Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Barnaby Briggs (Assistant Chief Fire Officer). He stated that although the report was collated and compiled by Warwickshire County Council’s business information team, it was also reliant on nationally-obtained data from other sources and the quality of the data could not be verified by the team. Barnaby Briggs said the report reinforced the value of the prevention strategy, and this was reflected in the relatively low number of incidents the Fire and Rescue Service was called to. The prevention strategy applied to service control, where callers would be challenged to see if a fire crew needed to be dispatched. Warwickshire was the best performing fire service per capita in relation to accidental house fires.

It was noted there had been a rise in the number of fire-related deaths, which was attributed to an increase in the number of people using this method to commit suicide. Barnaby Briggs said the Fire and Rescue Service was working with other agencies to identify at-risk people; however there was little preventative work that could be done if someone came from outside the county with the intention of committing suicide. The highest level of risk came from road traffic collisions. Barnaby Briggs said this was the most significant outlier, and reasons for this were contained within the report. The Chair noted there would be a disproportionately high number of road traffic collisions in the county because of the amount of motorway.

Councillor Gilbert said WFRS was a resilient service that faced many challenges, and was a fantastic resource. Councillor Daniell noted that WFRS had been the first emergency service to respond when Councillor Redford had been taken ill the previous day.

Councillor Daniell asked what work was being undertaken in relation to reviews of business premises. Barnaby Briggs said a previous government had undertaken to reduce fire protection inspections of business premises being carried out by Fire and Rescue Services. When this decision was reversed, there were limited numbers of trained inspection officers. The situation was compounded by Covid delaying officer training. However the situation had now improved and officers had been suitably well trained that they were able to make a solo inspection; until now inspections had been carried out by more than one officer. This was helping to clear the backlog of required inspections.

Members noted the contents of the report, and stated they had full confidence in WFRS to protect residents.