Hertfordshire 2021/22

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service is good at promoting the right values and culture.

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

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

Senior leaders consistently model service values

The service has well-defined values that are understood by most staff. Of staff who responded to our survey, 92 percent (225 out of 245) were aware of the service’s statement of values. Behaviours that reflect service values are shown at all levels of the service and in different staff groups. Some on-call staff were aware of the existence of the service values, but not all knew what they were or understood what they mean. Work is in hand to implement the new national Core Code of Ethics, and this can be found in the new appraisal system that the service is implementing.

Senior leaders act as role models and consistently show the expected values and behaviours. There have been significant changes at senior level, and most staff reported that they had confidence in the people that were in those positions. Of the people who responded to our survey, 68 percent (154 out of 225) agreed or tended to agree that senior leaders consistently model and maintain service values.

Some staff reported that the visibility of senior leaders could be better. We found that there is a detailed schedule of senior leader visits to 71 work locations and teams that the service aims to carry out each year.

There is a positive working culture throughout most of the service, with staff empowered and willing to challenge poor behaviours when they encounter them.

The exception is in fire control, where there are continuing negative behaviours. This has had a significant effect on people who work in fire control, for example, discouraging staff from applying for promotion, and affecting well-being. The service told us it will provide a range of measures to support staff and to resolve these issues.

The service promotes mental and physical health and well-being

The service has well understood and effective well-being policies in place that are available to staff. A range of well-being support is available to support both physical and mental health. For example, there is an in-house occupational health service where staff have access to support such as trauma risk management and other mental health services. The service offers toolkits for managers, and has web pages dedicated to specific health topics on the health and well-being section of its intranet.

The service uses the national firefighter fitness standard, with fitness tests carried out annually. There is good support for staff, including a service fitness advisor. In 2020/21, 77.4 percent of firefighters completed a physical fitness test. No firefighters failed their tests.

There are good provisions in place to promote staff well-being. Eighty percent (197 out of 245) of survey respondents told us they have a conversation about their health and well-being with their manager at least once a year. And 94 percent (231 out of 245) of respondents told us they can access services to support their mental well-being.

The service has good health and safety policies but needs to better monitor staff working hours

The service continues to have effective and well understood health and safety policies and procedures in place. Accidents and near misses are tracked and monitored, with learning shared with staff. Health and safety is well scrutinised and ways of reporting are in place, including a quarterly committee meeting and regional comparisons.

These policies and procedures are readily available and effectively promoted to all staff. Staff have confidence in the health and safety approach taken by the service. For example, 96 percent (234 out of 245) of survey respondents told us they have appropriate and properly fitting personal protective equipment they need to do their job safely.

The service doesn’t effectively monitor staff who have secondary employment or dual contracts to make sure they comply with the secondary employment policy and don’t work excessive hours. We found 15.5 percent of all firefighters had a dual contract with the service as at March 2021, while 1.4 percent of all firefighters had a dual contract with a different fire and rescue service, and 32.2 percent of all firefighters were reported to have secondary external employment. We found local managers were aware of the secondary employment policy. But we aren’t confident the service can be sure all staff are well rested and adhering to The Working Time Regulations 1998.

The service has well understood absence management procedures

As part of our inspection, we reviewed some case files to consider how the service manages and supports staff through absence including sickness, parental and special leave.

We found there are clear processes in place to manage absences for all staff. There is clear guidance for managers, who are confident in the process. Absences are managed well and in accordance with policy. We also found that staff felt they were well managed when absent.

Absence cases are regularly monitored and reviewed by the service. There is a monthly meeting with HR and managers to assess trends, with oversight from senior leaders.

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service is good at getting the right people with the right skills.

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

Fire and rescue services should have a workforce plan in place that is linked to their integrated risk management plans (IRMPs), sets out their current and future skills requirements and addresses capability gaps. They should supplement this with a culture of continuous improvement that includes appropriate learning and development throughout the service.

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

Workforce planning has improved

The service has improved its workforce planning since the last inspection. There is now a people strategy which incorporates the workforce plan and assumptions for the year ahead. This makes sure skills and capabilities align with what is needed to effectively deliver the IRMP.

Workforce and succession planning is subject to consistent scrutiny in the form of regular meetings to discuss requirements. Planning is reported to the senior executive board twice a year for scrutiny and to agree the necessary recruitment.

The service is continuing to rely on overtime to cover vacancies. Pre-arranged overtime spend per head of workforce was £715.48 in 2020/21. This was higher than the England average of £621.88. The service is addressing this by continuing to recruit firefighters.

The service monitors staff competence through the maintenance of competence system, which is used to plan and record training. It regularly updates its understanding of staff’s skills and risk-critical safety capabilities through an annual training-needs analysis, to establish what is needed for response for the year ahead. This approach means the service can identify gaps in response workforce capabilities and resilience and can make sound and financially sustainable decisions about current and future needs.

The service’s training plans make sure they can maintain competence and capability effectively. Risk-critical training such as safely wearing breathing apparatus and maintaining driving competency is consistently carried out and recorded.

Most staff told us that they could access the training they need to be effective in their role. But there was a lack of recording of training for fire control staff, including for many important skills such as call handling, mobilising over the border, fire survival guidance and evacuation procedures.

Some on-call staff told us that the maintenance of competence system doesn’t meet their needs. Other on-call staff told us that they needed more time to understand the system. This area for improvement from our last inspection remains.

The service has a culture of learning and improvement

We are pleased to see that the service has a range of resources in place. These include regular learning notes and online workshops. Most staff told us that they can access a range of learning and development resources from both the council and the service. This allows them to do their job effectively.

A culture of continuous improvement is promoted throughout the service and staff are encouraged to learn and develop. For example, the service has introduced a consistent approach to providing training for all staff in EDI, and health and safety. Much of this is mandatory for staff, and particularly managers. The records that we reviewed had good completion rates.

Flexi-duty officers continually develop through training events within their rota groups. They are also regularly involved in exercises and working with other agencies, including the police and ambulance services.

Non-operational staff also have access to development opportunities. But we found staff had mixed experiences. They told us access to opportunities generally depends on line manager support and understanding of their role.

Since the last inspection the service has carried out some evaluation of activities to support learning and development. This includes evaluating recruitment data to improve positive action and evaluating communications to improve future campaigns.

The service could improve the timeliness of its training for new equipment and new technology. For example, some staff reported that training for the new on-call availability system took place after it was introduced.

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at ensuring fairness and promoting diversity.

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

Creating a more representative workforce will provide huge benefits for fire and rescue services. This includes greater access to talent and different ways of thinking, and improved understanding of and engagement with their local communities. Each service should make sure equality, diversity and inclusion are firmly understood and demonstrated throughout the organisation. This includes successfully taking steps to remove inequality and making progress to improve fairness, diversity and inclusion at all levels of the service. It should proactively seek and respond to feedback from staff and make sure any action taken is meaningful.

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

The service should improve how it seeks and acts on staff feedback and challenge

Although the service has some means of gathering staff feedback, they aren’t consistent or wide ranging. For example, the service has few staff network groups. Some staff told us that the service needs to improve its feedback and consultation with all people who have protected characteristics.

Staff also told us they have limited confidence in the service’s feedback systems and don’t think they are effective. The service reported a return rate of 38 percent from their own staff survey. Some on-call staff couldn’t complete the survey because of problems accessing it.

Of staff who responded to our staff survey, 39 percent (96 out of 245) said they don’t feel confident in the systems for providing feedback to all levels. And 37 percent (90 out of 245) of staff feel that they can’t challenge ideas without any detriment to how they would be treated afterwards. Therefore, the area for improvement from our last inspection remains.

The service must do more to tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination

We found that staff lack confidence in how the service deals with disciplinary investigations and grievances. We also heard that poor behaviours aren’t always challenged.

In our survey, 12 percent (30 out of 245) of respondents told us they have felt bullied or harassed at work in the last 12 months, and 13 percent (33 out of 245) of respondents told us they have felt discriminated against at work in the last 12 months. The main reasons for staff not reporting this behaviour are due to believing that nothing would happen, or because they were concerned about being labelled as a troublemaker.

Although the service has clear policies and procedures in place, staff have limited confidence in its ability to deal effectively with cases of bullying, harassment and discrimination, grievances and discipline. The time it takes for the service to resolve cases is also having a negative effect on staff.

The service needs to do more to address disproportionality in recruitment

The service needs to do more to make sure its recruitment processes are fair and accessible to applicants from a range of backgrounds. Recruitment campaigns have been directed at under-represented groups and are easier to access. And it has carried out work on gender decoding, rewording of adverts and selecting appropriate imagery. But the service isn’t seeing meaningful change in this area to increase the diversity of its workforce.

More is needed to increase staff diversity. The proportion of firefighters that were from an ethnic minority group has increased from 2.7 percent in 2017/18 to 3.6 percent in 2020/21. This was due to a small increase in the number of firefighters from an ethnic minority background, and little change to the number of white firefighters. Similarly, the proportion of female firefighters has increased from 4.9 percent to 6.0 percent over the same time, due to a small increase in the number of female firefighters, with little change to the number of male firefighters in the service.

But there has been little progress to improve either ethnic minority representation or gender diversity for all staff in the service. For the whole workforce, at 31 March 2021, 3.5 percent are from an ethnic minority background and 18.7 percent are women. The England average is 5.3 percent from an ethnic minority background and 17.9 percent women.

The service needs to encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds into middle and senior-level positions and make the most of opportunities to make its workforce more representative.

The service must keep improving its approach to equality, diversity and inclusion

The service has improved its approach to EDI and is working to make sure it can offer the right services to its communities and support staff with protected characteristics. The service has an equalities work plan to support the people strategy.

It has improved the way it carries out EIAs. Recent EIAs, such as for the performance and development process and for the latest wholetime recruitment process, are detailed. The service acts as needed to improve equality and there is good support available for people completing the EIAs. But the service still has many existing policies and procedures that haven’t been assessed for equality impact in the same way. As such, the area for improvement from our last inspection remains.

The service could make better use of its staff networks to understand the needs of staff, and make sure that there are support groups for all.

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service is good at managing performance and developing leaders.

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

Fire and rescue services should have robust and meaningful performance management arrangements in place for their staff. All staff should be supported to meet their potential and there should be a focus on developing high-potential staff and improving diversity in leadership roles.

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 managing individuals’ performance

There is a good performance management system in place which allows the service to effectively develop and assess the individual performance of all staff. Having reviewed this system, the service is introducing a new performance and development process. This moves towards more of an ‘ongoing conversation’ approach, which aligns with the national Core Code of Ethics.

Through our staff survey, most staff reported that they have regular discussions with their manager and that they were meaningful. Ninety-six percent (235 out of 245) of staff survey respondents told us that they have a conversation about their performance with their manager at least once a year. Each staff member has individual goals and objectives, and regular assessments of performance. Staff feel confident in the performance and development arrangements that are in place, and 83 percent (202 out of 242) stated that the conversation about performance with their manager is useful to them.

The service needs to build confidence in staff that the promotion and progression processes are fair

The service has put effort into developing its promotion and progression processes so that they are fair and understood by staff. But the service needs to do more to make sure, and show, that all its recruitment and promotion processes are fair and easy to access. In our survey, 45 percent (110 out of 245) of respondents disagreed that the promotion process in the service is fair. And non-operational staff told us that they don’t have confidence that processes are fair and open. Therefore, the area for improvement from our last inspection remains.

The service has succession planning processes in place that allow it to effectively manage the career pathways of its staff, including roles that need specialist skills, but these aren’t well understood by all staff. Therefore, the area for improvement from our last inspection remains.

Selection processes are managed consistently, and feedback is given quickly. Temporary promotions and overtime are used to fill short-term resourcing gaps. On‑call staff have opportunities to work with wholetime colleagues.

The service develops leadership and high-potential staff at all levels

The service has effective succession planning processes in place that allow it to manage high-potential staff into leadership roles.

There are talent management schemes to develop specific staff. The service has a gateway scheme that is accessed through the appraisals process. The service advertises all talent and leadership opportunities fairly for all staff to consider. Recent senior managerial positions were also advertised nationally.