At their meeting on Monday, the Environment, Communities and Fire Scrutiny Committee will discuss the Chief Fire Officer's progress report on the Improvement Plan, which followed Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services inspection report. The full report to the Scrutiny Committee can be found in the agenda reports pack.
Some progress, but not all good news
It is pleasing that quite a bit of progress seems to have been made on improvements, but reference to the "successful implementation of the Fire Control project" appears to be misplaced. Information from reliable sources suggest a number of things have gone wrong, including mobilising failures, incomplete turnout instructions and delays. No doubt we will be told they were teething problems, but if implementation was "successful" there would be no such problems. There are also concerns that some back up options, which were available when West Sussex had its own control, are no longer there.
Inadequate staffing
The most worrying aspect about Surrey control also handling West Sussex emergencies is inadequate staffing. Something I warned about a year ago:
Reports from inside the service said:
With the possibility of East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service also opting to use Surrey for their call handling, staffing could become even more inadequate. East Sussex are only having to consider this because West Sussex County Council decided to waste millions of pounds by pulling out of the combined Sussex control. If East Sussex do decide that using the Surrey control is the only viable option, they must do a better job and insist on much better staffing.
When the WSCC Environment, Communities and Fire Scrutiny Committee looked at the plans to use Surrey, there was a lot of discussion about technology but not about staffing. Just one question was asked and the then Chief Fire Officer told Members that he would ensure there would be enough staff. However, following answers to a written question from Councillor Michael Jones last month, we now know that was not done.
Minimum staffing to handle emergencies in Surrey and West Sussex is just five for about 21,000 incidents a year. Minimum staffing when West Sussex ran their own control was four (9,000 incidents) and minimum staffing in the Sussex control, when serving East & West Sussex, was seven (18,500 incidents).
The population of the area directly affects the number of incidents handled in a year and therefore control operator workload. Using Home Office data, the graph below shows the ratio of incidents and population per control operator, when at the respective minimum staffing levels.
It is quite impossible for the Surrey control to provide the level of service West Sussex residents have rightly come to expect. At busy times they will simply not have enough staff to ensure that emergencies in both counties can be handled quickly and effectively. Surrey County Council is effectively ripping off West Sussex County Council by charging a lot of money for a worse service.
It seems that senior officers in both Surrey and West Sussex have been so dazzled and preoccupied with technology, they forgot about the most important component of any emergency service control room - Control Operators.
Important though good technology is, it is only ever an aid to Control Operators. They are the ones who have to answer every '999' call, extract the essential information required from sometimes distressed and confused callers, and then ensure the right resources are dispatched. And that is just the beginning. A routine emergency can generate dozens of Control Operator actions, a serious incident can require hundreds of actions and major incidents can require thousands.
Control rooms can go from being quiet, with no incidents to deal with, to frenetic activity within seconds and dozens of emergencies needing a response within a few minutes. The only way to ensure that the public get help quickly and effectively is to employ adequate numbers of skilled and motivated Control Operators. Surrey have failed to do that and West Sussex have allowed them to.
Hidden performance standards and targets reassure no one
The written answer, provided last month, also said that, "there are numerous
performance standards with targets assigned" to the agreement with Surrey, but failed to give any details. The only way County Councillors can scrutinise Surrey Control's performance, and the public can learn the real effects of this contract, is for those performance standards and targets to be published. We also need to see the figures for Sussex Control's performance, so that fair comparison is possible.
Previous national data showed that the Surrey control took, on average, twice as long as the Sussex control to handle calls. Councillors were wrongly told that this was because Surrey "call challenged" and Sussex did not. The truth is that both controls use call challenging when necessary. Call challenging does however carry risks. Used properly it can prevent resources being sent to hoax calls, but it can also result in a delayed response to genuine calls and, in the worst cases, no response to genuine emergencies. It must only ever be used sparingly and cautiously.
It is quite impossible for the Surrey control to provide the level of service West Sussex residents have rightly come to expect. At busy times they will simply not have enough staff to ensure that emergencies in both counties can be handled quickly and effectively. Surrey County Council is effectively ripping off West Sussex County Council by charging a lot of money for a worse service.
It seems that senior officers in both Surrey and West Sussex have been so dazzled and preoccupied with technology, they forgot about the most important component of any emergency service control room - Control Operators.
Important though good technology is, it is only ever an aid to Control Operators. They are the ones who have to answer every '999' call, extract the essential information required from sometimes distressed and confused callers, and then ensure the right resources are dispatched. And that is just the beginning. A routine emergency can generate dozens of Control Operator actions, a serious incident can require hundreds of actions and major incidents can require thousands.
Control rooms can go from being quiet, with no incidents to deal with, to frenetic activity within seconds and dozens of emergencies needing a response within a few minutes. The only way to ensure that the public get help quickly and effectively is to employ adequate numbers of skilled and motivated Control Operators. Surrey have failed to do that and West Sussex have allowed them to.
Hidden performance standards and targets reassure no one
Previous national data showed that the Surrey control took, on average, twice as long as the Sussex control to handle calls. Councillors were wrongly told that this was because Surrey "call challenged" and Sussex did not. The truth is that both controls use call challenging when necessary. Call challenging does however carry risks. Used properly it can prevent resources being sent to hoax calls, but it can also result in a delayed response to genuine calls and, in the worst cases, no response to genuine emergencies. It must only ever be used sparingly and cautiously.
Assurances given to the committee have not been honoured,
Members must ask why and insist on improved staffing.
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