State of Fire and Rescue: The Annual Assessment of Fire and Rescue Services in England 2019

Summary

This is Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services’ report to the Secretary of State under section 28B of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. It contains his assessment of the sector in England, based on the inspections we carried out between June 2018 and August 2019.

In 2018/19, HMICFRS carried out the first assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of England’s fire and rescue services in more than a decade. This report draws on findings from inspections in the 45 fire and rescue services in England, to provide an overall view of the state of the fire and rescue sector.

Get the report

The report is available in several formats

Content summary

This report is in three parts.

[SoFR-2019-1]

Part 1

This section contains Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services’ assessment of the state of fire and rescue services in England. It draws on the inspections we carried out between June 2018 and August 2019, as well as the findings and reports of other organisations, and other information and analysis available to him. This part also contains four recommendations made to the sector as a whole.

[SoFR-2019-2]

Part 2

This section provides an overview of the gradings and findings from this first round of inspections.

[SoFR-2019-3]

Part 3

This sets out the full list of our fire and rescue reports and other inspection publications for the period covered by this report.

Get the report

The State of Fire and Rescue report is provided in a variety of formats.

Single page standard format

This is the best format to use if you want to read this on a small screen or print the report and read it.

State of Fire and Rescue: The Annual Assessment of Fire and Rescue Services in England 2019 (PDF document)

Please note: the footnote on page 79 was corrected on 20 January 2020.

Double page format

This format is best if you’re viewing the report on a larger screen, because it’s easier to read the graphics and tables which are spread over two pages.

State of Fire and Rescue: The Annual Assessment of Fire and Rescue Services in England 2019 (PDF document)

Please note: the footnote on page 79 was corrected on 20 January 2020.

Single page standard format, broken down by chapter

We have also broken the report down into chapters, so the files are smaller and quicker for you to download. These are:

State of Fire and Rescue 2019 – Foreword (HTML)

State of Fire and Rescue: Foreword (PDF document)

State of Fire and Rescue 2019 – Part 1: Overview (HTML)

State of Fire and Rescue: Part 1 (PDF document)

State of Fire and Rescue 2019 – Part 2: Our inspections (HTML)

State of Fire and Rescue: Part 2 (PDF document)

Please note: the footnote on page 79 was corrected on 20 January 2020.

State of Fire and Rescue 2019 – Part 3: Our reports (HTML)

State of Fire and Rescue: Part 3 (PDF document)

State of Fire and Rescue 2019 – Annexes (HTML)

Get the press release

Chief Inspector calls for ‘significant reforms’ across fire and rescue services in England