Shocking weakness in West Sussex/Surrey fire control deal revealed

 Diverted emergency calls cannot be actioned

West Sussex County Council has gone to great lengths to hide details of their inadequate deal for Surrey Fire & Rescue to handle West Sussex emergency calls. The reasons why are now becoming clear. 

At Friday’s Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee, thanks to determined questioning by Councillor Michael Jones, it emerged that the back-up, or 'buddy', fire control that receives West Sussex emergency calls when Surrey fire control cannot, is unable to send any help. 

When Surrey fire control is busy, those in trouble will have their calls diverted to the 'buddy' control at Merseyside Fire & Rescue. Callers will understandably think, after giving details of the emergency, that help will be on the way, but it will not. Merseyside will have to pass the details to the already busy Surrey fire control before any help is sent.

So, whenever Surrey fire control is overwhelmed with calls during periods of heavy demand, there could be lengthy delays. That is bad enough but if Surrey fire control must be evacuated, or if they suffer a serious technical failure, this unacceptable lack of resilience will mean no help is sent to emergencies in West Sussex or Surrey.

The Government paid West Sussex County Council and East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service millions of pounds to help set up the combined Sussex Fire Control Centre at Haywards Heath. Part of that funding was to provide the technology for a 'buddy' control that would receive emergency calls for Sussex and could then send local fire engines to the emergency. Work was underway for Cambridgeshire Fire & Rescue to be able to do that.

Despite progress to provide that resilience, and the millions of pounds of national and local taxpayer's money spent, West Sussex County Council abandoned the Sussex Fire Control agreement just four years after it began handling West Sussex emergencies. Not only doing the dirty on East Sussex but abandoning proper resilience for the inadequate resilience of Surrey’s fire control. 

This is another example of inept and hasty decision making by WSCC's Cabinet, and inadequate scrutiny by County Councillors.

Cabinet Member’s ‘Del Boy’ reassurances

Cabinet Member Duncan Crow once again deliberately misled the meeting. He claimed that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) had said staffing levels in the Surrey Control Room were adequate. 

They did not. 

The report he referred to was not about standard staffing, it was about arrangements during the pandemic. He failed to mention that the report also said that Surrey had provided more trained staff for the control room during the pandemic. It is also doubtful that HMICFRS has the knowledge and expertise to properly assess control room staffing levels.

The Cabinet Member also decided to play politics by criticising Michael Jones for daring to ask legitimate questions about inadequate staffing levels. Levels that were clearly inadequate, as after Michael Jones first raised concerns, standard staffing levels were increased by two on each shift. He also rightly questions if this will be enough when East Sussex hand responsibility for their call handling to Surrey. Something forced on them by West Sussex County Council's hasty and ill-considered desertion from the Sussex fire control.

Mr Crow’s naïve claim that, “clearly there are always going to be the right number of staff to operate that control room”, is just unsubstantiated fantasy. Listening to his assurances is rather like listening to TV character Del Boy Trotter telling you all his products are guaranteed.

Mr. Crow has also been blinded by the false notion that new technology allows staffing levels to be reduced. Technology may simplify some operator tasks, but enough staff must be available to receive emergency calls, speak to other services, and undertake the many other actions that can only be carried out by a person, especially at busy times. 

Emergencies are random events and the need for several staff to be available to deal with sudden increases in demand cannot be replaced by technology. It is even more vital following the revelation that the Merseyside ‘buddy’ control must contact the already busy Surrey control before any help can be sent to West Sussex emergencies.

Inadequate answers

It is concerning that Assistant Chief Jon Lacey, as the control project manager, either did not know what call queuing is, or chose to avoid the question by talking about prioritising incidents. 

Call queuing is where an emergency service chooses to accept the ‘999’ call with the caller then hearing a recorded message saying the control room is busy and asking them to stay on the line. The call is not diverted to another control and the wait to speak to an operator could be lengthy.

West Sussex residents deserve a proper answer to this question.

Deputy Chief Mark Andrews suggested that slight improvements in the number of times Surrey's control alerted West Sussex stations within two minutes of receiving an emergency call was a success. 

However, he failed to mention that at no time since Surrey took over, in December 2019, has their best performance even equalled Sussex fire control's worst performance. It seems their "state of the art technology" is not as wonderful as they want us to believe.

Worse performance is not a success.

It was also disappointing that Councillor David Edwards question about moving fire engines around the county did not get a straight answer from Chief Fire Officer Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton. He referred to fire engines being moved to different areas, something the Chief Officer said was a regular occurrence. 

He asked if there were occasions when a fire engine was moved to another area and an emergency call is then received in the area that the fire engine had been moved from.

The straight answer is yes, on occasions, fire engines are moved further away from the location of the next call. 

That happens because the dynamic cover tool they keep referring to is not one of these:

Not available in Fire Controls

The dynamic cover tool cannot tell them where the next incident will be, fundamentally it only knows where and when previous incidents have happened. That may indicate an increased likelihood of incidents in certain locations and at certain times, but it cannot predict them. 

Moving fire engines to maintain response times in one area inevitably means increased response times in the area it came from. It is always a gamble, the odds may be slightly better but you, or more accurately the public, can still lose out. The County Council has already significantly lengthened the odds of getting a quick response by cutting a quarter of the front-line fire engines in West Sussex.

A life-threatening emergency can occur at any time and in any part of West Sussex.

A quick and effective response at any time, to any part of West Sussex is vital.

The dynamic cover tool may sound like a technological advance, but it cannot advise relocating limited resources any better than a fully trained control room operator. It may also make worse decisions, as it does not have the flexibility that a skilled control room operator has to consider all the factors in play at a particular time.

It is quite incredible that WSCC has chosen a fire control arrangement that is less resilient than arrangements 20 years ago. When West Sussex had their own control room in Chichester, an immediate evacuation would see emergency calls diverted to the East Sussex control room. Unlike Merseyside, East Sussex were able to contact West Sussex stations to ensure help was sent. 

West Sussex County Council has once again increased the risk to residents

They must urgently ensure that a fully resilient fire control back up is provided

Surrey fire control deal puts West Sussex lives at risk

At the recent Environment, Communities and Fire Scrutiny Committee meeting at County Hall, Councillors questioned claims that the arrangement for Surrey to control the response to West Sussex emergencies was "a success". Unfortunately, the denials and assurances sounded ever so familiar.

Groundhog Day

When the West Sussex control room was closed and the Sussex control room opened, WSFRS officers assured Councillors it would be straightforward and the Cabinet Member claimed it was a success. When reports of problems were leaked, WSFRS officers and the Cabinet member dismissed them and only admitted to "teething problems" that had been "fixed".

"There is nothing that would give me or officers cause for concern"

Cabinet Member Lionel Barnard August 2014

Lionel Barnard added that staffing was satisfactory, sickness had dropped and everything is "as we would expect it." Yet, a freedom of information request revealed a very different story, and one that would get worse.

There were also strenuous efforts, in both East and West Sussex, to keep problems with the technology secret. This went on for over four years and thousands of pounds were spent trying to fix the problems. It was only after West Sussex's Chief Fire Officer Sean Ruth left that East Sussex began to admit problems, although they blamed connections to existing systems and the old chestnut, "teething problems". 

Although those who reported the original concerns believed that the problems had been fixed by 2018 and the Control Centre was working well, West Sussex decided to leave East Sussex in the lurch by abandoning the Sussex Control Centre. Rushing in to this deal with Surrey, and spending even more money, has again resulted in reports of problems with staffing and technology.

The previous assurances about the arrangements with East Sussex proved false, dishonest even,

so how can we have faith in the latest assurances about the arrangement with Surrey?

Assurances not enough, evidence is needed

Councillors, notably Michael Jones and James Walsh, rightly questioned those assurances and asked for more detail and some evidence to support them. The question is, will the details and evidence be published to allow proper scrutiny, or will they be sent to Councillors with instructions not to reveal the detail? An all too common tactic from West Sussex County Council when they wish to cover up failures.

In an effort to try and ensure information is made public, I have submitted Freedom of Information requests to both West Sussex and Surrey. Of course they may try and keep that information secret, by using exemptions in the legislation, but if they are truly open and honest they will not. It will certainly be an interesting test of WSCC's claims to be improving their culture, especially with regard to honesty and accountability. 

The meeting was told that the FBU Safety Critical Notice was just a Surrey affair and that West Sussex FBU officials had not raised any issues. That may have misled Councillors in to believing that the errors and failings had not affected West Sussex. As West Sussex firefighters had reported 'near hit' events to managers, they would have no need to report them to the FBU. That would only follow if they believed no action was being taken.

It was admitted at the meeting that there had been 'near hit' reports and a weekend system failure, but it was claimed they were not safety critical. I beg to differ. A 'near hit' report means safety was compromised, and it was only luck that meant serious consequences did not result. It is like saying a safety harness failure wasn't safety critical because the person wearing it was close to the ground and wasn't hurt.

It was disappointing to hear that some Councillors were unconcerned about these failures because "you expect teething problems". This was supposed to be a state of the art, tried and tested system, not some early stage experimental computer system. These are not "teething problems" or "bedding in" difficulties, they are failures. 

Failures of concept, of planning, of testing, of training, 

of implementation, of data validation, or all of those.

When lives depend on a system, such failures are unacceptable.

Having heard the dubious claim that less staff were needed because the system relied more on system data being updated automatically, I was astonished to then hear that the data updating was unreliable. It depended on the mobile telephone network and coverage was poor in some areas. The committee was then told that they were going to switch to the Airwave system to improve the situation, but it could take three months to get the necessary licence.

So why did they go ahead before it was in place? No explanation was given. The Committee Chairman said he knew about the licence issue last July, but the meeting was told the application had not yet been submitted. That beggars belief. The mention of Airwave raises further concerns:

• Airwave is basically a mobile telephone system that also does not have 100% coverage.
• Like other mobile telephone systems, Airwave can experience failures and overload.
• Airwave is due to be replaced by the Emergency Services Network, which is yet another mobile telephone system that has yet to be fully tested.

West Sussex residents less safe

The committee was told that ways of working had been changed "for alignment". No detail was given, but reports suggest that West Sussex has cut their levels of protection for the public to match Surrey's poor standards.

Leaving busier fire stations without a fire engine is not a 'culture change', 

it is a downgrading of the service provided to West Sussex residents.

Councillors were told that the system had a new tool for mapping risk and maintaining cover, as if that somehow made it acceptable because it is the computer that says "NO". The parameters used by the computer are determined by the supplier and should meet the requirements of the Service. If the system is as good as claimed, then it should be perfectly possible to have West Sussex standards applied, even if they are different to Surrey's. 

It was concerning to hear about dependence on 'the cloud'. Whilst it is true that this may offer some benefits, it also creates new vulnerabilities. Industry experts will admit that your data could get lost, wiped, corrupted or stolen. They will of course assure you that they take security very seriously, but we have seen many large organisations, who take security seriously, suffer significant problems including denial of service, theft of data and infected systems.

For many years fire services ensured that their control room systems were isolated and protected. 

Now they are happy to put them at risk to save a bit of money. 

I am also concerned that data obtained by West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, which they are legally obliged to protect, is now accessible to Surrey County Council and those contractors and sub contractors used to store or transmit that data. The more people that have access, the greater the risk of unauthorised, malicious or criminal access. WSFRS obtains a lot of data from individuals and businesses that is personal data under data protection legislation, or is commercially or security sensitive.

If a GP refers a patient to another part of the NHS, the GP has to have written permission to share their details. So I wonder how many West Sussex residents and businesses have been asked if they are happy for their data to be shared with, or accessible to, other public and private organisations?

Over £4 million wasted

It was also disappointing to hear the Assistant Chief Fire Officer suggest that, because the control building at Haywards Heath could be used for other purposes when East Sussex move out, money had not been wasted. Finding a use for the building is not the issue, over £2 million was spent on converting it to meet the specialist needs of a fire service control facility. In addition, another £2 million of the £3.6 million Government grant was spent on equipment and work that will now be wasted.

These joint figures were published by East Sussex in 2014, so they do not include subsequent spending by both Services to fix problems. Exactly how much has never been revealed, with some costs being hidden under other budget headings. The Surrey move means that most of the money spent at Haywards Heath has been wasted, and even more is likely to be spent on converting it back to other uses. 

Inadequate staffing levels a major threat to safety

The excuse given to Councillors for such low levels of staffing in Surrey's control was that the technology reduces the need for staff to undertake certain tasks. Yet we were also told that when the technology fails, staff can carry out those tasks. No one can predict when failures will occur, which means that when they do staffing will be hopelessly inadequate.

No matter how good the technology, it cannot replace the Control Operator's ability to gather vital information from often agitated and distressed callers and to ensure that the right help is quickly on its way. No one can predict when many callers may need that help at the same time, which means that when they do staffing will be hopelessly inadequate.

This is not a commercial call centre where staffing can be varied to match expected demand and, if demand is unexpectedly high, the only result is frustrated customers. This is a critical control room managing the fire and rescue service's response to life threatening emergencies. There is no pattern to instances of high demand, it can happen at any time of day, on any day of the week, and at any time of the year.

There are not enough staff in the Surrey Control Room to safely deal with emergencies in Surrey and West Sussex. It will be even worse when they also deal with East Sussex emergencies.

Relative workload per Operator on minimum staffing 

(last column assumes minimum increased by one, as it did when West Sussex joined)

Not enough Control Operators to answer calls for help means
people in danger wait longer for Firefighters to arrive

Serious concerns about inadequate Surrey fire control

At their meeting on Monday, the Environment, Communities and Fire Scrutiny Committee will discuss the Chief Fire Officer's progress report on the Improvement Plan, which followed Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services inspection report. The full report to the Scrutiny Committee can be found in the agenda reports pack.

Some progress, but not all good news

It is pleasing that quite a bit of progress seems to have been made on improvements, but reference to the "successful implementation of the Fire Control project" appears to be misplaced. Information from reliable sources suggest a number of things have gone wrong, including mobilising failures, incomplete turnout instructions and delays. No doubt we will be told they were teething problems, but if implementation was "successful" there would be no such problems. There are also concerns that some back up options, which were available when West Sussex had its own control, are no longer there.

Inadequate staffing

The most worrying aspect about Surrey control also handling West Sussex emergencies is inadequate staffing. Something I warned about a year ago:

"Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) recently rated Surrey Fire & Rescue Service as inadequate. Their report included criticism of inadequate staffing in Surrey's control room." 

Reports from inside the service said:

With the possibility of East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service also opting to use Surrey for their call handling, staffing could become even more inadequate. East Sussex are only having to consider this because West Sussex County Council decided to waste millions of pounds by pulling out of the combined Sussex control. If East Sussex do decide that using the Surrey control is the only viable option, they must do a better job and insist on much better staffing.  

When the WSCC Environment, Communities and Fire Scrutiny Committee looked at the plans to use Surrey, there was a lot of discussion about technology but not about staffing. Just one question was asked and the then Chief Fire Officer told Members that he would ensure there would be enough staff. However, following answers to a written question from Councillor Michael Jones last month, we now know that was not done. 

Minimum staffing to handle emergencies in Surrey and West Sussex is just five for about 21,000 incidents a year. Minimum staffing when West Sussex ran their own control was four (9,000 incidents) and minimum staffing in the Sussex control, when serving East & West Sussex, was seven (18,500 incidents). 

The population of the area directly affects the number of incidents handled in a year and therefore control operator workload. Using Home Office data, the graph below shows the ratio of incidents and population per control operator, when at the respective minimum staffing levels.

It is quite impossible for the Surrey control to provide the level of service West Sussex residents have rightly come to expect. At busy times they will simply not have enough staff to ensure that emergencies in both counties can be handled quickly and effectively. Surrey County Council is effectively ripping off West Sussex County Council by charging a lot of money for a worse service.

It seems that senior officers in both Surrey and West Sussex have been so dazzled and preoccupied with technology, they forgot about the most important component of any emergency service control room - Control Operators. 

Important though good technology is, it is only ever an aid to Control Operators. They are the ones who have to answer every '999' call, extract the essential information required from sometimes distressed and confused callers, and then ensure the right resources are dispatched. And that is just the beginning. A routine emergency can generate dozens of Control Operator actions, a serious incident can require hundreds of actions and major incidents can require thousands. 

Control rooms can go from being quiet, with no incidents to deal with, to frenetic activity within seconds and dozens of emergencies needing a response within a few minutes. The only way to ensure that the public get help quickly and effectively is to employ adequate numbers of skilled and motivated Control Operators. Surrey have failed to do that and West Sussex have allowed them to.

Hidden performance standards and targets reassure no one

The written answer, provided last month, also said that, "there are numerous performance standards with targets assigned" to the agreement with Surrey, but failed to give any details. The only way County Councillors can scrutinise Surrey Control's performance, and the public can learn the real effects of this contract, is for those performance standards and targets to be published. We also need to see the figures for Sussex Control's performance, so that fair comparison is possible.   

Previous national data showed that the Surrey control took, on average, twice as long as the Sussex control to handle calls. Councillors were wrongly told that this was because Surrey "call challenged" and Sussex did not. The truth is that both controls use call challenging when necessary. Call challenging does however carry risks. Used properly it can prevent resources being sent to hoax calls, but it can also result in a delayed response to genuine calls and, in the worst cases, no response to genuine emergencies. It must only ever be used sparingly and cautiously.  

Assurances given to the committee have not been honoured,

Members must ask why and insist on improved staffing.

'Inadequate' Surrey Fire & Rescue Service to control West Sussex emergencies

Relief at the saving of safety and prevention jobs, when West Sussex County Council recently dropped planned cuts, was short lived, as jobs at the Sussex Control Centre are now under threat. Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard has approved plans to transfer call taking, mobilising, and management of resources and incidents for West Sussex emergencies from the Sussex Control Centre to Surrey Fire & Rescue Service. 

This is despite Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) recently rating Surrey Fire & Rescue Service as inadequate. Their report included criticism of inadequate staffing in Surrey's control room. 

Now when I read the report of the recent Select Committee meeting by Karen Dunn (local democracy reporter), I had expected to see which councillors asked probing questions and who responded to those questions. All vital elements of democratic reporting I would have thought. However, there was none of that, and what I read looked more like a County Council press release. With only the Cabinet Member, Chief and Deputy Chief Fire Officers named in the report, I was concerned that Councillors on the committee had failed to question the plans.

Fortunately, I was able to view a recording of the meeting and was reassured that some very intelligent and pertinent questions had been asked by Councillors, in particular by Michael Jones and Simon Oakley. Sadly, the answers were less reassuring, especially about staffing and poor performance in Surrey’s control. It was frustrating that there were not many follow up questions, but I appreciate that Councillors are not subject matter experts, so are limited in how deep they can probe.

Whilst I don’t doubt the sincerity of the officer responses, I was left feeling that they did not fully understand the complex issues involved. It has always concerned me that many people, including senior fire service officers, often lack a detailed knowledge of the operation of a control room and consequently underestimate the requirements.

An emergency service control room is not just a call centre where staff simply follow a script on the screen in front of them, type a few details in to a database and then declare ‘computer says yes’, or ‘computer says no’. Control room staff have to quickly assess information, make critical decisions, communicate effectively internally and externally, and manage ever changing resources. Technology can assist them, but the final decision and many interactions depend on well trained control room staff.

Only those who have worked in, or spent considerable time in control rooms, and studied the processes, interactions and decisions required in an emergency service control room can properly make decisions about change. In the past, West Sussex control room staff provided vital input to such decisions, but West Sussex no longer employs control room staff, so has no pool of expertise.

During my time in both the fire service and emergency planning I gained a very good insight in to control room operation and I have seen and experienced first-hand the effects of good and bad control room operation. I have also studied good practice and serious failures elsewhere, and worked locally, regionally and nationally on resilient communications. That is why, after reading the reports and listening to the discussion at the Select Committee meeting, I still have serious concerns.

Staffing

The report and the discussion concentrated on technology, but failed to properly consider the most important component of any emergency service control room – adequate numbers of well trained and capable staff.

Emergencies, by their nature, are random events that can dramatically increase demand on control room staff without warning. That can result in delays in answering ‘999’ calls, delays deploying resources, delays responding to requests from crews at incidents, and delays liaising with other emergency services and organisations necessary to ensure that incidents are dealt with quickly and effectively.

In properly staffed control rooms those delays are rare and have minimal effect on the response. In understaffed control rooms those delays occur much more frequently and have a significant effect on the service given to the public. In the worst cases it can cost lives.     

The Councillors were told about other fire & rescue services taking calls when Surrey is busy, but were not told, as reported by HMICFRS, that those services cannot mobilise fire crews. They still have to pass the call to Surrey's Control, when they eventually manage to get through, and only then will Surrey Control staff mobilise crews to the emergency.

Government figures indicate that Surrey’s control room is currently understaffed by over a third. Adjusting for the number of calls received, compared to Hampshire and Sussex, Surrey should have at least 34 control room staff, but they only have about 25.

To effectively deal with West Sussex and Surrey calls to an acceptable standard, Surrey would need to more than double the current number of control room staff. Yet reports suggest they only intend to increase staffing by one per shift, which would seriously undermine effective response in both Surrey and West Sussex.

Incident and staffing data from Home Office figures averaged over previous 3 years

CFO Gavin Watts said that staffing was still being discussed, yet costs have been agreed, which suggests that Surrey Fire & Rescue has already decided how many staff will be employed. The CFO stated that he would ensure enough staff, but based on what standard, Surrey’s poor standard or Sussex and Hampshire’s responsible standards?

Technology

I also have concerns about the reassurances given regarding technology and communications. That Surrey’s technology works with their infrastructure is no guarantee that it will work with that in West Sussex. Just because suppliers say equipment and systems can handle the significant extra demand is no guarantee that it will. If internet service providers, telecom providers and major financial institutions, with their resources, can screw up system upgrades, data transfers etc., then I cannot be reassured that two councils, three fire & rescue services and Capita will get it right.

After all, similar assurances were given by Government about Regional Fire Controls, but they failed to get the technology to work. Subsequently assurances were given by West Sussex County Council about the Sussex Control Centre, but the new mobilising system took over five years to fix. When it eventually went live in East Sussex, further assurances were given by the Cabinet Member about using it for West Sussex calls, but she later decided to abandon the Sussex Control Centre.

A far more accurate statement would be ‘we hope it will work’.

A key requirement will be ensuring that links between the Surrey control room and West Sussex fire stations and appliances will not be vulnerable to any single points of failure. Michael Jones asked if there would be two or three separate links, but was only given an answer about existing West Sussex resilience. The vital Surrey/West Sussex links were not addressed.

Executive Director Nicola Bulbeck suggested that as the fire & rescue service was part of the County Council’s IT set up, it was better than if it was a standalone fire authority. There is no evidence to support that claim. It is far more likely that an IT department in a standalone fire authority will be fully focused on the special needs of the fire & rescue service, rather than trying to balance that with needs across the entire County Council.

My experience of working with WSCC and Capita IT departments is that they cope with the core IT needs of the Council, but often struggled with the specialist IT and communication requirements and extra resilience required by both fire & rescue and emergency planning. IT policies, planning and technology designed to meet the needs of the whole County Council often frustrated efforts to meet specialist needs.

I gained the impression from the responses at the meeting that officers had been seduced by possible technological benefits, whilst being less aware of the vulnerabilities and challenges that ever changing technology creates.

Local knowledge

It was disappointing to hear Gavin Watts dismiss local knowledge as a red herring. Carol Purnell made a valid point about local unofficial names and terms, but the issue is much wider than that. The information given to control room staff by the mobilising system depends on the accuracy of information provided by a potentially panicking caller and the accuracy of the data in the system. Both can be inaccurate and result in crews being sent to the wrong location when the operator lacks local knowledge.

It was suggested that caller locations can be identified with technology, but that is only true for conventional landlines. Although even they can present challenges with modern phone divert and number transfer options. Exact locations cannot be given for mobile phone callers, only the location of the mobile phone mast the caller is connected to.

Even more challenging is increasing use of the internet for voice calls. The location provided to control operators will not be the location of the caller, but of the site where the call leaves the internet and enters the telephone network, which may be many miles away.

The only safeguard is local knowledge. I have experience of control operators with local knowledge ignoring the mobilising system recommendation and sending us to the correct location, and also of control operators, who lacked local knowledge, sending us to the wrong location. 

When it is right, technology is a great boon, but when it is wrong you need staff with good local knowledge. It is also vital when the technology fails, which can and does happen. Trained operators with local knowledge and basic paper information can still get fire crews to emergencies.  

Who is in charge?

Initially, the responses at the meeting seemed more reassuring, with talk of joint management and operations boards for the control room, but as the discussion progressed it became clear that Surrey will always have the final say.

Michael Jones asked about Surrey’s crewing problems impacting on West Sussex, but was told that was Surrey’s concern. It may be, but if the Surrey control room starts plugging gaps in their fire cover with West Sussex crews it will undermine effective fire cover in West Sussex. It is a fundamental matter that must be addressed.

Similarly, it was indicated that it is up to Surrey if they wish to deal with calls for other services. Unless staffing is increased that could well see West Sussex calls suffering even worse delays. That did not seem to concern the officers, which is worrying. West Sussex must have a say in staffing requirements, if Surrey want to increase the workload of control staff.

This is a very good deal for Surrey, as council taxpayers in West Sussex will be heavily subsidising their control room costs. Much was said about best value, but best value is not just the cheapest option. For there to be value there also has to be a reliable and effective service for West Sussex residents.

The lack of detail, the secret reports, the unanswered questions, and Surrey’s history of cutting corners on staffing do nothing to reassure West Sussex residents and firefighters that they will be safe.

Selsey Academy fire - more details

After delaying tactics by East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, I have now received the first part of the incident log for this fire. I first submitted a Freedom of Information request in October last year. (Note: East Sussex operate the Sussex Fire Control and carry out call handling and mobilisation for all calls to fire & rescue in both East and West Sussex).

It was previously reported by West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service that the first crew arrived 16 minutes after the first '999' call, but the log shows that it actually took 18 minutes. Response targets vary in West Sussex, based on their own classification of risk, from 8 to 14 minutes for the first fire engine and from 11 to 17 minutes for the second. So the first fire engine to arrive at this fire did not even meet the target for a second fire engine in a lowest risk area. With Selsey having a resident population of over 10,000, plus several thousand more in holiday accommodation at the time of this incident (August), it is difficult to consider it 'low risk'.

It must be remembered that it was only luck that resulted in Selsey's retained (part-time) crew eventually attending the incident. The Sussex Control had them recorded as not available, but as news of a major fire spread around Selsey, their firefighters called the Sussex Control to say they could respond. Had that not happened, it would have taken 31 minutes to get the minimum of 9 firefighters to this fire. That number was agreed, after a review by several fire & rescue services, as the absolute minimum to ensure safe and effective initial firefighting and rescue at any building fire.

The call was received at 07:52. Of the nearest six fire engines, only two were available. They were the wholetime crewed fire engines at Chichester and Bognor Regis, which were both sent with a total crew of eight firefighters. Three minutes later, a retained crew from Arundel was ordered to attend by the Sussex Control. It is not known if this was to provide the mandatory ninth firefighter, or if it was because more '999' calls were being received.

The incident log also reveals that the Emsworth fire engine is listed before Arundel in the attendance priority schedule, and both Havant and Emsworth are shown before Arundel in the dynamic mobilising list. The dynamic mobilising list is supposed to more reliably show which of the available fire engines can arrive the quickest. It is therefore not clear why the Arundel crew was sent at that time.

At a County Council meeting, Cabinet Member David Barling tried to pass the buck for the initial delay and he clumsily insulted Selsey's firefighters in the process. He then claimed that it was OK, as “lots of other engines all turned up within a few minutes of each other”. So, let us look at that in more detail.

We now know that the first fire engine, from Chichester, arrived eighteen minutes after the first ‘999’ call. The Bognor Regis crew arrived one minute later, as did the Selsey crew that had luckily become available. A total of 14 standard fire engine crews were required to contain and attack the fire. It took 31 minutes to get four of them there. After 1 hour and 5 minutes there were just eight. After 1 hour and 44 minutes it was up to ten, and it was just under three hours (2 hours and 56 minutes) before the final fourteenth fire engine arrived.

Not exactly “within a few minutes of each other”. Now I am sure the Cabinet Member will be prompted to say that they were not all requested at the start. True, but nearly three hours to get enough resources there to control the fire, raises serious questions about assessment, decision making, travel distances and resource availability. This is not intended to be critical of the junior and middle ranking officers who attended, but questions need to be asked. Is training adequate? Have cuts reduced resources to the extent that they are consciously, or subconsciously, overcautious about requesting assistance?

Previous reports have suggested that pressure is being applied to officers in charge to keep assistance requests low. Even without that, officers are painfully aware of the inadequate number of pumps often available. If that is discouraging officers from requesting the right number of resources, then that may explain the very long gap between the first call and the final fire engine to arrive. The speed and weight of attack are fundamentals in effective firefighting. Anything that undermines those principles is dangerous for the public and firefighters alike.

As a comparison I took a look at the response to the Chichester Sainsbury’s fire in 1993. There were fourteen fire engines in attendance in just 45 minutes, and all twenty-six arrived in under two hours.

It may not be the only reason, but the County Council's serious cuts in funding and resources must have played a significant part in the stark difference in the responses to these two incidents.

More dangerous cuts on the way

I have been receiving worrying reports of more cuts next year. Now it is perfectly true that the root cause of the cuts is the Government, who happily withdraw large amounts of funding from local authorities with no consideration of the consequences. However, West Sussex County Council’s leadership cannot escape some of the blame. They should have been shouting from the roof tops about the damaging effect of cuts, but for a long time they stayed silent. Recent weak criticism by the Council Leader of some Government policies is too little, too late.

In a report on the Council’s Financial Strategy, the Director of Finance said, “This is the most challenging Financial Strategy the County has ever faced, with significant demand pressures faced, on-going significant reductions in grant support from Government and uncertainty over other funding streams and the future funding system for local authorities.” It also seems that some Council services are likely to overspend this year. In addition, many of the savings forecast to come from this year’s cuts, and agreed only in February, may not be realised, thus worsening the overall position.

With costs rising as a result of such things as the weaker pound and the improvement of dreadfully low pay in the care sector, the situation can only get worse. It is also reported that West Sussex receives the lowest school funding level per pupil in the country, amounting to some £200 million less than many London boroughs. School results are already below average in West Sussex, so further cut backs in schools will do nothing to improve results.

There have been suggestions that our Fire & Rescue Service may have to save more than £2 million next year. Last year’s cuts of £1.6 million resulted in the loss of five frontline fire engines. Previous cuts saw the closure of three fire stations and the loss of six fire engines. The often quoted ‘back office’ areas, where it is claimed that cuts can be made without affecting the service, have been squeezed dry, so it is difficult to see how any cuts can be made without seriously affecting frontline response.

The cuts made so far have already seen an increase in response times, in some cases significant increases. Any further cuts to staffing and frontline fire engines will be disastrous, but there is clearly a danger that they will see this as their only option. Could Lancing and East Preston be closed? Might they look again at that illegal crewing system that involves continuous duty, part on station, part on call. Might they go down the route of Hampshire and North Yorkshire and use inadequately crewed vehicles to replace properly crewed fire engines? I sincerely hope none of these will be considered.

They should first shout long and hard at Government and be honest with MP’s, instead of pretending cuts are not damaging. Short sighted cuts to the fire & rescue service do not save the country money. The costs arising from fires and other emergencies, such as property damage, loss of business and social care, all increase and together outweigh any savings. If that fails, the Council need to consider using some of their reserves to soften the blow, and they really must resurrect the plan to merge East & West Sussex Fire & Rescue Services. That may be the only way to save money with minimum effect on frontline service.

With County Council elections next May, perhaps now is the time to start lobbying Councillors to get their finger out and campaign to stop the finance reductions. With most West Sussex County Councillors being in the same political party as the Government, surely they can bring some pressure to bear. I also hope to see Councillors and candidates from other parties regularly speaking out on these issues.    

Consultation - West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service Community Risk Management Plan

Well I have submitted my response to the West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service consultation, which closes on Friday this week. The 'additional comments' (item 2) are reproduced below and if anyone wishes to include any of the text in their response, then please feel free to do so.

"This document does not meet the requirements of an Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP), and even fails to deliver as a Community Risk Management Plan. Much of the information in the document may be useful in a general information brochure, but the absence of key information on the outcomes of the last IRMP and plans for dealing with future risk makes this an inadequate IRMP.

Despite a statement that ‘Station Profile’ and ‘County Profile’ documents are produced each year and are available on the website, I have been unable to find them on the website. Even a search for them only resulted in ‘Sorry, no results were found’ being displayed.

The dubious selection of figures for fire deaths seems intended to disguise the failure to deliver on the 2010-15 IRMP’s statement that fire deaths would be reduced. The latest figures, that would show accidental dwelling fire fatalities for 2015/16, have been omitted and, oddly, figures for 2004/05 have been included. That is presumably to misrepresent the situation by starting the chart with a particularly high number of fire deaths.

According to Government figures, the actual deaths for the period of the last IRMP were 28, compared to the previous five years when there were just 13. So instead of a reduction they have more than doubled.

The 2010-15 IRMP also said that WSFRS would “look at new and creative options to maintain cover and continue to attract new retained recruits.” Not only has WSFRS failed to do this, but changes to contracts, training and management of Retained Duty System (RDS) personnel have made things worse.

Mysteriously, the retained appliance availability target of 88% in 2011/12 has been cut to 75%. Despite the serious implications, this has apparently been done without any consultation with either the public or with County Councillors. Yet even this reduced target is not being met and average availability has fallen from 87% in 2009/10 to 59% last year. Some stations have even dropped from 100% to just 30% availability during that period.

The failure to address this problem suggests that WSFRS is happy to allow the retained service to wither and die. This is evidenced by inadequate efforts to stop the decline and the repeated process of removing lower availability RDS crewed fire engines from service. Nine have been cut so far. Clues to the root causes of these failures may be shown in a recent national survey of RDS firefighters by the Retained Firefighters Union. The results showed that 69% did not feel their service was doing enough to resolve the problem, and 60% felt that they were undervalued by Principle Officers.

The only way WSFRS is going to properly tackle the RDS problem is by working with communities, County Councillors, Parish Councils, local business and community groups, partner agencies, the South Downs National Park Authority and others. Much is made of partnership working, yet on this critical problem WSFRS seems intent on avoiding the involvement of anyone that may be able to help find new and creative options.

Whilst the Crewing Optimisation Group may seem a useful interim solution to the RDS crewing difficulties, it is expensive as a long term solution and fails to cover all periods of RDS crew shortages. Operating it when there are 12 wholetime crews available, but not operating it when there are only 8 wholetime crews on duty suggests a lack of planning. Especially as there are times, during the periods that the Crewing Optimisation Group is not available, when RDS shortages are as bad as they are when the Crewing Optimisation Group is available.

There continues to be an inadequate assessment of risk and an even more inadequate provision for dealing with it. The last IRMP is claimed to have resulted in “a considerable reduction in the number of ‘Very High’ Critical Fire risk areas”, yet no evidence can be found to support this claim. It appears that this may not be an actual reduction of risk, but simply a slight drop in the number of calls received in some areas.

The risk to individual lives and property remains, and the risk of losing lives or property is actually greater in areas classed as ‘low risk’, because it takes longer to get firefighters to those areas. The risk to life is particularly high in respect of road traffic collisions, with the more serious ones tending to occur in rural areas. Not only are response times greater, but WSFRS is failing to meet target times for one in four incidents.

Neither is the provision matched to the risk or the volume of calls. Crawley continues to be the fire station area requiring the most fire & rescue service responses in the County. In addition, this document says that the population in that area is expected to increase by 25%. Yet, WSCC has cut the number of fire engines and crews in Crawley from five to two. There is a correlation between population and number of calls, yet this document has no proposals to deal with an inevitable increase in emergencies in the Crawley area. 

The document states, “We use analytical resources, such as computer modelling software, to help us predict risk and assess the likely impact of changes”. Unfortunately, history shows that the results of that modelling are ignored when it does not suit the Council’s political agenda. Modelling of proposed changes in 2010 was reported, as it showed no increase in deaths or property damage. Yet when modelling of the cuts in 2015 showed an increase in deaths and property damage, efforts were made to disguise and later discredit the modelling.

It is reassuring that WSFRS recognises the reduction in firefighter experience of real fires. However, extra training at the Fire Service College is not enough. The cut in wholetime firefighter numbers and the shortage of retained firefighters have made it difficult to maintain skills with continuation training, and at the same time maintain adequate fire cover. In house training facilities need to be improved and more firefighters must be employed to enable training facilities to be used without undermining fire cover.

The document includes the Sussex Control Centre (SCC) in the list of specialist teams in WSFRS, when in fact the SCC is operated by East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (ESFRS). The Control function is effectively contracted out. No mention is made of the worrying fact that the combined mobilising system, that was fundamental to the improvement of the control function, is now three years overdue. ESFRS has refused to state how many times the combined mobilising system has failed acceptance tests and they have given no indication of when this problem will be resolved.

Other problems with the SCC are not mentioned, including the excessive amount of overtime required to maintain minimum staffing levels. In 2015/16, overtime was required on 425 shifts. Of particular concern is that, unlike the previous WSFRS Fire Control, the SCC does not record mobilising errors. If they are not recorded, then problems are not being identified and remedial action cannot be taken.

The document states that around half the incidents attended by WSFRS were false alarms. It is concerning that this number has been artificially increased by classifying attendance at some road traffic collisions as false alarms, simply because no action was required when the service arrived. To describe an actual road traffic collision that the service attended as a false alarm is misrepresenting the facts and the work of the service. Will attendance at actual fires that are out on arrival be the next to be misrepresented as false? 

The document states, “our change in operating model has not altered the emergency response standards we agreed with you in 2009”. Yet it fails to inform the public that those standards are not all being met and that the degree of failure has increased. In particular for both fire engines arriving at critical fires and for the first fire engine arriving at critical special services.

The addition of the High Volume Pumping Unit is to be welcomed, but it does not offset the loss of 11 fire engines. Storms and flooding primarily require a large number of standard fire engines to respond to the high volume of emergency calls received in a short space of time. WSFRS is now less well prepared to respond to the predicted increase in severe weather events and no improvements are planned.

The claim that this is a ‘Community Risk Management Plan’ is dubious. Despite fine claims about integration, this document has little or no mention of the smaller units now controlled by the Chief Fire Officer, the legislation covering their work, or any plans for their future work. These smaller departments seem to be completely overshadowed by the fire & rescue service and their effectiveness seems to have suffered as a result.

A recent example being the Council’s latest IT Strategy report. The Civil Contingencies Act and resilience are not mentioned, yet resilience of such a core facility, which is essential to all WSCC services, should be a key strategic objective. If the Council cannot meet their legal obligations on such a fundamental report, there is little hope of them setting an example to others.

Finally, the inadequacy of the consultation. There are just two sections on the ‘Plan’, one of which contains four questions designed to get a favourable response, and the other is simply blank for additional comments. Yet there are seven sections about the person submitting the response!

There are no questions about the public’s views on deteriorating fire engine availability, or on increasing failures to meet response times. Both are of significant concern to the public and they are entitled to be properly informed and invited to comment. They should also be asked if they consider £33.68 per person per year is sufficient to spend on their protection. I consider it inadequate and I am sure many others would agree.

Firefighters continue to do a superb job, but the decreasing support they receive from the County Council is a disgrace. The public also deserve a much more open, transparent and accountable fire & rescue service. This Community Risk Management Plan does little to meet those objectives. Sadly, it’s inadequacies will simply strengthen the Police & Crime Commissioner’s case to take control of the fire & rescue service."