed staff who were responsible for developing the plan, including you as chief fire officer. We also interviewed managers and staff with responsibility for estates, fleet, uniform and firefighting personal protective equipment (PPE), together with colleagues from their teams and service staff. On 11 March, we shared our initial findings with you. This letter provides an update on our findings.

Governance

We found appropriate and robust governance arrangements to monitor progress of your action plan.

We were pleased to note the level of scrutiny and support from the service’s parent authority, Cornwall Council. It has established a panel of council directors and department leads to provide support and challenge as the service progresses its improvement plan.

The Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee has committed to regularly monitoring progress on the improvement plan, starting from April 2024. The plan has been reported to Cornwall Council’s cabinet.

The service monitors and reports progress on its improvement plan internally through the strategic quality assurance and service leadership team meetings. The chief fire officer then reports to the neighbourhoods director and members of Cornwall Council.

These monitoring and reporting arrangements would benefit from a more structured, project management-based approach. This would allow the service to gain greater assurance that:

• the plan is progressing as expected;
• it can identify and manage risks as they emerge; and
• it can amend the timescales in the plan when new and updated information is available.

Action plan

The service has a strategic action plan that covers the cause of concern. The plan has deadlines and specific action owners. It includes summary updates on actions, a record of tasks completed, and an outline of the resources required.

The action plan is supported by detailed plans that set out how the service intends to address our recommendations. These include:

• gap analysis of station facilities against health and safety legislation and approved codes of practice;
• prioritising works on stations to improve welfare and changing facilities, and storage for firefighting PPE;
• indicative timescales for completing works on stations;
• incident welfare planning and provision; and
• arrangements for the procurement and provision of gender-appropriate workwear and PPE.

The service has started to implement a realistic improvement plan. Given the scale of the work needed, it has made reassuring progress. The service has made less progress on our recommendation to provide gender-appropriate facilities at service establishments. But this reflects the amount of preparatory work that is needed. It also reflects the complexity of the ownership, maintenance and management arrangements for the service’s buildings. In line with the requirements of the Fire and Rescue National Framework, the service should consider publishing its improvement plan on its website. This is so staff and the public can see how it is responding to our recommendations.

Staff consultation and communication

During our revisit, we assessed how the service consulted and communicated with staff about its improvement plan and proposals for change.

The service has planned a significant change programme that will affect most staff. It has communicated to staff about these changes through its staff briefings, called Sitrep, middle manager updates and chief fire officer communications. The service has focused on updating staff at stations where facilities improvements are prioritised.

We found that staff awareness and understanding of the improvement plan was mixed. Most staff we spoke to knew there was a cause of concern, but fewer were aware of the service’s plans to address this. Some staff were unaware of improvements already made. Others felt they hadn’t had the opportunity to contribute thoughts and ideas when developing improvements to their workplaces. The Sitrep updates weren’t easily accessible to all members of staff.

The service should consider taking a more proactive approach to consulting and communicating with its staff. This would improve staff understanding and support for the programme. It would also help make sure all staff know what changes the service is planning, and how they will be affected. It would give staff a chance to share their thoughts and ideas before options for change are developed.

Progress against cause of concern

The service has started work to improve station facilities

We recognise that addressing this recommendation presents the biggest challenge to the service.

There is a complex building ownership and management relationship between the service, Cornwall Council and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contractor that manages most of its establishments. It is important to make sure there remains clarity about who is responsible for the improvement work set out in the plan.

We were pleased to see that since we issued our cause of concern in September 2023, the service has completed a number of tasks towards improving facilities.

It has completed an initial assessment of its stations and developed a prioritised plan for improvements to facilities for staff. The plan focuses on the profile of staff who work at each location and to what extent the locations don’t meet health and safety requirements.

By highlighting the cause of concern, it has developed an approach to building improvements that the council and PFI contractor agree with and will support, and secured £1.3m more in capital funding from the council to support the planned improvements.

It has also commissioned architects to assess the highest-priority buildings and provide design advice about how to improve welfare facilities.

The service hasn’t yet developed interim arrangements for welfare facilities at two stations which it has determined do not meet legal requirements. Having recognised this, it should prioritise this work.

The service has made notable improvements to welfare provision for staff attending emergency incidents

Since our last inspection in March and April 2023, the service has made notable improvements in the provision and resilience of welfare support for firefighters attending emergency incidents.

It has increased the availability of welfare facilities. The main welfare vehicle is operational, and the service has bought a new trailer. This has improved the availability and resilience of welfare support arrangements for staff at emergency incidents.

There is a tiered approach to welfare provision at emergency incidents, which is determined by the number of firefighters and the length of time they spend at an incident. Critical control staff are clear about the arrangements for sending welfare support to emergency incidents and when this should happen. Most staff we spoke to knew about the changes in welfare support for emergency incidents and saw them as a positive improvement.

The service has made improvements, but more work is needed to make sure there is gender-appropriate workwear and PPE for all staff

The service has taken several steps to improve the availability of gender-appropriate workwear and PPE.

It has confirmed with its suppliers what appropriate workwear and PPE they can provide, and ordered female-fit workwear shirts from a separate supplier. These are expected to be delivered in May 2024. It has ordered extra female-fit PPE and now keeps a stock of the most commonly used sizes. This will give resilience and help it smooth supply problems.

The service is working proactively with the lead for the national PPE contract to highlight and manage delivery delays, which are increasing. It has changed its internal arrangements to take account of these delays.

It has communicated with staff about the availability and ordering arrangements for gender-appropriate workwear and PPE.

While there has been positive progress in this area, we found there are some gaps that still need to be addressed.

Not all staff had received and understood the information about how to access the full range of appropriate-fit workwear and PPE, and what is available. This was particularly true for some female firefighters.

Some female staff told us they had experienced difficulties ordering workwear and PPE. Small-sized protective gloves and boots, and maternity wear, can take a long time to be delivered.

Some staff we spoke to weren’t confident that they had received the appropriate‑sized PPE. The service should consider how it evaluates the changes it has made in this area. It should assure itself that all staff:

• have appropriately sized PPE and workwear;
• know what PPE is available to them; and
• know how to order the PPE.

Conclusion

We were pleased to see the steps the service has taken in response to the cause of concern we issued. It has developed a plan and made progress towards addressing all three of our recommendations. In some areas this is more advanced than others.

We recognise the service has now established the foundations for its facility improvements. The scale of the work and complexity of planning means the work to provide adequate, gender-appropriate facilities at all establishments will take longer to resolve.

We recognise the considerable work that has been carried out to improve the provision of welfare facilities for firefighters at emergency incidents. As a result, we now consider this recommendation to be closed.

There have been improvements in the availability of workwear and PPE. However, the service needs to do more work to make sure all staff know about this, and it is assured everyone has appropriate, suitably sized workwear and PPE.

Appropriate oversight and governance arrangements are being introduced to monitor progress on the action plan. However, a more structured project-management approach would give the service greater assurance about progress on the remaining elements of its improvement plan.

Further consultation and communication would help staff better understand the improvements the service is making, and how these affect them.

Despite good progress being made, there is still more work to be done. While the action plan is comprehensive, we can’t determine how effective it will be to address the recommendation to provide adequate, gender-appropriate facilities for staff at all service establishments.

We will return to Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service on a date to be agreed in the near future. We will assess whether the service has made satisfactory progress with its action plan.

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Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service: Cause of concern revisit letter