They refer to ‘current response standards’ but fail to show the times for response to critical fires. As those times are omitted, and it does not clearly explain that the 13 minute response standard for critical incidents does not apply to critical fires, the public may well be misled.
Average times will cover up response time failures
The change to average times is to help the County Council disguise the extent of response time failures. Nearly 80% of incidents occur in areas that have immediate response firefighters (i.e. on duty at the fire station), and they can attend incidents quickly. Using average figures helps conceal the worsening response times for the 20% of incidents in other, mostly rural, areas.
Cabinet Member Duncan Crow is attempting to renege on the County Council's existing response commitment. It already permits longer response times than in many other areas, and this will allow even longer response times.
Many response times, which were previously graded as failures, will now be claimed as meeting the target.
There were 486 response time failures in 2019/20 (WSCC has refused to provide more recent figures) and all were investigated. Had the proposed standards been applied to the actual response times in 2019/20, then there would have been a nearly two thirds reduction in those deemed to be failures.
Not only is this covering up deteriorating performance, it will mean that no investigations will be carried out into most failures. Deterioration that is not the fault of firefighters, but the failure of the County Council to ensure enough fire appliances are always available.
There are no national Emergency Response Standards, and the website just shows performance data. Secondly, the website is not an ONS one, it is a Home Office website.
This is not about 'greater transparency'
It is about covering up excessive response times that put lives at risk
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