Suffolk 2021/22

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service is good at understanding risk.

Suffolk 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 in the communities it serves

The service has assessed an appropriate range of risks and threats after a thorough integrated risk management planning process. When assessing risk, it has considered relevant information collected from a broad range of internal and external sources, including incident and societal datasets. For example, the service used data, reports and analysis from Suffolk Observatory to inform its Strategic Assessment of Risk 2022. This included information relating to demographics (on topics such as ethnicity, diversity and health) and housing (on topics such as listed buildings, thatched properties, blocks of flats, and living in poverty).

After assessing relevant risks, the service has recorded its findings in an easily understood IRMP. This plan describes how prevention, protection and response activity will mitigate or reduce the risks and threats the community faces, both now and in the future. For example, it sets out measures for:

• improving on-call firefighter recruitment and retention;
• targeting Suffolk’s ageing population;
• investing in technology to counter and mitigate cyberattacks; and
• preparing for major incidents, including terrorism.

When appropriate, the service has consulted and carried out constructive conversations with communities and others to both understand the risks it faces and explain how it intends to mitigate these. By holding several public roadshows, it contacted about 700 people and received about 300 responses to its IRMP consultation. It provided a light version of the consultation and made available translated copies for non-English-speaking people. The service has made good use of Suffolk County Council’s race equality and communications teams to engage with seldom heard groups such as local disability and adult care groups.

The service is effective at gathering, maintaining, and sharing a good range of risk information

In our previous inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should make sure all operational staff are familiar with their local risk. The service has made good progress in relation to this.

The service routinely collects and updates the information it has about the people, places and threats it has identified as being at greatest risk. Operational staff routinely gather risk information from businesses. And staff who are qualified in fire protection inspect and audit premises for fire safety compliance.

This information is readily available for the service’s prevention, protection and response staff, which enables it to identify, reduce and mitigate risk effectively. For example, risk information is made available to operational staff via mobile data terminals and tablets.

The service has systems in place to make staff aware of any significant changes to risk information. We saw it communicating new and emerging risks using a range of methods. These included giving staff information via a mobile and web application that acts as a fully interactive source of service news and information. It also uses email, including service action notes, which it monitors to make sure staff are aware of new announcements.

The service learns from operational incidents

The service records and communicates risk information effectively. It also routinely updates risk assessments and uses feedback from local and national operational activity to inform its planning assumptions.

The service has dedicated staff to internally communicate national operational guidance and lessons learned from national operational work. The service’s operational assurance group reviews emerging information gathered from its operational activity and changes its response to risks where needed.

The service has responded well 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.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service has responded positively and proactively to learning from this tragedy. The service is on track, having assessed the risk of each high-rise building in its service area by the end of 2021.

It has carried out a fire safety audit 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.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at preventing fires and other risks.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service required improvement 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.

The service isn’t effectively delivering its prevention strategy

The service’s strategic aim is to reduce risk by preventing fatalities, injuries and damage to property and the environment from fire and other emergencies by working in partnership and targeting support to vulnerable people.

But we found that prevention work generally happens in isolation, with little communication between specialist prevention teams and operational firefighters to effectively target people most at risk.

On-call firefighters don’t carry out prevention activities. And at the time of inspection, wholetime firefighters had a low target to carry out only two prevention activities per tour of duty. As a result, the service is in the lowest quartile nationally for carrying out home fire safety checks. In 2020/21, it recorded 1,710 checks, which is 2.3 per 1,000 people.

In our previous inspection, we recommended that the service should make sure it allocates enough resources to meet its prevention strategy.  Due to the impact of the pandemic, the service has been slow to demonstrate the benefits of additional funding it has received from the county council.  Further investment in these areas has been made this year, to appoint a dedicated Prevention Group Manager and two more practitioners. The service must now make sure that progress is made in this area, to demonstrate a return on the investment made in prevention.

The service could do more to target home visits

The service clearly understands where the greatest risks are, and who it needs to target to address these. But we found little evidence that the service was using this information to target the people it has identified as being most at risk from fire. At the time of the inspection, the service was only arranging home visits in response to referrals from partner agencies, such as East Coast Community Healthcare and BOC (British Oxygen Company), and online requests. This means it may be missing opportunities to proactively reach the people most vulnerable from fire.

Operational wholetime staff carry out safer home visits (home fire safety checks). These include fire safety activities such as identifying and reducing fire risks and fitting fire alarms. In addition, specialist prevention staff and volunteers carry out enhanced safer home visits. These are known as safe and well visits. These visits also include welfare-related activities, such as advising on health, social welfare, home security, crime reduction, and how to avoid slips, trips and falls.

Staff are confident at providing safe and well checks

Staff told us they have the right skills and confidence to make safe and well visits. These checks cover an appropriate range of hazards that can put vulnerable people at greater risk from fire and other emergencies. For example, a prevention practitioner or firefighter will check and provide advice on:

• safe use of smoking materials (such as cigarettes);
• candles and heaters;
• electric blankets;
• understanding dangers from harmful substances;
• cooking hazards;
• bedtime routines; and
• carbon monoxide.

The service is good at responding 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. We saw that staff regularly recognised vulnerabilities and risks during visits, and acted appropriately to improve people’s safety. This included escalating a matter to a more qualified person or making a referral to a partner agency.

The service works with others to reduce the number of fires and other risks

The service works with a wide range of other organisations, such as adult and children’s social care services, local housing providers, healthcare organisations and charities, to prevent fires and other emergencies. We found good evidence that it routinely refers people at greatest risk to these and other organisations which may be better able to meet their needs.

Arrangements are in place for the service to receive referrals from others through an online web form. Referrals come from local GPs, social workers, East of England Ambulance Service, Suffolk Police and Trading Standards. The service acts appropriately on the referrals it receives from these organisations, visiting people at highest risk within 24 hours of receiving a referral.

The service routinely exchanges information with other public sector organisations about people and groups at greatest risk. For example, the service has three school liaison officers based in educational establishments across the county. And it is an active member of Suffolk Roadsafe Partnership board as well as the county’s safeguarding boards for adults and children.

The service could do more to tackle fire-setting

The service has only limited involvement in targeting and educating people who show signs of fire-setting behaviour. We found that prevention practitioners were mainly targeting young people, through a fire setting intervention scheme.

There is limited evidence that firefighters and prevention practitioners target adult fire‑setters. And there is limited exchange of information between the service and other relevant organisations to support the prosecution of arsonists.

The service doesn’t routinely evaluate its prevention activity

In our previous inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should better evaluate its prevention work, so that it can understand the benefits of this more clearly.

Disappointingly, there is still little evidence that the service evaluates the effectiveness of its prevention activity, or that it makes sure all its communities have equal access to prevention activity that meets their needs.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service is good at protecting the public through fire regulation.

Suffolk 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 has an effective protection plan

Following our last inspection, the service secured extra funds from the county council to invest in protection. It is making good use of these.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service has a protection strategy. This is part of its community risk management statement 2019–2022. It is supported by a risk-based inspection policy, an enforcement policy, and an up-to date department action plan. The service’s protection strategy is clearly linked to the risk it has identified in its IRMP.

Staff across the service are involved in protection-related activity, with information effectively exchanged between departments as needed. For example, information from audits targeting commercial premises is collected by operational staff and specialist protection team members. This information helps staff to identify new risks, which are then added to the service’s RBIP.

The service has revised its protection activity to target the highest risk buildings

In our previous inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should assure itself that its RBIP prioritises the highest risks and includes proportionate activity to reduce risk. The programme should also include appropriate monitoring and evaluation. The service has made good progress in this area.

The service has reviewed its RBIP to make sure that risk is prioritised appropriately and that the programme is focused on the highest-risk buildings.

We found that fire safety audits were recorded in line with the policy and timescales the service has set itself, and were monitored and reviewed.

The service has audited all its high-risk, high-rise buildings

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 had visited all the high-rise, high-risk buildings it had identified in its service area by the end of 2021.

The quality of fire safety audits is good

We reviewed a range of audits of different premises across the service. This included audits that took place:

• 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.

The audits we reviewed were completed to a high standard in a consistent, systematic way, and in line with the service’s policies. Relevant information from the audits is made available to operational teams and control room operators.

The service uses its full range of enforcement powers

In our previous inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should assure itself that its use of enforcement powers prioritises the highest risks and includes proportionate activity to reduce risk. The service has made good progress in relation to this.

The service consistently uses its full range of enforcement powers, and when appropriate, prosecutes those who don’t comply with fire safety regulations.

The service carries out regular training to make sure that inspectors’ enforcement and prosecution skills are refreshed and remain current.

In the year to 31 March 2021, the service issued:

• 0 alteration notices;
• 52 informal notifications;
• 1 enforcement notice;
• 4 prohibition notices; and
• undertook 1 prosecution.

Between 2016/17 and 2020/21 inclusive, it completed 1 prosecution, which was successful.

The service has invested in developing its protection staff

Since our previous inspection the service has invested in protection to develop the skills of current inspecting officers and train station-based staff to carry out simple audits.

The service now has enough qualified protection staff to meet the requirements of its RBIP. The service told us it has trained 26 station-based staff to carry out simple audits. The protection team has increased in size from 17 to 20 staff, which helps the service to provide the range of audit and enforcement activity needed, both now and in the future.

Staff get the right training and are accredited to national recognised standards.

The service works well with other enforcement agencies

The service works closely with other enforcement agencies to regulate fire safety, and routinely exchanges risk information with them.

These include Suffolk County Council’s housing and environmental health departments, Suffolk Trading Standards and Suffolk Constabulary. They work with the service to carry out joint visits and enforcement action and share risk information. One example of working together effectively is the service’s ‘impact days’. The impact days involve inspecting officers from the service working with local authority housing officers to carry out joint inspections. These target high-risk sleeping accommodation located above commercial premises.

The service should review arrangements to respond to building consultations

While the service is responding to all requests for statutory building consultations, we have concerns that it isn’t always doing this in a timely manner. The service should make every effort to meet the timescales in which feedback should be given to the local authority building control, to make sure it can be acted upon.

The service could do more to engage with local businesses and other organisations

The service could do more to engage with local businesses and other organisations to promote compliance with fire safety legislation.

In our previous inspection we found that the while the service had a dedicated business engagement officer, most of this staff member’s time was taken up with planning, running impact days, and working with businesses through the service’s primary authority scheme. This left little time to carry out other activities such as business seminars and other direct engagement with businesses. It was disappointing to find little improvement at the recent inspection.

The service relies mainly on its website to give businesses information about fire safety regulations, enforcement and prosecution.

The service isn’t effective at reducing unwanted fire signals

The service has call-challenge and non-attendance policies for automatic fire alarms. This is in line with national guidance. In the year ending 31 March 2021, the service received 2,607 unique automatic fire alarms. It didn’t attend 34.2 percent of these. It does, of course, attend automatic alarms if it receives confirmation of a fire.

The service has a policy to work with the premises that generate the most unwanted fire signals to help reduce future callouts.

But we found staff weren’t applying this policy consistently, with only limited action being taken to reduce the number of unwanted fire signals. Home Office data shows that the service isn’t effectively reducing the number of unwanted fire signals. This means that 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 rightly recognises this problem and has reviewed its unwanted fire signals policy. We will be interested to see how this develops.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service is good at responding to fires and other emergencies.

Suffolk 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’s response plan is aligned to risks identified in its IRMP

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service has a response strategy. This is part of its response statement 2019–2022. The service’s response strategy is linked to the risks identified in its IRMP. Its fire engines and response staff, as well as its working patterns, are designed and located to help the service to respond flexibly to fires and other emergencies with the appropriate resources.

The service has 43 fire engines and a range of specialist vehicles strategically situated around Suffolk. And it has effective measures in place to make sure there is enough staff to operate these. The service uses an on-call crewing reserve cohort (known as County Day Crewing) to fill gaps at stations where there are shortages of staff.

The service has reviewed its response standards

There are no national response standards of performance for the public. But the service has set out its own response standards in its IRMP.

The service aims to respond as follows:

• to have the first fire engine at a property fire within 11 minutes, for 80 percent of incidents;
• to have the secondary fire engine at a property fire within 16 minutes, for 80 percent of incidents; and
• to have the first fire engine at a road traffic collision within 13 minutes, for 80 percent of incidents.

The service doesn’t always meet its standards. And Home Office data shows that in the year to 31 December 2021, the service’s average response time to dwelling fires was 10 minutes and 8 seconds, which is slower than the average for predominantly rural services. We found the service hadn’t reviewed its shift patterns to improve its performance, as it stated it would do in its 2019–2022 IRMP. However, the service has reviewed its speed of response standards as part of the current IRMP (2019–2022) aligned to national community risk guidance. The new response standard will be consulted upon as part of the new community risk management plan for the service. At the time of our inspection the service was developing its draft community risk management plan. It will be going into consultation on this draft plan in 2023.

The service is good at maintaining availability

To support its response plan, the service aims to have all its wholetime fire engines available on all occasions. The service consistently meets this standard. In the year to 31 March 2021, the overall availability of on-call fire engines was 93.1 percent of occasions.

Staff have a good understanding of how to command incidents safely

The service has trained incident commanders who are assessed regularly and properly. 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 from across the service. The incident commanders we interviewed were familiar with risk assessment, decision-making and recording information at incidents in line with the National Fire Chiefs Council’s national operational guidance, and with the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

Fire control is involved with the service’s command, exercise and debrief activity

The service has a combined fire control with Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service. One fire control, based at Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service headquarters in Huntingdon, handles all 999 calls for both services.

We are pleased to see the control staff integrated into the service’s command, training, exercise, debrief and assurance activity. For example:

• control staff are invited to Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service training and exercises;
• control staff are invited to the service’s structured (formal) debriefs following critical incidents; and
• there are processes for those working in fire control to carry out a debrief following incidents involving six or more fire engines, or incidents of interest.

The service has good fire survival guidance call systems

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 to exchange real-time risk information with incident commanders, other responding partners and other supporting fire and rescue services. Maintaining good situational awareness helps the service to communicate effectively with the public, providing them with accurate and tailored advice.

Risk information is good and easily accessible to staff

We sampled a range of risk information, including:

• records on the service’s premise management system; and
• site-specific records on fire engines’ mobile data terminals.

The records include permanent and temporary risk information for firefighters responding to incidents at high-risk, high-rise buildings. (The permanent information includes records for buildings such as hospitals and factories while temporary information would list, for example, oxygen users.) Firefighters also have access to information from fire control.

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.

The service is good at evaluating operational performance

As part of the inspection, we reviewed a range of emergency incidents and training events. We found that the service has an excellent, detailed and clear operational monitoring and debrief policy, as well as innovative ways of recording lessons learned.

The service gives every fire engine a QR code linked to its operational assurance system. This gives staff instant access to record lessons learned at operational incidents, training and exercises.

We are encouraged to see that the service is contributing towards, and acting on, learning from other fire and rescue services and operational learning gathered from other emergency service partners. This includes national operational learning from incidents such as those involving aerated concrete.

But the service should assure itself that it is consistently evaluating and formally reviewing the range of emergency incidents it has identified, in line with its policy.

The service is good at communicating incident-related information to the public

The service has good systems in place to inform the public about ongoing incidents and help keep them safe during and after incidents. This includes:

• proactive use of social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook;
• the incident tab on the service’s website; and
• media-trained incident commanders.

We saw evidence that the service uses these communication channels to update the public during and after incidents

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service is good at responding to major and multi-agency incidents.

Suffolk 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 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 integrated risk management planning. The service works well with other organisations on multi-agency response plans. The plans are tested regularly. For example, at the time of inspection the service was testing plans for high‑risk sites such as Sizewell Power Station.

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. Firefighters have access to risk information from neighbouring services.

The service can respond effectively to major and multi-agency incidents

We reviewed the arrangements the service has in place to respond to different major incidents such as wide area flooding and marauding terrorist attacks.

The service has good arrangements in place, which are well understood by staff. For example, the service is well prepared to form part of a multi-agency response to a high-rise incident. Its procedures for responding to major incidents are understood by all staff and are well tested.

The service works with other fire services

The service supports other fire and rescue services responding to emergency incidents. It is intraoperable with these services and can form part of a multi-agency response.

The service doesn’t have a cross-border exercise plan

In our previous inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should arrange a programme of cross-border exercises, sharing the lessons learned from these exercises. It hasn’t made enough progress in this area.

Data provided by the service for our recent inspection shows that there was a reduction in joint training with other services in 2019/20 (pre-pandemic) compared to 2018/19. It is disappointing that the service doesn’t have a cross-border exercise plan with neighbouring fire and rescue services.

In our staff survey, 56 percent (57 out of 101) of respondents told us they haven’t participated in training with neighbouring services in the past 12 months.

The service is missing opportunities to learn and work more effectively together to keep the public safe.

Sharing of cross-border risk information is effective

In our previous inspection, we identified an area for improvement that the service should make sure its operational staff have good access to relevant and up-to-date risk information. This should include cross-border risk information. The service has made good progress in this area.

As part of our recent inspection, we reviewed site-specific risk information files, including those from surrounding services. It is encouraging to see that the service provides firefighters with a good range of cross-border risk information for Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

Firefighters have a good understanding of JESIP

The incident commanders we interviewed had been trained in and were familiar with JESIP. This helps make sure they can work effectively with other emergency services.

The service gave us strong evidence that it consistently follows the principles. This includes:

• staff knowledge and use of the joint decision-making model; and
• the use of a nationally recognised messaging format that all emergency services and related organisations understand.

The service is a lead partner in the Suffolk Resilience Forum

The service has good arrangements in place to respond to emergencies with other organisations that make up the Suffolk Resilience Forum. These arrangements included having staff available to respond to requests from other organisations during the pandemic.

Staff:

• support East of England Ambulance Service with ambulance driving;
• make visits to check people’s welfare and deliver food and essential items to those who need them;
• support the national vaccination programme with marshalling and logistics; and
• chair the tactical co-ordinating groups which oversee response activity.

The service is a valued Suffolk Resilience Forum partner. The chief fire officer is its executive director for fire and public safety. The service takes part in regular training events with other members and uses lessons learned from these to improve responses to major and multi-agency incidents.

The service keeps up to date with national learning

The service keeps itself up to date with joint operational learning updates from other fire services and national operational learning from other emergency organisations, such as the police service and ambulance services. The service has effective processes for communicating this information internally through notifications (operational learning notes, action learning notes and safety flashes) via the service’s Fire News app and intranet. It uses this learning to inform planning assumptions that have been made with other partners.