False claims and worsening response times

More false claims from Cabinet Member

Duncan Crow entertaining his Conservative colleagues

At Friday's full council meeting, Cabinet Member Duncan Crow again misled his fellow County Councillors several times. Sadly, he seemed more interested in getting a laugh from his Conservative colleagues than he was with accuracy. Here are some disturbing examples:

West Sussex residents deserve better

Especially if we have to put up with these County Councillors for seven years instead of four!

The consultation to lower West Sussex County Council's emergency response standards is still underway. Current standards allow lengthy response times, yet this proposal will allow even longer response times. However, more disturbing information has recently come to light.

Emergency Response Standard

failures no longer investigated

Whenever County Councillors have asked about failures to meet the response standards, they have always been assured that every such incident is investigated. However, Deputy Chief Fire Officer Matt Cook has now said that they no longer investigate every failure. 

It appears that this significant change in policy has been done in secret, with even the council's Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee kept in the dark. It is not known if Cabinet Member Duncan Crow knows about this change, if he approved it, or if he instructed the service to stop investigating these serious failures.

The only excuse offered for not investigating these failures is the claim that most result from reasons “beyond our control (such as heavy traffic, and long travel distance).” A nonsense excuse, as many fire & rescue services have used data on delays caused by heavy traffic and long travel distances to support the relocation of fire stations, or the provision of additional fire stations. 

Even West Sussex used data on failures to meet response standards to support the case for improvements. Wholetime crewing during the day was extended from five to seven days a week at Burgess Hill, East Grinstead, Haywards Heath and Shoreham just two years ago. 

Responsible fire authorities investigate all response standard failures

West Sussex County Council is not being responsible

Council failure, not firefighter failure

It is important to note that firefighters continue to do their utmost to get to emergencies quickly. Responsibility for these failures rests with the County Council, which has stripped the service of sufficient resources to meet the response standards. Frontline resources have been cut by a quarter and they are failing to ensure that the remainder are always available. That is why they cannot provide a speedy and effective response to every emergency.

Only the County Council's leadership has something to gain

from lowering standards and not investigating failures

Bizarre internal review response

The new information from DCFO Matt Cook emerged from his internal review response about their refusal to provide information about failures to meet the response standards. The same information was requested in 2018 and 2021 and was provided, but the request for the same information for the twelve months to the end of October last year was refused. 

He begins by supporting the dubious grounds for refusing to disclose the information that they confirmed they held. Ludicrously, he then concludes by claiming that they do not hold the information.

It would be quite irresponsible if the service did not have information on each incident that meets, and those that do not meet, the County Council's response standards. Without that information, they would be unable to provide key performance information to the Cabinet, and the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee. Yet both received response standard information as recently as December 2024.

There is no justification for this refusal

A complaint has been submitted to the Information Commissioner

More evidence of the damaging effect of Council cuts

An examination of the latest figures shows that West Sussex assists the neighbouring fire & rescue services (East Sussex, Hampshire, Kent and Surrey) less often. Yet, they are calling on them for assistance much more often. Compared to five years ago, West Sussex has cut help to other fire & rescue services by a third, whilst assistance from them has had to increase by over 37%.

Clear evidence that West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service is under resourced

Don't help the County Council

cut emergency response standards

Reject the proposed changes

Reminder - The consultation closes on 27 February 2025.

Poor performance prompts more spin and cover up

With elections next May, it seems that West Sussex County Council's leadership is desperate to cover up how their cuts have damaged the fire & rescue service's performance. 

Bogus grounds used to refuse Freedom of Information request

A recent request for copies of the service's 'Failure to meet response standard reports', covering the period from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2024, has been refused. This is particularly suspicious, as the information was provided when the same reports were requested in 2018 and 2021. One can only assume that performance is now much worse.

The first bogus reason for refusal was that disclosure "would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health of any individual or the safety of any individual". With imagination worthy of a conspiracy theorist, they suggest that a person with malicious intent could use the data to delay the response to future incidents.

So, what is this information that was previously not valuable to a person with malicious intent, but now suddenly is? 

The information simply shows that at some past incidents the service failed to meet their response standard for reasons such as long travel distance, slow turnout, nearest station off the run, appliance did not book in, difficulty in locating the incident, nearest appliance attending another incident, and heavy traffic. 

All reasons that would be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense.

Bizarre personal data refusal, when no personal data was requested

Presumably, in case the first reason does not pass the Information Commissioner's tests, they throw in the personal data exemption as a second reason for refusal. Yet no personal data was requested, and the information held, and previously provided, does not include personal data. 

The Council's leadership and the Chief Fire Officer regularly claim to be open and transparent, yet this demonstrates, once again, that they are not.

Complacent and ineffective Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee meeting 

This committee met at the beginning of the month and, sadly, scrutiny was inadequate. The Performance Report for quarter 2 of 2024/25 revealed further deterioration in the service's response to critical fires, but committee members voiced no concerns.

Critical Fires – First Appliance Attendance

The response target for critical fires across most of the County is a lengthy 14 minutes, yet this is failed on nearly 10% of occasions. The report said that 'performance often dips in quarter two', but no one asked the Chief Fire Officer why it was nearly 8% worse than the same quarter last year (it was 94.7% in quarter two last year, but was down to 86.9% this year).

Inadequate crewing on retained frontline fire engines

Councillor complacency on this crisis is astonishing. Not only was this the worst ever quarter two performance, it was the worst quarterly performance on record. With up to three quarters of the County's fire engines dependent on retained firefighters this continuing deterioration is putting lives and property at risk. Yet, instead of demanding action, Councillors just accept Cabinet Member Duncan Crow's lame excuses and move on to the next item. 

Source: WSCC reports 

(Note - the target was cut between 2013/14 and 2019/20 without consultation or explanation)

Councillors rightly praise staff in the fire & rescue service for their efforts, but fail to examine how decisions by the Council have contributed to this worrying decline. Not only has the County Council cut the number of retained firefighters they employ, their policies are having a negative effect on the recruitment and retention of retained firefighters.

The County Council could set an example to other employers by having a policy to positively support all County Council employees who wish to become retained firefighters, and a policy to release them from their primary employment for training and response to emergencies. Yet the Council has no such policy and selfishly expects other employers and the self employed to step up and do what they will not do.

Why are establishment and strength figures not published?

It is interesting that the report refers to the Retained Duty System being 14% below the ‘authorised establishment.’ Establishment figures are no longer published, so Councillors cannot properly scrutinise the service without updates on changes to the establishment and actual strength figures. 

Source: Home Office statistics

The retained firefighter strength in 2024 is two thirds lower than the Council's approved establishment in 2004! 

Lean or inadequately resourced?

During the meeting, Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton referred to the service being a lean one. An understatement if ever there was one. The County Council has cut the service to the bone, which leaves it struggling to cope with routine demand. It is no longer able to provide an effective service when there are more demanding incidents, or when several incidents occur at the same time. 

Instead of recognising that deteriorating performance is the result of Council cuts, Duncan Crow was more interested in boasting that the County Council's spend on the fire & rescue service is £6 less per head of population than the average in England. That missing £5 million has much to do with why there are not enough firefighters in West Sussex and, as a consequence, why response times have got worse.

The County Council is failing to properly protect residents

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

May 2018 Update