Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service: Accelerated cause of concern
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Introduction
In our inspections, if we identify a more serious, critical or systemic shortcoming in a service’s practice, policy or performance, we will report it as a cause of concern. A cause of concern will always be accompanied by one or more recommendations. When we identify causes of concern during our inspections, we normally provide details in the subsequent service report.
In some cases, such as where we discover significant service failures or risks to public safety, we can report our concerns and recommendations earlier. This is called an accelerated cause of concern.
We have issued an accelerated cause of concern to Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service because its prevention activity is not effective enough.
Cause of concern
Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service should review how it carries out its prevention activity
Prevention activity isn’t a sufficiently high priority for the service. The service should implement a robust and consistent method of identifying risk and vulnerability. It should detail how it will prioritise home fire safety checks to those most at risk and make sure the checks are completed in a timely manner.
Recommendations
Within 28 days, the service should develop an action plan to make sure:
- it develops and implements a prevention strategy that prioritises people most at risk of fire and that any work it carries out to reduce risk is proportionate;
- it creates a robust system to effectively and consistently define the levels of risk in the community;
- it creates and maintains clear timeframes relative to risk;
- it provides training to staff and raises their awareness so they fully understand their role in prevention; and
- its prevention department has enough resources to carry out all its prevention activity, and it reviews whether wholetime and on-call firefighters can offer more capacity to prevention.
This notification of an accelerated cause of concern constitutes a report under section 28B of Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.
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Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service: Accelerated cause of concern