Inaccurate information at Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee

No response from Committee Chairman

It is over two weeks since I emailed the Chairman of the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee, regarding my concerns that his committee was incorrectly told that there is a national performance standard for answering '999' calls. This inaccurate claim was being used to justify abandoning the standard of answering 98% of '999' calls within 7 seconds. 

The originally agreed performance standard was 100% of '999' calls within 7 seconds, so there has already been a mysterious cut.

Key Performance Indicators in the legal agreement between Surrey and West Sussex County Councils

We are not talking about dealing with the call, just the time taken to accept the call from the '999' operator. Simply, the time it takes for a control operator to raise a hand and touch the '999' line on the computer screen. In any properly staffed, equipped and managed fire control, most '999' calls should be accepted in less than two seconds, so the seven second standard can be considered generous. 

Cutting the standard from 100% in 7 seconds to 95% in 10 seconds is unjustified

It is not a national performance standard, it is just an agreement by all the emergency services to try and ease the pressure on British Telecom, who operate the '999' service. An agreement that acknowledges that much busier police control rooms, which are also subjected to more regular spikes in demand, would struggle to meet a higher target.

Had there been a genuine national performance standard for the fire & rescue service, which my research had not uncovered, then I would have expected Councillor Boram, or the Chief Fire Officer, to have informed me of it by now. However, I have heard nothing. As I believe it is a matter of public concern, I have shown the full content of my email at the end of this post.

Legitimate Concerns

The performance standard they wish to lower is not measuring staff performance, it is measuring delivery of the service. Poor performance statistics, and plans to drop performance standards, show that my concerns about Joint Fire Control are justified. However, that should not be misinterpreted as criticism of the staff working there. The performance standard depends on many other factors, including the number of staff on duty, the workload, equipment, policies, procedures, training, and local knowledge. Even the best control operators cannot make up for deficiencies in those areas.

That the average last year showed 5.8% of calls were not answered within 7 seconds indicates all is not well. 

Another indication that all is not well is that Joint Fire Control only managed to alert West Sussex fire stations, within 2 minutes of the '999' call being received, for just 84% of incidents last year (2020/21 Statement of Assurance). 

This standard has also been mysteriously cut from 100% to 98%.

Key Performance Indicators in the legal agreement between Surrey and West Sussex County Councils

This also does not compare favourably with the performance of the Sussex Fire Control, which handled West Sussex calls before this arrangement with Surrey. In the months before the changeover, despite using what was described as equipment well overdue for upgrading, Sussex Fire Control was alerting fire stations within 2 minutes for 94% of incidents. 

Source: WSFRS Performance Report 2020-21 Quarter 3 (Changeover of Controls date added)

Surrey County Council, which manages the Joint Fire Control, committed to these performance standards. On behalf of residents, West Sussex County Council should insist on them being achieved.

Lowering standards is not the answer, the failure to achieve them should be investigated and action taken to improve performance

Unfair Accusations

Whilst sorting through old documents, I came across a unique group photo of West Sussex fire control staff from 1983. I thought it would be of interest to those on a Facebook group for serving and former West Sussex staff. Numerous favourable comments show it was well received, yet one serving officer chose to link it to the current fire control problems.

I have steadfastly avoided any reference to current problems on that group, as it is a non-political group for sharing memories and news of retirements etc. When I posted the photo I simply said, "When West Sussex operated its own fire control, which supported crews and served the public so very efficiently." The officer chose to comment, "As our Fire control continues to do to this day Tony Morris". 

I have never criticised fire control staff for the current problems, so I responded with "Did I say otherwise? I did not, as I thought we wanted to keep political comment out of this group." Incredibly, he then said that the "implication is clear". It is disturbing that he decided to ignore what was actually written and decided to invent implications that were not there. He is a group administrator and deleted my reasonable reply, alleging it violated the group rule to "be kind and courteous."

He also messaged me and suggested I was trying to turn everything into part of a "bitter vendetta". It was distressing that he sees my campaigning for a properly funded and resourced fire & rescue service, which properly supports the public and staff, as a "bitter vendetta". I asked him to explain what I am supposed to be bitter about, but I have had no response. 

I have always supported the service and have only ever wanted what is best for the public and for those who work in the service. My public campaigning could only begin once I was no longer employed by West Sussex County Council, and that coincided with Council plans to reduce the capability and effectiveness of the service even further. I was particularly concerned that the cuts were being dishonestly touted as 'improvements', so I explained why they were not improvements and why they would be damaging. Deteriorating service performance since then has shown that those concerns were justified. 

It was disappointing at the time, but not surprising, to learn that certain senior officers, who have now left, told Councillors I was a 'disgruntled former employee'. A shabby and dishonest tactic to deflect attention from the issues. It also appears the tactic was employed to mislead serving personnel. Fortunately, those who know me saw it for the dirty trick it was and have been very supportive of my efforts.

So, let me be clear, I have nothing to be bitter about regarding West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service or West Sussex County Council. There is no vendetta, just legitimate criticism of changes that my professional experience tells me are not in the best interest of the public or of fire & rescue service staff. 

I am not critical of dedicated staff in the service.

My criticism is of politicans who have damaged the service, of inadequate political scrutiny, and of poor decisions by some former principal officers.

Email to Kevin Boram, Chairman of the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee

25 January 2022

Dear Councillor Boram,

   It was disappointing to hear your committee being misinformed with the inaccurate claim that answering 95% of 999 calls in 10 seconds is a national performance standard. There are no common standards set for emergency service control rooms, as each service has different requirements, procedures, demands, and information requirements. Were national standards to be set for fire & rescue service control rooms, then they would be set by the Home Office.

The Public Emergency Call Service (PECS) code of practice referred to is produced by the 999/112 Liaison Committee, which is a consultative committee that discusses matters arising from the provision of the 999/112 emergency call service. The setting of performance standards is not included in their terms of reference (see below), as it would be inappropriate for a consultative committee that includes commercial telecommunication providers to set standards for public emergency services.

 

Past research has shown that fire service control rooms can answer and process emergency calls more quickly than ambulance and police control rooms. This is not because ambulance and police call handlers are inefficient, but because they have different demands and information requirements that are specific to their services. This includes those services receiving significantly more 999 calls than fire & rescue, the nature of those calls often requires call handlers to spend more time on each call, and they are subjected to many more spikes in demand than fire & rescue. Despite this, the NHS target for ambulance services was set, just a few years ago, at 95% of 999 calls to be answered within 5 seconds.

 

The PECS figure, of answering 95% of 999 calls in 10 seconds, represents an earlier police target and was included in the PECS document to acknowledge the greater demands made on the police service. If the Joint Fire Control is properly staffed, equipped and run, then there is no reason why the standard originally agreed with Surrey, of 98% within 7 seconds, should not be met. 

It should be noted that Ofcom require BT plc, which operates the 999 call handling centres, to answer 95% of 999 calls within 5 seconds. They achieve that with just 6 call centres handling over 30 million 999 calls a year, so it is reasonable to expect Joint Fire Control to exceed, not just meet, the original agreed standard for just 30,000 incidents a year.

 

I should add that I am not suggesting that your committee was misinformed intentionally, but I believe the Chief Fire Officer has also been misinformed or misunderstands the status of the PECS code of practice.

 

It should surely be the role of scrutiny committees to keep performance standards high to ensure the best service to the public. Lowering standards can only result in a loss of motivation to strive for good performance. Seconds count when lives are at stake, and it is the public who suffer as a result of low standards.

I would urge you to require the original standard, 98% within 7 seconds, to be restored. I also hope the committee will get to the bottom of why Joint Fire Control has been failing to meet this agreed standard and to then require improvements.

Yours sincerely,

 

Tony Morris

999/112 Liaison Committee Terms of Reference

 

The Committee provides a forum to discuss operational and technical matters arising from the provision of the 999/112 emergency call service. Its main concern is the effective handling of emergency telephone calls between the public, call handling agents and the emergency authorities.

 

The Committee seeks to ensure that:

■ each interest group has an understanding of the needs of the others;

■ problems are identified and resolved;

■ call handling is efficient and effective;

■ there are agreed protocols for the management of calls;

■ technical and other developments, including European requirements, are identified and actioned in a timely manner;

■ the wider requirements of UK and European law are satisfied;

■ opportunities for the development of future emergency call processes or systems are considered and/or identified, and where appropriate these are highlighted to the 999/112 Strategic Group;

■ changes to public use of the 999/112 infrastructure are considered, whether that be as a result of technological changes or changing habits, to ensure that the best possible service can continue to be provided;

■ advice is provided to the 999/112 Strategic Group on technical or operational matters as necessary.

Standards cut to hide Fire Control failures & worst WSFRS performance for 18 months

Joint Fire Control failure cover up

Papers before today's Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee meeting reveal West Sussex County Council's shabby plan to drop their agreed standard for the Joint Fire Control to answer 98% of '999' calls within 7 seconds. This is something that any well staffed and efficient fire & rescue service control room should be able to achieve.

Yet since the joint Surrey/West Sussex Fire Control began dealing with West Sussex emergencies, they have consistently failed to meet this standard.

False claim

To make matters worse, they are dishonestly claiming that answering 95% of '999' calls in 10 seconds is a national performance standard. It is nothing of the sort. They have hijacked this from the Code of Practice for Public Emergency Call Service document, which is merely a working agreement between communications providers and the emergency services.

Unlike a proper performance standard, which focuses on keeping the public safe, this is simply an agreement by the emergency services to help communications providers reduce the time they spend on transferring calls. It is not about public safety, but about freeing up '999' call handler time, so communications providers, like BT, won't need to employ more staff.

This agreement was mostly about what police and ambulance services could achieve with their significantly higher call volumes. It is not an acceptable standard for fire & rescue services. Surrey County Council, who manage the Joint Fire Control, must be required to deliver their promised level of service. 

There is no legitimate excuse for Joint Fire Control failing to answer 98% of '999' calls within 7 seconds. That standard must remain in place and be met.

Failing to alert fire stations on time

Not only is the Joint Fire Control missing their target for answering '999' calls, they are also failing to ensure that fire stations are alerted within 2 minutes of the emergency call being received on 98% of calls.

The excuses offered in the report for consistently being over 10% below standard do not stack up. The previous joint East/West Sussex Fire Control faced exactly the same challenges and performed much better.

The 'deep dive' review promised in the report is to be welcomed, but these failings suggest there are fundamental weaknesses in this Joint Fire Control. Concerns have already been raised about a failure to ensure there are enough staff available, and there may be other problems contributing to these failures. 

Questions have to be asked about whether this so called 'state of the art' mobilising system is part of the problem (there have been reports from others using the same system of slow running at times), is it the loss of local knowledge, is it unnecessarily time consuming procedures, is it inadequate training etc? 

Whatever lies behind this unsatisfactory performance, which delays help reaching West Sussex residents, it must be fixed urgently. 

Poor performance

The performance report for the second quarter of 2021-22 shows the worst decline of the last six quarterly reports. Fourteen of the thirty core performance measures are worse, with some being the worst for 18 months.

Those affecting how quickly help reaches people in trouble are the most troubling. In addition to the fire control failures, overall response times for the first fire engine to arrive at critical fires and at critical special services, such as road traffic collisions with people trapped, are the worst of the last six quarters. 

The latest figures show that they failed to achieve the generous response target times (12 minutes for 37% and 14 minutes for 61% of the County) at a shocking 17.5% critical fires. 

The target for those needing rescue from crashed road vehicles and from other hazardous situations is 13 minutes, yet in the latest quarter shown the failure occurred on nearly one in four emergencies.

You will also notice the worrying downward trendline on these graphs. Sadly, the underlying reasons for these performance failures is West Sussex County Council's funding and staffing cuts.

Despite these being core measures in the West Sussex County Council Plan, they have not been selected for examination by the Scrutiny Committee.

We keep getting excuses about the failure to properly crew Retained (On Call) fire engines, but little effective action. Things continue to get worse.

Proposals 2 and 3 in the Community Risk Management Plan consultation, which will see extra wholetime firefighters employed, is the first measure likely to improve this poor performance. Those proposals should be supported. 

However, I am concerned they may be too little, and they are certainly too late to help the many West Sussex residents who have had to wait an unacceptably long time for help to arrive.

Between them, Government and West Sussex County Council have inflicted serious damage on the Fire & Rescue Service's effectiveness to help those in trouble. 

They both need to do more.

Positive news for a change, hopefully!

Your chance to help improve your fire & rescue service.

Proposals 2 and 3

The County Council is currently consulting the public on plans for the next four years. At long last there are two proposals that should help improve the protection offered to residents by speeding up some response times. Some will be unaware that at Burgess Hill, East Grinstead, Haywards Heath and Shoreham fire stations, there are only firefighters on duty there from 7am-7pm Monday to Friday. For the rest of the time those stations are dependent on retained (On Call) firefighters who have to get to the fire station, from wherever they may be, before fire engines can leave the fire station.

Similarly, the Crewing Optimisation Group, wholetime firefighters who are used to help crew fire engines at retained (On Call) fire stations when they are short of firefighters, also only operate from 7am-7pm Monday to Friday. Sadly, the Council has known for a long time that there are similar crewing problems between 7am and 7pm on Saturdays and Sundays, but until now has ignored the problem.

Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton now wants to address that failure by extending that day cover to include Saturdays and Sundays. This is long overdue and deserves support from the public and Councillors. However, it has emerged that proposals 2 and 3, which will require an additional 20 wholetime firefighters, is dependent on the County Council agreeing to allocate the additional budget, so it is not a foregone conclusion.

If anyone doubts the need for this, the latest quarterly figures show that even though most of West Sussex is only considered worthy of a 14 minute response time, the service failed to meet response targets on 17.5% of occasions. 

A continuing result of the Council's cuts to the number of wholetime and retained firefighter posts and their failure to fill all the remaining retained posts. 

Proposals 2 and 3 deserve support

A loss of 310, mostly frontline, firefighters since 2004.

Source - Home Office fire & rescue service data

Cabinet Member refuses to provide Councillors with supporting documents

It is very disappointing that no supporting documents have been made available. It is usual in such consultations to have more detailed modelling and business case information available on the website, and this is essential for those who want to fully understand the implications of proposed changes. 

Astonishingly, such important documents have not even been provided to the Council's Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee. 

At their recent meeting, Councillor John Milne asked why they had not been provided. Instead of offering to make them available, Cabinet Member Duncan Crow said there will be opportunities to delve further into the proposals at a behind closed doors meeting for Councillors only. That is of no help to the public and also denies Councillors the opportunity of studying the documents ahead of the meeting. 

No doubt Councillor Crow would not have endorsed these proposals without seeing a detailed business case, so it is improper to hide these from the Scrutiny Committee and the public. 

The other proposals

This lack of detail makes it impossible to fully understand how the proposals will be achieved and the risks and benefits associated with them.

Proposal 1 - some fine words in this section, but no real information on what an 'operational response model' is, or how it would operate. There is only one way to have the right people, with the right skills, equipment and training in the right locations, at the right time, and that is to ensure they are always available. 

There is no way of knowing where the next incident will be, or how many of the 'right people' you will need at that incident. More detail is needed.

Proposal 4 - sadly this proposal carries risk for both the public and for firefighters. Despite the emphasis in the document on false alarms, automatic fire alarm systems do detect fires many times every year. They play a vital part in saving lives and property, provided the fire service attends quickly. 

Not attending, or discouraging premise owners from having their alarms automatically call the service, will lead to small fires developing into much larger ones. That will inevitably put lives at risk, result in more damage, and require more resources to deal with the fire. 

There are occasions that such buildings might only have one person on site, for security, maintenance etc. If that person is incapacitated by the fire or the event that started the fire, and for policy reasons the service does not respond to the automatic alarm, that policy could be a death sentence. By the time the fire is visible outside the building, and someone makes a '999' call, it may well be too late to save the victim and the building. Deaths have already occurred in other areas when the fire service did not attend an alarm operating call.

It is unfair to expect people to comment without seeing the risk assessments and the differences in expected outcomes for the different options.  

Proposal 5 - it really is time this low, medium etc. risk nonsense, with response times that are far too long, was replaced. This assessment has nothing to do with the risk to individuals, the risk to property, or the risk to the environment, it is just an attempt to justify inadequate response times. 

Fires don't burn slower in Wisborough Green, than they do in Worthing, or slower in Bosham, than they do in Bognor Regis. Lives are just as important in Balcombe, as they are in Burgess Hill, and just as important in Loxwood, as they are in Littlehampton. There are also nationally important and irreplaceable historic buildings and sensitive ecological sites scattered across the County.   

Response times should properly reflect the real threat to lives, property and the environment.

Response times for the first fire engine

1 = West Midlands (whole area) - 5 minutes

2 = Hampshire (whole area) - 8 minutes

3 = Surrey (whole area) and 2% of West Sussex - 10 minutes

4 = 37% of West Sussex - 12 minutes

5 = 61% of West Sussex - 14 minutes

Proposal 6 - whist reviews are needed from time to time, history tells us that they usually result in cuts to resources, not improvements. It is concerning that the Council don't intend to consult on all proposed changes, just those the Council considers 'significant'. That means there could be a further deterioration in specialist capability, despite the need for that capability remaining and even increasing. 

Last year there were 45 incidents involving hazardous materials, which is more than double the average of ten years ago. Assisting other agencies has risen dramatically, from less than a 100 per year, ten years ago, to 637 last year. Despite a drop last year, connected to less vehicles on the road during Covid restrictions, around 500 road traffic collisions were attended every year of the previous ten years. 

Many of these non fire incidents require specialist resources, such as the heavy rescue tenders, breathing apparatus support units and aerial ladder platforms. Previous Council cuts has seen the number of each of those specialist vehicles reduced. That, and inadequate crewing, too often sees just one of each type having to cover the whole County, and consequently taking a long time to reach some emergencies. 

Any proposed changes should be put out for further public consultation.

Despite my reservations about the lack of information, I would urge residents to respond to the consultation.

The closing date is 21 January 2022.

Postscript

Those who read my previous post will know that, after the October committee meeting, I wrote to Committee Chairman, Councillor Kevin Boram, to voice my concern that the committee would be unable to do their job effectively if they are denied information and given inaccurate answers. 

Sadly, I have had no reply. No reassurance, no rebuttal, not even an acknowledgment. At this latest meeting, Councillor Boram failed to support Councillor Milne's request for more detailed documentation on the Community Risk Management Plan proposals. I had hoped the new Chairman would be more probing than his predecessors, but it appears that the committee is still little more than a rubber stamp for the Cabinet Member's decisions.

You cannot have proper scrutiny without transparency.

Misinformation and secrecy continue at Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee

The recent scrutiny committee meeting was again marred by false claims and refusals to answer legitimate questions from County Councillors.

False claims

Cabinet Member Duncan Crow claims that targeted prevention and protection activity is responsible for reductions in accidental dwelling fires, fire injuries and no fire fatalities in the first quarter of 2021-22. Yet there are no figures for the number of accidental dwelling fires shown in the report, and no figures are provided for injuries and fatalities in previous quarters for comparison. 

Perhaps they are lower this quarter, but it is dishonest to claim that it is because of prevention and protection activity. I hope they have a beneficial effect, but there is no evidence to support that claim. Fires are random events, so chance and the effectiveness of the service's response play a much larger part in reducing fire injuries and deaths. Sadly, that response has become much less effective as a result of Council cuts.

Councillor Crow has been Cabinet Member since 2019, so does he accept responsibility for last year's increase in fire deaths, or will he just claim credit for no fire deaths in the first quarter of this year and during 2019-20?

Source: Home Office fire statistics

Attendance times not the success claimed

The Cabinet Member also claimed that attendance times for the first fire engine to arrive at critical fires were a success. Yet he failed to mention that target times in West Sussex are up to 40% longer than in Surrey and 75% longer than in Hampshire. With such a low bar set, they ought to have been met nearly all the time, not just 91.5% of the time. That means some people are waiting over 14 minutes for help to arrive at fires that pose a serious threat to life. 

Councillors spotted discrepancies in the figures shown in the report for 2020-21, but did not get a satisfactory explanation from Deputy Chief Fire Officer Mark Andrews. In one table the figures for 2020-21 are mistakenly shown as being for 2021-22, which Mark Andrews described as a gremlin. 

However, he dodged the important question about how the attendance rate claimed for the year 2020-21 was 93.3%, yet in the quarterly breakdown for the same year, no quarter achieved that result. The highest achieved was 92.4% and the lowest was 89%, so the correct total for the year appears to be 90.3%, the same as three years ago. It begs the question, how accurate are the other figures in these reports?

Inaccurate figures in Performance Report for 2020-21

Councillor Crow glossed over the failure to attend critical special services, such as road traffic collisions with people trapped, in the required time. This had a failure rate of over 20%. The response target for the often vital second fire engine at critical fires was also missed by over 20%. 

Not surprising when the County Council has removed a quarter of front line fire engines and crews.

It is also worrying that the boost to attendance times from the pandemic last year is coming to an end. Now that furlough has ended and more people are returning to their workplaces, instead of working from home, the availability of On Call Firefighters will reduce. The first signs are shown in this report. Availability in the first quarter of 2020-21, compared with the first quarter of 2021-22, shows a drop of over 16% from 78.5% to 62.1%.

Councillor John Turley pointed to the omission of the target times from the response targets in the report, which made it difficult to put the figures in context. The Chief Fire Officer, Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, said, "something we can look at adding in". No idea why she said that, as target times have been shown in previous reports. What she should be investigating is the reason they were left out of this latest report.

Joint Fire Control cover up continues

Councillors John Turley and John Milne raised concerns about recent system failures in the Surrey based Joint Fire Control. Sadly, once again, they did not get satisfactory answers. Councillors have still not been given the detailed report they requested after the first serious failures in December 2019.

The Chief Fire Officer said that she would not discuss it in public and would speak to Councillor Milne outside the meeting. Even more worrying was that she then said she would not share that information with other Councillors on the scrutiny committee. 

Chief Fire Officer, Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, 

won't tell Councillors about failures that could put lives at risk

The only justification for not being open and honest about these failures would be if it revealed vulnerabilities that could be exploited by people with malicious intent. Yet Councillors were told that the problems had been fixed and would not reoccur, so if that it true, there are no vulnerabilities to exploit.

Even if there was a security justification to keep information from the public, which seems unlikely, that is no justification for withholding it from County Councillors. They are ultimately responsible for the service and reports can always be marked 'confidential' and, if lawfully justified, meetings can go into closed session where the press and public are excluded.

It really is hypocritical for the Council to claim it is open and transparent when it allows heads of service to cover up problems by refusing to be open and transparent. 

Bad enough that the public are kept in the dark but wholly unacceptable to keep their representative County Councillors in the dark.

East Sussex told about West Sussex problems,

 but West Sussex County Councillors are not

Whilst West Sussex County Councillors have not been given details of these failures, which directly affect emergency response in West Sussex, it has emerged that East Sussex's Chief Fire Officer has been kept fully informed. Minutes of an East Sussex Fire Authority meeting provide more detail about the December 2019 failures than has ever been provided to the scrutiny committee. They include confirmation that:

• Crewing at the joint control room was inadequate on some occasions.
• West Sussex had received a series of hazard reports from firefighters about mobilising failures.
• Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill crews were mistakenly sent to a road traffic collision in Eastbourne
• Worthing crews were mistakenly sent to a fire alarm call in Brighton.

The Council's constitution says that the purpose of scrutiny committees is to hold the Executive to account. The Cabinet Member and Chief Fire Officer are part of the Executive and must be accountable. Ignoring the constitution and refusing to provide information to Councillors on the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee is unacceptable.

I have written to Committee Chairman, Councillor Kevin Boram, to voice my concern that the committee will be unable to do their job effectively if they are denied information and given inaccurate answers. I await his reply with interest.

Chief Fire Officer confused about responsibilities

When Councillor Turley suggested that Councillors should be told when the system is down, the Chief Fire Officer claimed that she had "a statutory responsibility to ensure that we are able to respond to emergencies", which includes "being able to take emergency calls." She also said she would not inform Councillors of directly operational matters.

The statutory responsibility she referred to is not placed on the Chief Fire Officer, it is placed on the fire & rescue authority, which is West Sussex County Council. The Chief Fire Officer's responsibility is to the County Council, her employer, and refusing to provide information to County Councillors is failing in her duty. 

Extract from the Fire and Rescue Services Act

There is no moral or lawful justification for the Chief Fire Officer to withhold any information from the scrutiny committee. If they require information, be it operational or not, then it must be provided.

Critical National Infrastructure failure

It was sadly ironic that the Chief Fire Officer referred to the mobilising system as a 'key piece of critical national infrastructure'. She mentioned it when she was trying to justify not answering legitimate questions, yet both Surrey and West Sussex failed to follow the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure’s (CPNI) guidance to ensure that call taking and mobilising was reliable and resilient. 

Following Freedom of Information requests, West Sussex were unable to produce any documentation to show that they had required partners or suppliers to comply with the CPNI guidance. Surrey said that they held no information related to the CPNI guidance. It is quite irresponsible that essential Government guidance has been ignored in this way.

Merseyside fire control cannot 'take over' if Joint Fire Control fails

Councillor Boram asked if Merseyside fire control can take over if there is a catastrophic incident in Joint Fire Control. Unfortunately, Deputy Chief Mark Andrews misled him by saying, 'yes that's exactly right'. 

Merseyside cannot take over, they can answer '999' callers but cannot send any help. No help will be sent unless they can make contact with the joint fire control that has been hit by the 'catastrophic incident', or is overwhelmed by emergency calls. There is simply no guarantee that help can be sent to people in distress when '999' calls are diverted.

Councillor Boram also asked if Merseyside could cope with the increased call volume when the Joint Control becomes responsible for three fire & rescue services (East Sussex, Surrey and West Sussex). This was a very pertinent question, but Councillor Boram did not receive an answer. 

So let me help Councillor Boram, Merseyside deal with an average of 15,700 incidents a year. Joint Fire Control will deal with an average of 30,500 incidents a year. So he is right to be concerned, Merseyside could well be overwhelmed by a sudden tripling of their workload. If severe weather was affecting the UK, that increased demand could be even greater.

Incidents attended (note - the number of emergency calls received is greater than incidents attended)

I don't think Mark Andrews deliberately misled the Chairman, I just think that like many other senior officers he lacks depth of knowledge of control room operations and of resilient telecommunications. An issue that has been evident throughout the control room fiasco and the reason the Council has not provided emergency call taking and mobilising arrangements that are properly robust and resilient.

Councillors keep being told that there are contingency plans to deal with failures, yet reports suggest cobbled together measures have had to be used when systems fail. These include control room staff having to remember to contact personnel on fire stations via someone's mobile phone, something that has, on occasion, been forgotten. Another is On Call Firefighters having to be contacted via public messaging applications. None of these are reliable or resilient and cannot be considered adequate contingency arrangements.

Despite assurances at the meeting, I have yet to hear confirmation from West Sussex firefighters that all these problems have been fixed. It does not matter if the failures are a result of human error or technical failures in the fire control, or communication failures between control and stations, or equipment failures at fire stations or on fire engines, such failures are unacceptable. 

These failures put lives at risk and the Fire & Rescue Service 

Scrutiny Committee must not accept being fobbed off. 

They must demand transparency and rapid improvement.

Another mobilising system failure

I was told on Sunday that the so called 'state of the art' mobilising system in Surrey fire control had crashed and that control operators were having to use pen and paper to record calls and all the actions taken to respond to emergencies in Surrey and West Sussex.

This message, sent to West Sussex fire stations this morning, indicates the problem is still not fixed and delayed responses are inevitable. Requesting incident details over the radio takes time and some key information will not be available. That, and the loss of mobile data terminal functions, will significantly increase control staff workload. 

For an inadequately staffed control room that increases the likelihood that emergency calls will be transferred to the 'buddy' control at Merseyside Fire & Rescue. A control room that cannot send any help! They have to contact Surrey before any help can be sent, but will face the same problems getting through that the original caller did.

With more storms forecast and likely to lead to a spike in calls, such a failure may result in significant delays to emergencies. This is not the first time the system has failed and will no doubt not be the last.

When there were failures, shortly after Surrey began handling West Sussex emergencies, Councillors asked for a detailed report. It was never produced. 

Capita has failed the Council previously, so it is concerning that their Vision mobilising system is now letting West Sussex residents down. It is no good having 'state of the art' technology if it is not reliable. Instead of glitzy extras, Capita need to pay more attention to basic resilience.

If the Scrutiny Committee is to do their job properly, they must ignore the spin and insist on a detailed report on both the current and all previous failures. Lives may depend on it. 

I hope the new Chairman, Kevin Boram, will prioritise a detailed investigation into the ongoing failures and lack of resilience.

Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee meeting

A lucky coincidence?

An interesting meeting on Friday that began with a great piece of luck. Before the meeting the County Council website showed the committee’s Chairman as Kevin Boram and the Vice Chairman as Jacky Pendleton. As you can see at the very start of the meeting Mr Boram even had his chairman title on his desk.

The tension mounted when Jacky Pendleton got to item 2 on the agenda – “Election of Chairman and Vice Chairman”. Out of the blue, and to everyone’s surprise, Jacky Pendleton then nominated Councillor Boram as Chairman and, no doubt to his great relief, there were no other nominations. That meant he could keep the Chairman title displayed on his desk.

Now, as Councillor Boram began his duties as Chairman, to everyone’s astonishment he nominated Jacky Pendleton as Vice Chairman. Incredibly, once again, there were no other nominations. So, by an incredible coincidence, whoever put the committee details on the website had managed to predict the outcome of the election of Chairman and Vice Chairman days before the meeting.

Operational performance inadequate

One of the most disturbing items in the performance report was the increasing number of fire deaths. Not just a leap in 2020/21, but evidence that the trend in West Sussex is of fire deaths rising, whilst nationally they are falling.

One of the Council’s justifications, they claimed, for closing fire stations and removing a quarter of frontline fire engines was that it would allow more prevention work, which would save more lives. 

There has never been any evidence to support that claim and the latest figures prove that it is baseless.

Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen Hatton was right to say that there is no common theme responsible for these deaths. Fires, with or without lives in danger, are random events that cannot be predicted. That is why the service must be ready, at any time of the day or night, to respond quickly and effectively to any location in West Sussex.

However, she also claimed that victims have often died before the ‘999’ call is received. That does sometimes occur, but I have yet to see any evidence that it is ‘often’ or usual. What does occur often is fire & rescue authorities, when they are criticised for an excessive response time to fatal fires, especially after they have cut resources, claiming the victim died before the call was received.

I have experience of attending fatalities where the victim was sadly seen to be alive shortly before we arrived, and also of rescuing victims in the nick of time. There are some occasions when it can be established that the victim had died before the 999 call was received, but in many cases it is impossible to be certain at what time death occurred.

Response times are a significant factor in whether lives are saved or lost at fires and other emergencies.

Cabinet Member wrong to say targets are challenging

Cabinet Member Duncan Crow claimed that they have set challenging targets, but that is certainly not the case for response times. In Hampshire, an 8 minute target for the first fire engine across the county is challenging, in Surrey a 10 minute target across the county might be considered challenging, the 10 minute target across rural Devon & Somerset probably is challenging. 

But, a 14 minute target for nearly two thirds of West Sussex and 12 minutes for nearly all the rest is very far from challenging.

If they have become challenging for the service, then it is only because the County Council has taken away a quarter of the frontline response resources and fails to ensure the remainder can always be crewed. The latest figures, just released by the Home Office, show how average response times to fires in West Sussex homes, where most fire fatalities occur, are getting worse. Up from 8 minutes 19 seconds in 2012/13 to 9 minutes 11 seconds in 2019/20.

Councillor Chris Oxlade asked if the response times for 2020/21 would have been worse if Covid hadn’t happened. The Chief Fire Officer said it had a dramatic improvement in the 1^st quarter due to the first lockdown, but that drained away in quarters 2, 3 and 4. However, the figures in the report show that the availability changes did not translate in the same way for the response time for the second fire engine at critical fires. With only two fire stations having a second fire engine crewed by immediate response (Wholetime) firefighters, there is heavy reliance on the On Call (Retained) crews to provide the second fire engine across West Sussex. 

There are many people who were furloughed or working from home for most of 2020, not just during the lockdown periods. It is inevitable that this had a significant effect on the availability of On Call firefighters throughout 2020, so it is far too soon to determine if any improvements were because of Covid, or because of any measures intended to improve On Call availability.

HM Inspectorate fail to review all their concerns

The letter from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) claims that the revisit in February reviewed all the concerns they had after their first inspection in 2018. Yet in none of the revisits since the initial inspection have they looked at the fundamental concerns under ‘responding to fires and other emergencies’. In that report they said:

In its response to fires and emergencies, the service isn’t making the best use of resources. It hasn’t met its response standards since 2014/15. Its fire engine availability is low and it is struggling to recruit and retain sufficient on-call firefighters. It hasn’t produced a clear plan for aligning its procedures to national guidance, its management of information after an incident is often poor and it has had little success in reducing the high number of false alarms it receives. Finally, its cross-border exercising is limited and inconsistent.

It is quite right that HMICFRS look at issues such as fairness, diversity, values and culture, but ignoring their initial concerns about operational response cannot be justified. Those issues affect the safety of everyone in West Sussex and they are fundamental to West Sussex County Council’s legal duty to provide a fire & rescue service. Perhaps, as their inspectors have no prior knowledge or experience of the fire & rescue service, they shy away from delving too deeply into operational deficiencies, but that is no excuse. 

They were identified during the original inspection and should have been covered in their revisit reports.

Irrespective of the HMICFRS failure, the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee should, if it is doing its job properly, scrutinise these matters. However, I have little confidence that they will. The committee is controlled by Conservative Councillors, so they are effectively marking their own homework. Many of these deficiencies result from cuts and poor decisions made by Conservative Cabinet Members and approved by the Conservative controlled County Council.

It is a great shame that the Council and the committee do not reflect the votes cast in the May elections. 48% of people voted for Conservative candidates and 52% voted for other candidates, yet there are five Conservative Councillors on this committee and only two Councillors from other parties.

I would urge all Councillors on the scrutiny committee to set aside any party allegiance and scrutinise the operational effectiveness of the service in depth.

Concerns over Surrey Fire Control grow

Councillor Chris Oxlade voiced concerns about the lack of an effective back up for the Surrey fire control. I believe he was referring to the inability of Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service's control, who receive West Sussex ‘999’ calls when Surrey Fire Control cannot, to mobilise any help to the caller. No help will be sent until Merseyside Fire Control staff can get hold of Surrey Fire Control. Difficult if they are busy, impossible if they are out of action.

Interestingly, the Chief Fire Officer acknowledged that it was the Fire & Rescue Authority (WSCC) that had a statutory responsibility to receive emergency calls and to respond to incidents. She then asked Assistant Chief Fire Officer Jon Lacy to answer the question. I was not reassured by the answers.

It was good to hear that they plan to improve resilience and to hear a little more detail about the current options to deal with technical failures and occasions when the control is overwhelmed with emergency calls. 

However, the resilience is inadequate, and it seems incredible that the County Council chose Surrey when their resilience was so poor.

Jon Lacy referred to the fall-back arrangements for when they get an unprecedented amount of ‘999’ calls during bad weather. He then said they maintain adequate staff to deal with multiple calls and that it is the first call that counts as that is the one you mobilise resources to. That really makes no sense. 

If they did actually “maintain adequate staff to deal with multiple calls”, then they would not need a ‘buddy control’ to answer calls, and I am at a loss to see how it is only “the first call that counts”. Most of the calls coming in during bad weather are for many different incidents, some much more serious than the first. It isn’t even true for multiple calls for the same incident, as calls after the first may give a better location, or be from someone trapped and in need of fire survival guidance.

He then went on to the issue of West Sussex '999' calls going to Merseyside Fire & Rescue and claimed that this would give callers assurance. However, that is a false assurance, as they will assume help is on the way when it isn't. The details still have to be passed to Surrey Fire Control, as only they can actually mobilise West Sussex resources. His answer ignored the problem that an overwhelmed control is no more likely to be able to answer a call from Merseyside Fire & Rescue than they were to answer the original ‘999’ call. 

The final part of Jon Lacy's answer related to communication links between Surrey and West Sussex, which was not the concern raised. I hope committee members understood that, as links between the two controls are not resilient. 

This lack of effective resilience ensures that further delay is unavoidable.

A glimmer of hope

It was good to hear councillors praise fire & rescue service staff for their efforts during the pandemic. Dealing with a pandemic at the same time as trying to deal with some of the problems created by the Council’s underfunding and mismanagement of the service must have demanded a great deal from all staff. They deserve to be praised.

The new Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee Chairman certainly appeared enthusiastic about his new role, and he said he was keen to support the service. As a lack of effective scrutiny had much to do with the problems found by HMICFRS, I hope the Chairman understands that the best way to help the service will be to constructively challenge the Cabinet Member's assertions and to seek evidence to support any statements made by the service.

Effective and detailed scrutiny is the best way to help the service and to protect residents.