A worrying silence and vanishing performance data

Funding

Last December, the County Council debated a resolution asking Debbie Kennard, the Cabinet Member for Safer, Stronger Communities, to write to the Government about the unequal funding West Sussex received for the fire & rescue service. The resolution was passed with just six Councillors, including Debbie Kennard, voting against.

Yet five months later all we have is a deathly silence. When was the letter sent? What was the Minister's response? Or, did she ignore the democratic decision of the County Council, and not bother to write to the Government on their wholly inadequate funding for West Sussex?

The public, firefighters and her fellow Councillors deserve answers, and quickly.

Control Centre

At the beginning of this year, despite warnings, the Cabinet Member approved moves 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's Control Centre.

Surrey Fire & Rescue Service is failing to properly protect Surrey residents, with fire stations and their control room not properly staffed. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) rated Surrey as inadequate in their inspection report last year and, among their specific concerns, was inadequate staffing in Surrey's control room. 

'SurreyLive' 9 January 2019

Concerns about the transfer were raised at the County Council's Environment, Communities and Fire Select Committee meeting, but were dismissed with sometimes misleading claims. For example, it was suggested that the reason Surrey take twice as long as the Sussex control to mobilise resources to emergencies was that Surrey challenge callers and Sussex don’t. Councillors accepted that answer, but the truth is that both controls challenge callers when necessary.

Assurances were given about standards and adequate staffing, but wishful thinking is no guarantee. So, it is worrying that no information on standards and staffing have been made public, and disturbing that the agenda for last week's Select Committee meeting did not include an update on this fundamentally important change. 

One of the concerns raised was about the risks of transferring a vast amount of data from the Sussex control to the Surrey control. The meeting was assured that Capita, the IT provider, were on top of it. Unfortunately, similar assurances were given about the transfer of pension management from Capita to Hampshire County Council. Yet Capita’s failings resulted in hundreds of retired firefighters receiving incorrect tax codes that meant they would have to pay additional tax.

This failure resulted in a massive amount of pensioner and HMRC time, additional cost for postage and paperwork, and some pensioners had less money in their last payment, as too much tax was deducted. I was also affected and spent nearly an hour on phone calls to HMRC, received three unnecessary letters, and a reduced payment as a result of Capita's failure. 

The Capita pensions failure cost time and money, but any
mistakes with transfer of fire & rescue operational data could cost lives

Missing performance data

Sometime ago, after pressure from Councillors, performance data for fire & rescue was added to the West Sussex Performance Dashboard. That helped the service and the Council live up to their claim to be open and accountable. However, all that data, with the exception of first fire engine response time, has now disappeared from the website.

It is especially worrying that much of the data that has vanished showed some of the worst performance. That smacks of secrecy and avoiding accountability. They will no doubt say that the information can be found in the quarterly operational performance report, but that lacks sufficient detail to allow long term comparison and proper scrutiny.

The performance data needs to be restored to the Performance Dashboard as a priority

Campaigners & firefighters vindicated

When serious cuts to fire & rescue were being discussed by West Sussex County Council in 2010 and 2014, firefighters and campaigners warned that response times would increase and that response targets would be missed more frequently. 

Former Cabinet Member David Barling and Chief Fire Officer Sean Ruth claimed the changes were improvements and dismissed concerns as 'disinformation' and 'scaremongering'. However, a look at the latest quarterly report clearly vindicates firefighters and campaigners. Not only do figures prove their concerns were well founded, but the service now directly link failed response times to the cuts:

On the 13.5% failure rate for first fire engine arrival they say:

“Long travel distances have increased as a reason for failure, 

as we have four less operational fire stations in West Sussex.”

On the 19.4% failure rate for second fire engine arrival they say:

“Performance on the second pump is weaker than the first due to recent changes within WSFRS. This includes the removal of the second fire engine from three stations and the full closure of another three stations*. This means it is much harder to achieve a two pump attendance target at six stations”

(* In fact four fire stations are no longer operational and more than six stations are affected)

Those Conservative County Councillors who blindly support Cabinet Members

and Chief Officers should remember the advice of trading standards:

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”

Worrying excuses

The quarterly report also trots out another well worn and misleading excuse for failing performance. At night and at the weekend, three quarters of West Sussex fire engines are crewed by On-call Firefighters, yet their availability continues to decrease. West Sussex County Council try to duck their responsibility by claiming it is an "on-going issue nationally".

Whilst it is true that a national failure to ensure on-call firefighters are properly rewarded has not helped recruitment and retention, it does not explain why overall availability in some fire & rescue services is well over 90%, yet West Sussex can't manage 57%.

The excuse gets weaker when you see that some On-call crewed fire stations in West Sussex struggle to achieve 10% availability, when others achieve close to 100% availability.

West Sussex County Council used to have a target of 88% availability but then, without consultation, they cut that target to just 75%. A shameless attempt to make inadequate performance look better. This performance indicator is one of the ones that has disappeared from the Council’s Open Performance website and perhaps the fact that it has fallen to 56.9% explains why it was removed.

It is time that West Sussex County Council stopped making excuses and acknowledged that their cuts have significantly contributed to this failed performance.

The reduction in On-call fire engine availability by over 30% began in 2011

&

West Sussex County Council’s cuts to the fire & rescue service began in 2011