A victory for the public's right to know about fire control failures

Tribunal overturns Information Commissioner's decision

Some will recall the serious failures when Surrey's fire control took over the handling of West Sussex emergencies. To learn more, I submitted Freedom of Information requests in January 2020, but both County Councils went into overdrive to keep information secret. Information was refused on spurious grounds and, unfortunately, the Information Commissioner supported their refusals. 

However, this week I have heard that the Information Commissioner's decision on Surrey's FOIA request has been overturned by the Information Rights Tribunal on five out of seven parts. Surrey County Council has been given 35 days to disclose the following information in relation to the fire control deal:

1. Copies of any documents (reports, emails, memos etc) relating to the assessment of staffing levels required to deliver that additional service.

2. Details of the control room training and experience of the people carrying out that assessment, and of the person who approved staffing levels.

3. Details of the standards, good practice guides, studies and any research material used to inform the assessment process.

4. Copies of risk assessments relating to the operational impact when staffing is at, or falls below, your determined minimum level.

5. Copies of risk assessments that include the issue of stress for control room staff.

The two parts of the appeal that were unsuccessful were:

6. Copies of reports submitted, since 3 December 2019, by your own staff or by West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service that relate to occurrences that resulted or could have resulted in a delay to the service’s attendance at incidents in Surrey or West Sussex.

7. Details of action taken by Surrey Fire & Rescue Service to address those occurrences.

This was only because the tribunal accepted Surrey's claim that they did not hold the information at the time. They accepted it was held by West Sussex. West Sussex County Council refused a similar Freedom of Information request on this subject with various excuses. Eventually they claimed it was too onerous, which the Information Commissioner accepted. Unfortunately, other commitments and illness prevented me from appealing that decision in time.

West Sussex now has no lawful excuse to continue secrecy

The crucial information about failures that delayed, or could have delayed, the response to West Sussex incidents should now be disclosed. So too should details of what was done to prevent further failures. 

That alone cannot be considered onerous, and it is now very clear that the Council's other excuses, of commercial sensitivity and confidentiality have been ruled to be outweighed by the public's right to know.

The tribunal specifically mentioned a West Sussex spreadsheet on these failures that fell within the scope of the information request. They also made it very clear that there is a "strong and significant public interest in disclosure" and that "public interest outweighed any issues of confidentiality".

('The Framework' refers to the The Fire and Rescue National Framework for England, which is statutory guidance)

The Tribunal also said:

"The public interest in disclosure is increased, in our view, by the potential impact of such safety critical issues."

Latest figures for the first three quarters of 2021/22 show that Surrey is still not delivering the standard agreed.

West Sussex Cabinet Member colludes with Surrey County Council

Yet, instead of fighting for West Sussex residents, Cabinet Member Duncan Crow is colluding with Surrey by agreeing to cut performance standards. West Sussex residents deserve the standard of service they were promised and are paying for.

Councillor Crow is legally responsible for fire & rescue service transparency in West Sussex, so he must ensure that information about these failures, including the spreadsheet identified by the Tribunal, are made available to West Sussex residents. 

County Councillors must insist that agreed standards are maintained and that information on the failures is published.