Hampshire and Isle of Wight 2021/22

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service is good at understanding risk.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Services merged in April 2021.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Each fire and rescue service should identify and assess all foreseeable fire and rescue-related risks that could affect its communities. Arrangements should be put in place through the service’s prevention, protection and response capabilities to prevent or mitigate these risks for the public.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service is good at identifying risk

The service has assessed an appropriate range of risks and threats after a thorough integrated risk management planning process to develop its integrated risk management plan (IRMP) 2020–25. This is called the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service safety plan. When assessing risk, it has considered relevant information collected from a broad range of internal and external sources and datasets. This includes social, financial and health data as well as information from external organisations.

When appropriate, the service has consulted and undertaken constructive dialogue with communities and others such as district councils and other emergency services to both understand the risk and explain how it intends to mitigate it. This has led to improvements such as increasing the number of service staff and resources it uses to respond to cardiac arrests.

The service has identified hard-to-reach communities to consult with which include the 27 elderly, family carers and people with disabilities.

The service has a clear and effective safety plan

After assessing relevant risks, the service has recorded its findings in an easily understood safety plan. This plan describes how prevention, protection and response activity will be resourced to reduce the risks and threats the community faces, both now and in the future. But we found parts of this plan, such as some areas of response, aren’t being well implemented.

The safety plan sets out five main priorities for the service:

• Our communities
• Our people
• Public value
• High performance
• Learning and improving.

The service regularly monitors performance and publishes a report every six months detailing performance against safety plan priorities. Performance is also reported to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Authority.

There has been some improvement in the process to assess premises risk

The service routinely collects and updates the information it has about the people, places and threats it has identified as being at greatest risk. This includes tall buildings that the service has identified as high-risk, such as those with combustible cladding, and sites that manage substances that could have significant fire and environmental impact. These are called Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) sites.

During our inspections in 2018, we identified an area for improvement in both Hampshire and Isle of Wight that they both should ensure they gather and record relevant and up-to-date risk information.

We were encouraged to find that the service has improved its approach to assess site-specific risk information, which is now managed through a dedicated risk management team. However, some of the site-specific risk information records we reviewed weren’t carried out within the time frames set by the service. This included premises identified as high-risk.

While the service has made some progress in addressing issues identified in our 2018 inspections, the area for improvement remains.

The service needs to ensure its staff read and understand risk-critical information

Risk information is readily available for the service’s prevention, protection and response staff, which helps it identify, reduce and mitigate risk effectively. For example, alerts are used on the mobile data terminals (MDTs) carried on fire engines, to tell crews about new risk information or changes to existing information. Protection and prevention staff can create and update MDT alerts through fire control when relevant risk information needs to be shared. Where appropriate, risk information is passed on to other organisations such as local authorities and enforcement partners.

Risk and safety critical information is also sent out by email or by routine notices. We found examples where staff weren’t aware of the most recent risk information. There are also no robust processes to ensure staff have read and understood this information. The service needs to put a system in place to ensure that risk information has been read and understood by its staff.

Recording and sharing of learning from incidents is still inconsistent

We found some evidence that the service learns from and acts on feedback from either local or national operational activity. For example, the service increases the number of fire engines it sends when there is a risk of arson or hoarding. The service continually updates the risk data it receives from internal or external sources.

We found the process to learn from operational incidents is inconsistently applied. As a result the service is missing the opportunity to refine its operational procedures.

There has been a good response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry

During this round of inspections, we sampled how each fire and rescue service has responded to the recommendations and learning from Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service has responded positively to learning from this tragedy and has made good progress with its Grenfell action plan. The service had assessed the risk of each high-rise building in its service area by the end of 2021.

It has carried out fire safety audits and collected and passed relevant risk information to its prevention, protection and response teams about buildings identified as high-risk and all high-rise buildings that have cladding similar to the cladding installed on Grenfell Tower. The service has also increased the number of fire engines it would send to high-rise buildings identified with similar cladding to that on Grenfell Tower.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service is good at preventing fires and other risks.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Services merged in April 2021.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Fire and rescue services must promote fire safety, including giving fire safety advice. To identify people at greatest risk from fire, services should work closely with other organisations in the public and voluntary sector, and with the police and ambulance services. They should provide intelligence and risk information with these other organisations when they identify vulnerability or exploitation.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

Safety plan risks are aligned with the prevention plan

The service’s prevention strategy is clearly linked to the risks identified in its safety plan. This includes making people safer in their own homes by identifying individual vulnerabilities, like those who are more likely to fall, and wider risks such as fuel poverty.

The service’s teams work well together and with other relevant organisations on prevention, and the service shares relevant information when needed. Information is used to adjust planning assumptions and direct activity between the service’s prevention, protection and response functions. For example, if a safe and well visit identifies risks such as hoarding or arson then alerts are created to inform operational crews.

The effect of the pandemic on prevention work has been well managed

We considered how the service had adapted its prevention work during our COVID-19-specific inspection in October 2020. At that time, we found it had adapted its public prevention work appropriately.

The prevention team continued with face-to-face, high-risk safe and well visits during lower-risk periods and used phone risk assessments during lockdown periods. Since then, we are encouraged to find that prevention work, including safe and well visits by operational crews and volunteers, is increasingly taking place in person.

The service is good at identifying those most at risk from fire

In 2019 the service evaluated safe and well to improve its approach to these visits. We found the service is good at identifying those most at risk from fire and other emergencies and has recently developed a new way of targeting its safe and well visits to areas based on risk. It uses a person-centred approach, assessing individual, behavioural and environmental factors, to determine the level of risk to a person. The service also prioritises safe and well visits where threat of arson or hoarding exists.

Community safety officers (CSOs) carry out safe and well visits for those deemed at highest risk. Medium to low-risk safe and well visits are passed to fire station crews and volunteers to complete.

The service has a well-resourced prevention team. However, we were surprised to be told during our inspection that 303 safe and well visits were overdue. The service is putting plans in place to deal with the backlog.

We also found a lack of awareness and monitoring of performance targets, such as number of safe and well visits to complete every month, especially at stations. The service should ensure any measures it puts in place to monitor safe and well performance is understood by staff.

The system to manage safe and well is paper-based, making the process slow and inefficient. Stations we visited weren’t managing their safe and well work in a consistent way. The service is aware of this and is implementing an electronic safe and well form.

When we spoke to staff at fire stations, most operational staff we spoke to had little knowledge of timescales to complete safe and well visits based on the level of risk. The service should take timely action to address this.

Quality checks of safe and well visits need improvement

Most, but not all, staff we spoke to told us they have the right skills and confidence to make safe and well visits. Operational staff complete online safe and well learning and assessment annually. CSOs get additional training in areas such as safeguarding. These visits cover an appropriate range of hazards that can put vulnerable people at greater risk from fire and other emergencies.

The safe and well files we reviewed as part of our inspection were completed to a good standard. But we found a lack of a formal process that routinely checks the quality of safe and well work. This means that the service can’t assure itself that safe and well visits are being completed to a consistent standard. Opportunities for learning that could improve service to the public are being missed.

Some of the staff we interviewed were aware of the lack of formal quality assurance of safe and well work and told us that plans were being put in place to address this which includes a role dedicated to prevention quality assurance and evaluation.

There is a good response to safeguarding concerns

Staff we interviewed told us about occasions when they had identified safeguarding problems. They told us they feel confident and trained to act appropriately and promptly.

All staff we spoke to, including on-call firefighters, had a clear understanding of the safeguarding process and what action to take. Guidance is also available through their MDTs. The service is also well represented at Hampshire and Isle of Wight safeguarding children’s and adults’ boards.

The service collaborates well with other organisations

The service works with a wide range of other organisations such as South Central Ambulance Service and housing providers to prevent fires and other emergencies. The service also uses volunteers to carry out a range of prevention work. At the time of our inspection the service told us they had 106 volunteers.

We found good evidence that it routinely refers people at greatest risk to other organisations which may be better able to meet their needs. These organisations include social care providers and safeguarding boards. Arrangements are in place to receive referrals from others such as multi-agency risk assessment conferences, which deal with high-risk domestic abuse cases. The service acts appropriately on the referrals it receives. For example, high-risk referrals are allocated to one of the service’s dedicated CSOs.

The service routinely exchanges information with other public sector organisations about people and groups at greatest risk. It uses the information to challenge planning assumptions and target prevention activity. Data-sharing arrangements are in place with other organisations such as police and local authorities to share relevant information about vulnerable individuals.

The service works effectively to deal with fire-setting behaviour

The service has a range of suitable and effective interventions to target and educate people of different ages who show signs of fire-setting behaviour. It is encouraging to find that the service attended fewer deliberate fires than the England average. For the year ending 31 December 2021, the service attended 72.2 deliberate fires per 100,000 population compared to the England rate of 117.5 per 100,000 population.

The service runs arson prevention workshops in secondary schools. The FireWise programme works one-to-one with young people who have been involved in setting fires. Service evaluation of the programme shows that, at the date of evaluation, young people who attended FireWise hadn’t set further fires.

We were pleased to find a fire investigation team in place that supports tackling arson and the prosecution of arsonists. The team has a seconded police officer and two staff who work with juveniles and adult arsonists. The team also runs a successful course with the prison service to reduce reoffending and trains other fire and rescue services in their approach to tackling fire-setting behaviour and supporting the prosecution of arsonists.

The service doesn’t know if all its prevention work is effective

We found the service doesn’t routinely evaluate how effective all of its activity is or make sure all its communities get equal access to prevention activity that meets their needs.

The service does evaluate its work with young people and fire setters to measure success. However, it doesn’t routinely evaluate other prevention activity, such as safe and well visits, to improve what it does. We also found little quality assurance of safe and well visits undertaken by operational staff. As a result, the service is still missing opportunities to improve what it provides the public.

The service does impressive work with young people

The service has a clear focus on working with young people. At the time of our inspection, there were five fire cadets schemes in place, mainly staffed by volunteers. A dedicated education team works with schools to educate pupils on fire and other safety issues.

The service has run The Prince’s Trust programme – focusing on 16 to 25-year-olds not in education, employment or training – for 20 years. It told us that over 69 percent of those attending the programme went into employment, education or volunteering, with 97 percent saying they had learned new skills and behaviours.

We found that most work with young people has been subject to evaluation. For example, The Prince’s Trust programme is self-assessed annually against the education inspection framework. The service told us this has resulted in its Prince’s Trust programme being graded as outstanding against this framework for the last three years.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at protecting the public through fire regulation.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Services merged in April 2021.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service required improvement in its 2018/19 assessment.

Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service required improvement in its 2018/19 assessment.

All fire and rescue services should assess fire risks in certain buildings and, when necessary, require building owners to comply with fire safety legislation. Each service decides how many assessments it does each year. But it must have a locally determined, risk-based inspection programme for enforcing the legislation.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service’s safety plan is clearly linked to the risk-based inspection programme

The service’s protection strategy is clearly linked to the risk it has identified in its safety plan.

Staff across the service are involved in this activity, with information effectively exchanged as needed. For example, on the same day a prohibition notice was issued on a premises by fire safety officers, an alert was created on the mobilising system to inform operational crews and emails sent to alert other relevant departments. Information is then used to adjust planning assumptions and direct activity between the service’s protection, prevention and response functions. This means resources are properly aligned to risk.

The service adapted protection work well during the pandemic

We considered how the service had adapted its protection activity during our COVID-19-specific inspection in October 2020. At that time, we found it had adapted its protection work well. Since then, we are encouraged to find that the service has fully returned to face-to-face inspections and has continued using the short audit process where appropriate.

All identified high-rise buildings have been inspected

Audits have been carried out at all high-rise buildings the service has identified as using cladding that is similar to the cladding installed on Grenfell Tower. Information gathered during these audits is made available to response teams and control operators, enabling them to respond more effectively in an emergency.

The service identified a total of 273 high-rise premises in its area. We were pleased to find that the service had visited all of them by the end of 2021.

Risk-based inspection plan targets aren’t being met

The service’s RBIP is focused on the service’s highest-risk buildings. The service uses a scoring system, based on national and local data, to determine the risk level of a building.

We were disappointed to find that the service isn’t consistently auditing the buildings it has targeted in the timescales it has set. From 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022, the service identified 1,980 premises as highest risk. This includes buildings such as care homes, high-rises and hospitals. Only 1,321 of these highest-risk buildings were audited. Most staff told us that RBIP targets weren’t being met due to a lack of qualified staff. Some protection staff we spoke to weren’t clear on what performance targets were in place for the number of audits they should be completing, or if they were being met.

We also reviewed several audit files for the service’s highest risk premises. We were told that these premises should be audited every 12 months. Worryingly, some of the records we viewed showed the time between a premises’ previous and most recent audit exceeded seven years. The service needs to do more to ensure it meets the targets set for its RBIP.

The quality of audits is inconsistent

We reviewed a range of audits of different premises across the service. This included audits as part of the service’s RBIP, after fires at premises where fire safety legislation applies, where enforcement action had been taken and at high-rise, high-risk buildings.

We were disappointed to find not all the audits we reviewed were completed in a consistent, systematic way, or in line with the service’s policies. The audit files we reviewed included post-incident inspections. Some files were missing vital information such as whether a prohibition notice had been served.

Quality assurance of audits is ineffective

Quality assurance of protection activity is limited. Some staff told us that there was no quality assurance framework. This was reflected in the files we reviewed as part of our inspection. Out of 18 records we sampled, only 5 had evidence of any quality check being done. The service should take steps to put an effective quality assurance framework in place.

The service doesn’t have good evaluation tools in place to measure its effectiveness or to make sure all sections of its communities get equal access to protection services that meet their needs.

Levels of enforcement activity are falling

The service doesn’t use its full range of enforcement powers consistently. We found limited activity to prosecute those who don’t comply with fire safety regulations. For example, data shows that the service only decided to prosecute twice between 2018/19 and 2020/21.

In the year to 31 March 2019, Hampshire and Isle of Wight issued a combined total of 94 informal notifications, 2 enforcement notices, 16 prohibition notices and 16 alteration notices. However, in the year to 31 March 2021, Hampshire and Isle of Wight issued a combined total of 15 informal notices, 8 enforcement notices, 0 alteration notices and 2 prohibition notices, and undertook 2 prosecutions. The pandemic may explain some of the difference.

However, some staff we spoke to during our inspection told us that lack of qualified staff was one of the reasons for the lack of enforcement activity. The service should ensure it makes more use of its enforcement powers to both safeguard the public and reduce risk.

The service offers access to 24/7 fire safety advice to meet a range of dangerous conditions out of hours.

The service shows a continued commitment to improve resources for protection

It is encouraging to see the service has increased the number of protection staff. As at 31 March 2022, there were 34 protection staff compared to 32 staff as at 31 March 2019.

However, the number of staff who are fully qualified to undertake the range of protection auditing and enforcement activity has fallen. As at 31 March 2022, 12 protection staff were fully qualified, compared to 29 staff as at 31 March 2019. Most staff told us that RBIP targets weren’t being met due to a lack of qualified staff. We found a small number of audit files we inspected weren’t completed by staff with the appropriate level of qualification.

The service is aware of this issue. As at 31 March 2022 there were 22 protection staff working towards the appropriate accreditation. The service’s external training provider also has a lack of capacity to train the protection staff it needs, though the service has a plan in place to address this.

The service works well with other enforcement partners

The service works closely with other enforcement agencies to regulate fire safety and routinely exchanges risk information with them. For example, the service works with the Care Quality Commission to hold joint fire safety training events. The service also works closely with local authorities, especially in relation to high-rise buildings. We were told that in some cases the service will make direct contact about fire safety matters with those who are applying for licences to assist licensing partners.

The response to statutory consultation could be further improved

The service could make further improvement on the time it takes to respond to building consultations to meet its responsibility to comment on fire safety arrangements at new and altered buildings. In the year ending 31 March 2022, the service received requests for 1,876 building consultations and responded to 1,795 (95.7 percent) within the time frame set. For the same period, 760 licensing consultations were received and 673 (88.6 percent) were responded to on time.

The service enjoys a high level of support and engagement with business

The service engages with local businesses and other organisations to promote compliance with fire safety legislation. Comprehensive information for businesses is provided on the service website. Monthly online webinars are held on fire safety and compliance with legislation.

We are encouraged to see the service has continued to grow its primary authority scheme. This allows businesses and organisations with premises in more than one fire authority area to receive fire safety advice from a single fire service. The service recovers the full cost of this service from the businesses it supports.

When we first inspected both Hampshire and Isle of Wight as separate services in 2018, there were 30 of these schemes in place. Primary authority staff told us this has now grown to 51 schemes.

Members of the primary authority team are working as part of a national programme to help other fire and rescue services set up their own schemes.

More work needs to be done to reduce unwanted fire signals

Only limited action is being taken to reduce the number of unwanted fire signals. Most staff we spoke to couldn’t identify specific work taking place. Some told us that little had changed since our last inspection and it was unclear who was responsible for reducing unwanted fire signals.

In the year to 31 March 2021, the service received 33,550 emergency calls. Of these, 16.3 percent (5,474) were automatic fire alarm calls (AFAs). The service attended 66.1 percent (3,620) of these AFA requests.

In the year to 31 March 2022, the service received 33,981 emergency calls. Of these, 18.8 percent (6,372) were AFAs. The service attended 68.2 percent (4,343) of AFA requests in 2021/22.

This means that fire engines may be unavailable to respond to genuine incidents because they are attending false alarms. It also creates a risk to the public if more fire engines travel at high speed on roads to respond to these incidents. The service should put an effective plan in place that reduces the number of false alarms.

Fire control operators follow national practice in relation to challenging and filtering attendance at AFAs. However, the service acknowledges that it still attends commercial premises during the day if the cause of the alarm is unknown and has plans in place to address this.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service is good at responding to fires and other emergencies.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Services merged in April 2021.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Fire and rescue services must be able to respond to a range of incidents such as fires, road traffic collisions and other emergencies in their area.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service isn’t meeting all the standards it has set itself

The service’s response strategy isn’t always clearly linked to all the risks identified in its safety plan. For example, the service isn’t maintaining the availability of its fire engines, especially on-call. Its resourcing model also isn’t meeting the standards it has set itself and target response times published in the safety plan aren’t being met.

Despite this, we found that the service has taken action to address some safety plan risks. For example, it has moved two additional appliances to the Isle of Wight to improve resilience in responding to larger incidents. The service has also increased its response to high-rise buildings.

Attendance times are faster than average but the service doesn’t always meet the standards it sets itself

There are no national response standards of performance for the public. But the service has set out its own response standards, excluding call handling time. As at 31 March 2022, these were:

• a fire engine in attendance in Hampshire within 8 minutes, 80 percent of the time where there is risk to life or property (critical response);
• a fire engine in attendance in Isle of Wight within 10 minutes, 80 percent of the time where there is risk to life or property (critical response);
• a fire engine in attendance in Hampshire and Isle of Wight within 15 minutes, 100 percent of the time where there is no apparent threat to life (non-critical response); and
• all other incidents requiring a response will be attended within 60 minutes, 100 percent of the time.

The service doesn’t always meet these standards. In the year to 31 March 2022, service performance data shows that the 8-minute response time set for critical incidents in Hampshire was only met 63.4 percent of the time. The Isle of Wight 10-minute critical response target was met 72.9 percent of the time. Non-critical and other incidents were attended 93.7 percent and 100 percent respectively within the target time. The service safety plan commits to reviewing these standards.

As a result of the combination the Home Office has reclassified the combined service as significantly rural. Hampshire was previously classified as significantly urban and Isle of Wight significantly rural.

Home Office data now shows that in the year to 31 December 2021, the service’s response time to primary fires was 9 minutes and 19 seconds which is faster than the average for significantly rural services.

On-call availability remains a significant challenge

It is disappointing to find the service isn’t consistently maintaining good levels of available fire engines. For the year ending 31 March 2022 overall fire engine availability for the service was 69.0 percent. Wholetime fire engines maintained 89.3 percent availability and on-call fire engines only maintained 62.4 percent availability.

The service is aware of the problems it is facing with fire engine availability, especially for its on-call stations. It intends to address this through its on-call ways of working project. The service is also planning to change the way it mobilises resources to incidents based on the number of firefighters available rather than number of fire engines.

In our first inspections in 2018, when they were separate services, Hampshire planned to respond to incidents using vehicles and number of firefighters better suited to the situation. This included the use of smaller first response vehicles crewed by two firefighters. Isle of Wight was sending the same number of firefighters to every incident irrespective of how urgent the incident was.

During our inspection we found elements of the flexible response model, such as using first response vehicles, weren’t in place. The Isle of Wight is still responding with the same number of firefighters to all incidents. We also found that operational equipment and response to incidents isn’t the same on the Isle of Wight as they are in Hampshire. The service is aware of this and is taking a phased approach in order to align operational equipment.

The service has 84 fire engines available. It told us that it needs a minimum of 52 available fire engines to maintain business as usual; 45 in Hampshire and 7 on the Isle of Wight. When faced with reduced levels of available fire engines, the service manages fire cover through a degradation plan.

During our inspection fire control staff told us there are times when they are managing fire cover through this plan at a level of 40 or less available fire engines.

Slow progress in implementing national operational guidance

Service progress has been slow in applying national operational guidance to its policies and procedures. We were told some of the reasons for this was slow implementation of national operational guidance procedures into training for operational staff. Work to align national operational guidance and procedures across other services which are part of the Networked Fire Services Partnership had also slowed progress.

The service has put in place dedicated resources to progress its plans to implement national operational guidance.

Incident commanders are well trained

The service has trained incident commanders who are assessed regularly and properly. As of 31 March 2022, all of the 440 incident commanders the service requires were accredited. This helps the service to safely, assertively and effectively manage the whole range of incidents that it could face, from small and routine ones to complex multi-agency incidents.

As part of our inspection, we interviewed incident commanders throughout the service. The incident commanders we interviewed are familiar with risk assessing, decision-making and recording information at incidents in line with national best practice, as well as the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

Control staff should be more involved in service exercises

We are disappointed to find that the service’s control staff aren’t always included in the service’s command, training, exercise, debrief and assurance activity. Some control staff had taken part in a high-rise exercise in October 2021, however, most staff we spoke to told us they have had little or no involvement in service exercises. The service should ensure that where appropriate control staff are routinely involved in service exercises.

Control staff are well positioned to handle multiple fire survival calls

The service’s partnership with both Devon and Somerset and Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Services means these services can take emergency calls and mobilise each other’s resources if necessary. The control room staff we interviewed are confident they could provide fire survival guidance to many callers simultaneously. This was identified as learning for fire services after the Grenfell Tower fire.

Control has good systems in place including a dedicated communications link between control and the staff on the ground at an incident, to exchange real-time risk information with incident commanders, other responding partners, such as police and ambulance services, and other supporting fire and rescue services. Some control staff we spoke to told us they would like to undertake more exercising to test these procedures. Maintaining good situational awareness helps the service communicate effectively with the public, providing them with accurate and tailored advice.

Operational staff can easily access risk information

We sampled a range of risk information including what is in place for firefighters responding to incidents at high-risk, high-rise buildings and what information is held by fire control. This also included information about temporary risks.

Most of the information we reviewed was up to date and detailed. It could be easily accessed and understood by staff. Encouragingly, it had been completed with input from the service’s prevention, protection and response functions when appropriate.

Operational staff can access the same risk information as control through their MDTs, although we were surprised to find that not all MDTs in fire engines had access to car crash rescue data.

Alerts on the MDT are used to highlight specific risks or changes in risk. Risk information is also sent out by email or through routine notices, although we found a robust process wasn’t in place to ensure staff read and understand them.

Cross-border exercise plans could be improved

The service doesn’t have a cross-border exercise programme or central oversight of what cross-border exercising is taking place. Instead, it is left to local operational managers to arrange these exercises.

Some staff we spoke to told us that few exercises were held with neighbouring services. Of the respondents to our survey, 81 percent (148 out of 183) told us they hadn’t participated in training with neighbouring services in the last 12 months. And 25 percent of respondents (46 out of 183) didn’t think the service was fully intraoperable with neighbouring services.

In the year to 31 March 2022 the service held 20 exercises with neighbouring services, compared to 59 exercises in the previous year. The service should ensure it participates in and maintains a programme of cross-border exercises.

Processes to evaluate and share operational learning require significant improvement

The service doesn’t always act on learning it has, or should have, identified from incidents. This could mean it isn’t routinely improving its service to the public.

For example, the service has developed a learning tool which staff can use to feed back any lessons they identify to a central team. However, it is left to individuals to determine what is learning and whether it should be submitted. This approach isn’t working.

We also reviewed a range of emergency incidents and training events which included fires in high-rise buildings and a care home. It was worrying to find that out of the 11 emergency files we reviewed, 10 had no formal learning recorded. One file contained some significant feedback from an incident. However, there was no record of this being identified as formal learning or being shared. The service has acknowledged that the debrief process needs to be improved.

The service does contribute to and act on learning from other fire and rescue services or operational learning gathered from other emergency service partners. This learning is collected and shared through the organisation by the service’s operational assurance team.

The service should ensure it has an effective system for staff to use learning and debriefs to improve operational response and incident command.

The service communicates effectively with the public about incidents

The service has good systems in place to inform the public about ongoing incidents and help keep them safe during and after incidents. The service has a dedicated communications team and incidents and updates are relayed to the public through social media and the service website. We spoke to partners who told us that the service’s communications team provided support on public safety messages including the promotion and importance of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service is good at responding to major and multi-agency incidents.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Services merged in April 2021.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

All fire and rescue services must be able to respond effectively to multi-agency and cross-border incidents. This means working with other fire and rescue services (known as intraoperability) and emergency services (known as interoperability).

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service is well prepared for major and multi-agency incidents

The service has effectively anticipated and considered the reasonably foreseeable risks and threats it may face. These risks are listed in both local and national risk registers as part of its safety plan. For example, the service has plans to deal with wide-area flooding and pandemic flu.

It is also familiar with the significant risks that could be faced by neighbouring fire and rescue services that it might reasonably be asked to respond to in an emergency, including responding to COMAH sites.

Firefighters have access to risk information from neighbouring services. The service has the same mobilising system as Dorset and Wiltshire and Devon and Somerset services and has access to their risk information. Other neighbouring services share risk information 10 km from their border through the ResilienceDirect website. However, not all staff we spoke to were aware of how they would access this information. The service should ensure that operational staff are aware of how they can access cross-border risk information.

Good arrangements are in place for major incident response

We reviewed the arrangements the service has in place to respond to different major incidents, including wide-area flooding and high-risk COMAH sites. The service has good arrangements in place, which are well understood by staff. For example, the service’s medical response function provided good support in responding to the pandemic.

The service has specially trained staff to respond to marauding terrorist attacks incidents. It has also rolled out the most up-to-date marauding terrorist attack training to all non-specialist responding staff.

The service works well with other fire services

The service supports other fire and rescue services responding to emergency incidents. For example, as part of the partnership it has with Dorset and Wiltshire and Devon and Somerset, the service can mobilise resources to incidents in the areas covered by these services. There are arrangements in place and it is intraoperable with these services to form part of a multi-agency response.

The service understands how it deploys to other services if needed. The service holds various national resilience assets including high-volume pumps. There is a clear understanding of how to request and use national assets.

The service should do more training exercises with other agencies

Some operational staff we spoke to during our inspection told us they didn’t take part in enough training exercises with other agencies. This was also reflected in our staff survey. Of those who responded, 62 percent (114 out of 183) said they hadn’t taken part in training with other agencies over the past 12 months. Figures from the service show that 2 national resilience exercises took place in the year ending 31 March 2022 compared to 17 in the previous year. Multi-agency exercising also reduced. In the year ending 31 March 2022 there were 3 exercises, compared to 31 exercises in the previous year.

Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles are well established

The incident commanders we interviewed had been trained in and were familiar with JESIP.

The service could provide us with strong evidence that it consistently follows these principles. This includes clear understanding of JESIP principles for all levels of command qualifications and training for local resilience forum (LRF) partners that covers JESIP principles.

The service works well with and supports other partners

The service has good arrangements in place to respond to emergencies with other partners that make up the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Resilience Forum. These arrangements include multi-agency response plans to COMAH sites and flooding.

The service is a valued partner and active member of the LRF. It is represented at all levels, with the chief fire officer being deputy chair. The LRF arranges regular training events, such as tabletop exercises with other members of the LRF which the service is part of. Learning is then used to develop planning assumptions about responding to major and multi-agency incidents.

The service supports South Central Ambulance Service through its medical response and co-responding activity. Service figures show there were 5,522 requests for medical response received by the service in 2021/22.

We were impressed to find that when South Central Ambulance Service declared a critical incident on 6 April 2022, the service provided additional support by driving ambulances, responding to cardiac arrests and giving extra assistance from its co-responding resources. The service used some of its fire stations as COVID-19 vaccination clinics. This included a mass vaccination centre at Basingstoke Fire Station which gave over 150,000 vaccinations.

The service keeps up to date with national learning

The service keeps itself up to date with national operational learning updates from other fire services and joint operational learning from other organisations, such as the police service and ambulance trusts. This learning is used to inform planning assumptions that have been made with other partners.