Latest figures show Conservative claims of improvement are false

Response standard failures increase

Paul Marshall, Conservative Leader of West Sussex County Council, says he feels "significant improvements" have been made to the fire & rescue service. Yet the latest figures, released following a freedom of information request, show his claim to be false.

The number of occasions our inadequately resourced fire & rescue service has failed to meet the very generous response times, set by the Conservative run County Council, has nearly doubled in five years. This is not every delayed response either, the figures just cover the first two fire engines arriving at the most serious fires, and the first fire engine arriving at serious non-fire emergencies such as road traffic collisions.

The response said that figures for 2020-21 were unavailable as they "are currently working through the raw data".

Fire deaths on the rise

This latest evidence that the service provided to the public is not improving comes after a recent increase in fire deaths. In the last ten years the Conservatives have cut frontline response resources by a quarter. They claimed it was justified as they would save more lives with prevention work. Final figures for 2020-21 have yet to be confirmed, but four fire deaths have so far been reported to County Councillors. Sadly there are unconfirmed reports that the final figure for 2020-21 may be six.

The chart shows confirmed figures

The Conservatives have failed to properly protect West Sussex residents, yet instead of apologising for their failures they continue to mislead voters by claiming things are improving. Staff in the fire & rescue service have been working their socks off to try and improve performance, but the continued lack of resources makes it an impossible task.

There has been no indication that the Conservatives will stop their arrogant  misrepresentation, improve performance, or even ensure proper scrutiny and accountability. 

It was only last year that Conservative Cabinet Member Duncan Crow's answer to poor call handling times in the Surrey Fire Control, which handles West Sussex calls, was to suggest excluding the worst times from the statistics. 

Conservative Steve Waight, who is supposed to ensure that the performance of the fire & rescue service is properly scrutinised, repeatedly tries to stop discussion of serious concerns by claiming they are 'operational matters'. These 'operational matters' are fundamental to the service's performance and it is essential that they are discussed. 

Incidents are also increasing

Remember when the Conservatives told you that the number of emergencies attended was falling and would continue to fall?

The Conservatives cannot be trusted

with our Fire & Rescue Service

County Council secrecy and dishonesty continues to damage the fire & rescue service

Worst response times to high risk areas, inaccurate statistics and cover up

It seem that West Sussex County Council is still covering up their failings with regard to the fire & rescue service. Despite some signs of improvement in parts of the service, the County Council is still arrogantly ignoring their responsibility to be transparent and accountable.

The latest example was at the October Cabinet meeting, when questions from Councillor Michael Jones, leader of the Labour group on the Council, were ignored. The minutes of the meeting not only misrepresent the questions he raised but dishonestly claim, "the Chief Fire Officer responded to his questions." She did not, Council Leader Paul Marshall, who chaired the meeting, did not invite the Chief Fire Officer to answer those questions, he ignored them and moved on. It was blatant political bias, as when Conservative Councillors asked questions he did invite the Chief Fire Officer to answer them.

Cabinet Member Duncan Crow has been claiming response time improvements, yet he ignored the serious deterioration in response times to areas classed as high risk. The figures published in the latest quarterly performance report show the worst figures for five years, with the target being missed on 20% of calls. Councillor Jones asked why they were so bad and what steps were being taken to improve them. He got no answer.

He asked about discrepancies in the incident statistics shown in the annual report for 2019/20. In one part of the report it says 9,522 incidents attended, but in another part it says 9,582. The national fire statistics, compiled from reports submitted by WSFRS, show there were 9,620 incidents, which is 98 more calls than WSFRS claim in their report. Councillor Jones asked for an explanation, but his request was again ignored.

Michael Jones also asked why details of the wholetime and on-call establishment for the new fire station at Horsham had not been provided and he asked for details. He got no answer.

Finally, he voiced concern about the failure to provide statistics in response to a freedom of information request (full details available on the WhatDoTheyKnow website). This happened to be a request I had submitted in July and it is the first year that WSFRS had refused to provide the statistics. They claimed that they were intended for publication in the Annual Statement of Assurance and Annual Report, so were exempt. This appeared to be a dubious excuse, as the details requested had never been published in that report before. 

Surprise, surprise, when the report was presented to the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee in September, the information requested was not in the report. Councillor Jones asked for an explanation and for the information to be provided to those requesting it and to himself. The question was ignored. 

I don't know if he has received the information, but I still haven't, despite being told that any statistics not in the report would be sent to me within two weeks. I have now referred the matter to the Information Commissioner.

Continuing secrecy over the Surrey Fire Control fiasco

Thanks to the Information Commissioner, a little information about this fiasco has eventually been released, but West Sussex County Council is still trying to keep other details secret. After being told the exemption they claimed was not lawfully used, they are now claiming a different and equally dubious exemption. The Commissioner is investigating.

According to WSCC, releasing details of the Surrey control room failures in December 2019 and January 2020, and the action taken to fix them, will "endanger the physical or mental health and/or safety of an individual or group". They don't explain who or why and they go on to claim that releasing the information would identify "potential vulnerabilities". Yet West Sussex County Councillors were previously told that all the problems had been fixed, which should mean there are no vulnerabilities. 

The information also suggests why they were so keen to keep it secret and why they are still trying to hide other details. It appears that West Sussex paid scant attention to the issue of adequate staffing and the agreement was approved by a manager with no training or experience of control rooms. It also appears that they did not refer to any standards, good practice guides, studies or research material when reaching the agreement with Surrey, and even ignored the essential Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure’s guidance.

It seems that West Sussex just accepted Surrey's incredibly inadequate staffing of just six per shift, which Surrey claim ensures a minimum of five control room operators on duty. That leaves very little room to cover absences for training, annual leave, sickness etc., and will inevitably see delays at busy times. When West Sussex ran their own control room they also had six per shift, but that was to ensure at least four on duty for significantly fewer incidents.

Inadequate staffing = those calling for help having to wait longer for help more frequently.  

Cabinet Member wants to fiddle the figures

At the last Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee meeting, Cabinet Member Duncan Crow told Councillors how they could improve the statistics for the time that Surrey take to answer '999' calls. They are supposed to answer all of them in less than 7 seconds, but have been failing to do so on around 5% of calls. In an adequately staffed and properly run control room '999' callers should be answered immediately, and certainly well under 7 seconds. He said that as some incidents can generate multiple calls, they should only assess the time it takes to answer the first '999' call. He said he knew that would make the figures "better".

Not only is this shabby manipulation, it suggests subsequent '999' calls are unimportant. Quickly answering repeat calls to an incident is vitally important. Subsequent calls can provide more accurate addresses, as well as critical details that can affect the safety of firefighters and the public. It is also absolutely vital, if the first call is not from the property involved, that a later call from someone trapped by the fire is answered immediately. If it is not, then the delay in the call handler giving life saving advice and obtaining information from the caller to help firefighters locate them quickly can cost lives.

Councillor Crow also seems to be disregarding the Council's legal responsibility to “make arrangements for dealing with calls for help”. That applies to all emergency calls, not just the first one. It is not the Chief Fire Officers of West Sussex or of Surrey, or Surrey County Council that are legally responsible for effective arrangements for dealing with calls for help from West Sussex residents. It is West Sussex County Council that remains legally responsible, as they are the  Fire & Rescue Authority and, as Cabinet Member, it is Councillor Crow who is answerable in law and to the public.

Every call to an incident is important and must be answered quickly, 

fiddling the figures is unacceptable.

Scrutiny Chairman wants to restrict scrutiny

At the same meeting, Chairman Steve Waight said that he wanted "to avoid us looking at any operational issues”. Yet there is no legitimate reason for preventing the committee from scrutinising operational issues. The County Council is legally responsible for all matters concerning the fire & rescue service, so Councillors should not be prevented from questioning any aspect of the service.

Now it may be that Councillor Waight is getting confused after his brief flirtation with the role of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, a few years back. If so, he needs to understand that there are fundamental differences, established in law, between the two services. 

Chief Constables hold office under the Crown and are directly accountable for the exercise of police powers. They are operationally independent of elected Police and Crime Commissioners and Police and Crime Panels to ensure that politicians cannot interfere with how the law is applied, including who is arrested and who is not. Legislation also places specific duties on the Chief Constable.

Chief Fire Officers do not hold office under the Crown, they are simply employees of the Fire & Rescue Authority. Legislation places no specific duties on Chief Fire Officers, the legal duty for all aspects of the service's provision and operation is placed on the Fire & Rescue Authority, which is West Sussex County Council. There is no legal justification, or need, for operational independence.

Some Chief Fire Officers in the past have given poor advice, and some will no doubt do so in the future. Now that Chief Fire Officers can be appointed without any fire service experience, the quality of that professional advice must increasingly be in doubt. West Sussex, fortunately, appointed a professional Chief Fire Officer who started out as a firefighter, but that does not relieve Councillors of their duty to scrutinise thoroughly. I also doubt that the Chief Fire Officer would want scrutiny limited, as that is not in the interest of her staff or of West Sussex residents.

If WSCC is to avoid another inadequate rating, they must stop fiddling the figures, they must be transparent, and they must scrutinise properly

 

Secrecy and cover up continue like a cancer in West Sussex

The control room fiasco gets worse

In my last post I referred to the Freedom of Information requests, which were submitted to both Surrey and West Sussex fire & rescue services, about the control room fiasco. Both of them should have provided the requested information by the 18th February, but they did not. Surrey did reply on the 18th but said, “Unfortunately, there will be a short delay in issuing the response to this request.” West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service finally responded, three days late, but failed to provide any information.

They refused the request and claim the information is “commercially sensitive”

Now the last time I looked both Surrey and West Sussex County Councils, including their fire & rescue services were not commercial organisations, but public bodies that are accountable to the public. The Fire & Rescue Services Act does permit a fire & rescue authority to arrange for another fire & rescue authority to discharge functions on its behalf, but it does not say that details of how they discharge that function can be kept secret. 

With a new County Council Leader, new Chief Executive and new Chief Fire Officer I had hoped the days of secrecy and cover up were behind us, but it appears my hopes were misplaced.

Council Leader Paul Marshall’s claims that his vision is “to lead an authority that is open with the public about how it works” and that he “welcomes scrutiny” seem rather hollow now. Council Chief Executive Becky Shaw’s claims about communication being important seem similarly hollow. Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton speaks about the importance of staff being able to trust in the organisation, but it seems that public trust is not important when secrecy is the priority.

Incredibly, there is no agreement!

The West Sussex reply goes on to say: "The project has only recently commenced, with the section 16 agreement yet to be drawn up." So West Sussex County Council has spent a large amount of public money, and Surrey have been handling West Sussex emergencies for nearly three months, without a signed agreement - unbelievable.

Any responsible fire & rescue authority would have had the Fire & Rescue Services Act section 16 agreement drawn up and signed before handing responsibility over. Once again, West Sussex County Council fails to do things responsibly.

Having already handed their legal responsibility for call handling and mobilising over to Surrey, West Sussex has left itself with no bargaining power when they eventually draw up the agreement. Concerns that this arrangement lacks proper safeguards for West Sussex residents now look very real. It was completely reckless to commence operation without a signed agreement, especially on staffing levels.

Without a signed section 16 agreement, it begs the question, 

"Has West Sussex County Council acted lawfully?"

Commercially Sensitive Claim is bogus

When they even refuse to provide information on West Sussex only activity, it is very clear that the commercially sensitive claim is bogus. 

The question about control room training and experience of the West Sussex staff who are responsible for assessing and signing off the adequacy of staffing levels for the agreement only relates to West Sussex. Similarly, how on earth can details of the standards, good practice guides, studies and research material, used by West Sussex to inform the assessment process, be commercially sensitive? 

Details of problems that resulted, or could have resulted, in a delay to the attendance at West Sussex incidents since Surrey took over, and what has been done about those problems, are matters of serious public concern, but apparently that too is “commercially sensitive”.

The public also has a right to know what performance standards West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service has specified in this yet to be concluded agreement with Surrey, but again they claim that is “commercially sensitive”.

With increasing concerns nationally about IT failures and inadequate staffing levels in fire controls, secrecy and cover up cannot be tolerated.

Chief Executive Becky Shaw was right when she said that there are "fundamental issues that need to be addressed" in West Sussex County Council. One of them is the Council's historic resistance to scrutiny and accountability, including trying to frustrate legitimate Freedom of Information requests.

So I would ask Paul Marshall, Becky Shaw and Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, "are you continuing to resist scrutiny and accountability, or is this the result of poor advice from those in the Council who have always preferred secrecy and cover up?"

If it is poor advice, then it is time your advisers were reminded that they are supposed to protect the public, not cover up County Council mistakes.

Why adequate staffing is vital

There is no pattern to instances of high demand in fire service control rooms, it can happen at any time of day, on any day of the week, and at any time of the year. The recent bad weather is a reminder of how demand can suddenly increase. A summer storm in July 2007 illustrates this very well. At the time, each fire & rescue service had their own dedicated control room and in the case of West Sussex it was well staffed. 

At the peak, West Sussex's fire control was receiving two emergency calls a minute and within 15 hours they had managed just under 300 emergency calls. Of those, 150 were about incidents in West Sussex, but 146 were for other fire service control rooms that were unable to answer their calls in a reasonable time. Most were for emergencies in London, but Surrey provided the second most and East Sussex the third most calls. Not all the calls that day were flooding related, there were also fires, rescues and road traffic collisions. 

With significantly less control staff today, 

a similar event would result in serious and even life threatening delays.  

Computer Business Review

During the recent storm 'Dennis', London Fire Brigade suffered a major IT failure and "Control room staff were forced to resort to taking pen and paper notes, and patching calls through to local fire stations manually." Clear evidence that claims about technology enabling you to have less staff are reckless. 

Staffing levels must always be sufficient to handle both 
sudden increases in demand and technology failures. 
  
Performance information secretly moved

At the last County Council meeting there were two interesting questions about fire & rescue from Councillors Chris Oxlade and Michael Jones. 

Chris Oxlade pointed out that details of response times for the second fire engine attending fires, and for the first fire engine at road traffic collisions were among items removed from the council’s Performance Dashboard. He asked when they would be restored.

The answer revealed that the data had been moved and could now be found on the fire & rescue service reports page of the website. Reassuring that the information can be found, but disappointing that it is less user friendly than it was on the Performance Dashboard.

It remains unclear why it was secretly moved with, apparently, neither the public or councillors being informed. Perhaps they did not want people to scrutinise it?

More dubious advice

In a question about councils selling data to third parties, Michael Jones also asked about sensitive and personal data now being shared with Surrey County Council, following the fire control change. The answers were rather alarming. 

It appears that no consent was sought from individuals, businesses or partners to share personal, commercial or security sensitive information. The excuse offered was that the Fire & Rescue Services Act provided a lawful basis, but that Act does not cover data sharing. That is dealt with by the Data Protection Act, which they seem happy to ignore.

Now it is true that the Information Commissioner has accepted there may be a need to share data during an emergency, but blanket sharing ahead of an emergency is not accepted. In their haste to enter in to this arrangement it seems that the the Data Protection Act and the rights of individuals were not properly considered. 

The Commissioner's guidance is clear, before sharing they must consider if the objective can be achieved by passing less personal data and that sometimes consent should be sought before sharing data.

This is even more alarming when you realise that the data is now much more vulnerable to unlawful access because it is stored in more locations, including those of commercial organisations:

Data held by West Sussex County Council is stored on servers in Chichester and Horsham. Data held by Surrey County Council is stored at their premises in Salfords and Guildford.

Data is stored on commercial premises for the following reasons:

• Hosted – where the Council’s bespoke system is hosted at the software vendor’s own premises or third-party premises (e.g. Cloud provider – Microsoft, Amazon, etc.).

• IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service – where the Council buys compute and storage capacity from a mainstream Cloud provider and manages these applications directly.

• SaaS – Software as a Service – where the Council buys an end user solution – with operation, maintenance, storage and support of a software solution handled directly by the vendor – the Council consumes resources provided as a service (SmartCore Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) replacement project is proposing to procure through this model).

When you realise that stolen, leaked or corrupted data often results from the actions of disgruntled employees and companies who lose contracts, having so many opportunities to gain access to the data, lawfully or unlawfully, is alarming. 

Now of course they mention agreements and contractual obligations covering data protection, but they can fail and the more there are the greater the risk. Not forgetting of course that the section 16 agreement with Surrey has not yet been drawn up!

The Council's continuing cavalier attitude to data protection
and freedom of information legislation is disturbing.