Issue - meetings

The report is attached.

Barnaby Briggs (Assistant Chief Fire Officer) provided a summary of the report which was orientated to benchmark the performance of Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service (WFRS) against the other 43 Fire and Rescue Services in England.

Barnaby Briggs advised that a National Audit Review process was no longer in place, therefore it was not possible to guarantee that all Fire and Rescue Services were recording data in the same way. However, he stated that the report still represented a good indicator of performance.

In response to Councillor Redford, Barnaby Briggs advised that in cases where a faulty electrical device was found to be the cause of a fire, details were passed on to a national agency. This data was collated to enable manufacturers to be held accountable for fire-prone equipment.

In response to Councillor Redford, Kieran Amos (Chief Fire Officer) advised that the ‘Hospital to Home’ scheme had been expanded to cover all three of the County’s major hospitals. The scheme had proved to be an asset during the pandemic and presented opportunities to WFRS to expand its range of community services.

Kieran Amos advised that the ‘Fire Fit’ campaign had proved to be an effective means of community engagement to promote fitness and wellbeing. He added that WFRS provided opportunities to young people to enable them to gain an accredited qualification in physical training and health.

In response to Councillor Reilly, Kieran Amos stated that WFRS benefitted from its status as a County Council Fire and Rescue Service. By working in partnership with colleagues in Adult Social Care, Public Health, as well as Warwickshire Police and the Safer Warwickshire Partnership Board, WFRS could continue to build upon the quality of services it had delivered to date.

In response to Councillor O’Rourke, Barnaby Briggs advised that monitoring of long-term outputs provided scope to measure the success of prevention initiatives. For example, Home Fire Safety checks had been implemented around 25 years ago with an aspiration to lower incidence rates of primary fires; it was apparent that this approach had delivered benefits.

In response to Councillor O’Rourke, Kieran Amos advised that he foresaw challenges ahead for WFRS in the areas of climate change, economy, and levelling-up. WFRS would benefit from its status as a County Council Fire and Rescue Service to address these issues by working collectively with other service areas.

Kieran Amos advised that there were opportunities for WFRS to flex its service to provide capacity in support of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, if required. This could include providing transport for vulnerable or elderly people who might otherwise struggle to reach a vaccination centre.

Resolved:

That the Committee notes the content of the report.