Councillors still refuse to admit their abject failure

Conservative leadership's damage control

Last week the County Council’s Environment, Communities and Fire Select Committee met to discuss Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMIC&FRS) damning report on West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service. 

It was disappointing, but not surprising, that Chairman Andrew Barrett-Miles opened by trying to stifle proper discussion. He told Councillors it was "not a political debating session". In other words, the ruling Conservative Group did not want their political failings to be discussed. Councillor James Walsh correctly pointed out that he was wrong to do that, as the Council is a politically run authority that gives direction to the Council's officers.

Mr Barrett-Miles comment that “we are here to be a critical friend of the fire service”, seemed intended to pass the buck to those in the service. It became clear that those ultimately responsible for the poor report were engaged in political damage control. I have no doubt where responsibility lies.

Fire Brigades Union & Unison highlight the real failures

Antony Walker from the FBU gave a heartfelt presentation outlining where the problems were, including:

• Poor funding, with £7 million of cuts, loss of 11 fire appliances, and a 37% reduction in workforce leaving West Sussex top of the list for posts lost since 2010,
• Poor governance, lack of scrutiny and Councillors' limited understanding of the consequences of decisions taken,
• Poor, weak management with, until very recently, senior Fire & Rescue Service officers not strong enough in opposing financial reductions,
• The committee had approved the Integrated Risk Management Plan after they were told the service was under-resourced to deliver it,
• Unworkable, non-family friendly contracts and rates of pay for On Call Firefighters that do not reflect the commitment required.

He said, "Our members are asked to work under stressful and challenging conditions . . it is hard to comprehend why the fire authority, since 2010, have worsened those conditions."

FBU Brigade Secretary for West Sussex Antony Walker

Dan Sartin from Unison supported those comments and said the failures were County Council failures. He said "It is the County Council that sets the culture, framework and resourcing". He highlighted how support staff were the glue that held a service together and that significant support staff cuts had contributed to the failures.

Dan also made it clear that bullying at senior level was a problem across the County Council and that people were discouraged from submitting grievances. As I have mentioned previously, that is something I saw when I was at County Hall and something I raised with the then Chief Executive.

Unison Branch Secretary for West Sussex Dan Sartin

Cabinet Member proud to have failed

It is perhaps not surprising that the Chairman asked Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard not to make an opening statement. When Councillor Dan Purchese pressed for the Cabinet Member or Leader to make a statement, as they were responsible for the political leadership of the Council, it did not go well. Debbie Kennard told everyone she was proud and proceeded to spout inaccuracies and nonsense.

Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard

Not sure if she has been asleep, but Fire & Rescue has always had a voice on the select committee. The only change has been that, at the end of 2017, the title of the select committee was changed from Environmental and Community Services Select Committee to Environment, Communities and Fire Select Committee. Including 'fire' in the select committee name made no difference whatsoever to the service's voice, or its scrutiny.

As for "the fire on the website" and "a brand", window dressing is not going to fix any of the problems identified in the report. With the worst performance information now removed from the Performance Dashboard, accountability and openness have actually gone backwards. 

Time for the Cabinet Member to admit that she and her predecessors have been on a very badly planned journey.

 A journey that has failed to support dedicated firefighters and failed to protect the public.

Disputed figures

The Acting Chief Fire Officer disagreed with the figures for job losses given by the FBU. Now to be fair to both it has been difficult to compare current and previous figures, as West Sussex County Council and Government figures seem to change the criteria from time to time. However, WSCC establishment figures for 2002 and Home Office total staff figures for 2018 do reveal a 35% cut.

More damage control

I always believed that one of the functions of the Director of Law & Assurance was to ensure that the Council's political leadership did not stray from acting lawfully and in the best interest of West Sussex residents. So it was concerning to see Director Tony Kershaw, who does not normally attend these meetings, appearing to be more concerned with protecting the Council's political leadership. 

He intervened to criticise Councillor Michael Jones for not circulating his recommendations before the meeting. Yet he made no such intervention when Councillor Dan Purchese protested that an email from HMIC&FRS, received by the Council three weeks previously, had not been shared with Councillors until that morning. 

Mr Kershaw also seemed very concerned when committee chairman Andrew Barrett-Miles was making recommendations on behalf of the committee. Despite Mr Barrett-Miles saying, "we cannot instruct the Cabinet Member, she wouldn’t let me I can tell you”, Mr Kershaw and Council Leader Louise Goldsmith were certainly giving him some hard stares. Or was it, as someone described to me, "the evil eye".

The promising outcomes

Despite efforts to restrain the Chairman, he did make some positive recommendations that were unanimously approved. They included:

• The implementation plan to be adequately resourced financially, both in the short and long term.
• That unions should be more closely involved in the implementation plan through inclusion in the project board, and in any future development of the fire service.
• The improvement board should include political leadership. 
• Consideration should be given to determining if the Chief Executive is the right person to chair that board. 
• The Cabinet Member/CFO need to lobby the inspectorate regarding risk versus demand driven. We believe strongly it should be risk driven. 
• Further work needed by the service to look at its future structure.
• That the Governance Committee should consider how additional scrutiny of the Fire & Rescue Service could be achieved by having a separate select committee.
• The Fire & Rescue Service to bring a progress report to this committee in September, and the unions to be invited to speak at that meeting.

The disappointing outcomes

Councillor Michael Jones proposed some additional supportive recommendations, but they were met with unseemly attempts to frustrate them being considered. Former Cabinet Member David Barling even resorted to the all too common Conservative response to anything they don't like of, "‘if we are playing politics with this". Yet it was Mr Barling and his Conservative colleagues who played politics by voting down all the Labour proposed, Liberal Democrat seconded recommendations. They were:

• To withdraw the cuts proposed for 2019/20, which were put on hold for one year, and prioritise the recruitment of additional firefighters to replace those cut since 2010. 
• The recruitment panel for the new Chief Fire Officer to only select people with significant fire & rescue service experience.
• Launch an anti-bullying campaign to stamp out instances of bullying and harassment.
• Take steps to increase the diversity of the workforce, particularly in respect of more female firefighters and more from the BAME communities.
• Commission an independent review to determine whether alternative governance arrangements for West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service may be necessary.

Other worries

David Barling frequently refers to his "specialist knowledge" of the fire & rescue service, yet he said he "would have liked to have heard from someone from the retained today". It is quite disturbing that, as a former Cabinet Member responsible for fire & rescue, that he was unaware that the Fire Brigades Union representative sat in front of him speaks for both wholetime and retained firefighters. 

Mr Barling even had the gall, when speaking about wanting "much more detail on the retained service", to refer to the task and finish group looking at On Call (retained) firefighter recruitment and retention problems. 

A task & finish group that he refused to set up when he was Cabinet Member.

Chief Executive Nathan Elvery tried to defend the "no fire & rescue service experience required" advert for the Chief Fire Officer post by referring to "combined emergency services" in other countries. I have no idea where he got his information from, but such an arrangement is extremely rare. There are some examples of fire services that have historically provided some element of the emergency ambulance provision in some countries, but that is a long way from a combined emergency service.

He said the arrangements in other countries were "quite different", which ought to ring alarm bells, not encourage looking at candidates from other countries. It would be a nonsense to appoint a Chief Fire Officer who lacks knowledge and experience of how UK fire & rescue services operate, of UK legislation, of UK tactics and procedures, and of how UK fire & rescue services work with other emergency services and other agencies. 

Tried and tested UK arrangements for managing major incidents are radically different from those in many other countries. They are widely acknowledged to be far more effective, but that depends on the chief officer of each service intimately understanding procedures, and having extensive training and significant experience at exercises and incidents. 

A Chief Fire Officer playing catch up will not keep firefighters and residents safe.        

Arrogance, denial & hypocrisy will perpetuate failure

The report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) made grim reading. I feel especially sad for the hundreds of fire & rescue service staff who will understandably, but wrongly, see this as a reflection on them. I also feel very sad for the residents of West Sussex who have, once again, been let down by the County Council.

It is the County Council's leadership that is responsible for this shocking report.

Thursday was rather hectic with the HMICFRS report to read, media coverage to monitor, and the County Council’s Environment, Communities and Fire Select Committee meeting to watch. That is the Select Committee responsible for scrutiny and oversight of the Fire & Rescue Service and for holding the Cabinet Member and Chief Fire Officer to account.

I have now had some time to reflect on Thursday’s sad revelations. I am no less disappointed by the Inspector’s findings, but I am appalled by the arrogance, denial & hypocrisy displayed by Councillors at the Select Committee meeting. When Children’s Services were rated inadequate, the chairman of the Children and Young People’s Select Committee resigned, the Chief Executive gave interviews and even Council Leader Louise Goldsmith was quick to publicly apologise.

Yet when the Fire & Rescue Service received the worst report of the latest batch of reports, there were no apologies from the Council Leader or Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard, and no resignations. Instead, Louise Goldsmith and Debbie Kennard hid from the media and made the Acting Chief Fire Officer face the cameras.

No Apology

We had to listen to Debbie Kennard trotting out how they had spent money on equipment, and how they had found a bit of money to try and fix some of the failures identified by the Inspector. Struggling to find some positives in the report, she even had the nerve to mention road safety work, something she planned to cut! Debbie Kennard completely ignored her predecessor’s failures, which created those problems, and her failure to address problems before the inspection.

With her denial and lack of contrition, there is little hope that

Debbie Kennard can lead the service back to an acceptable grading.

Ignore the message and shoot the messenger

Unlike his colleague, who resigned as chairman of the Children and Young People’s Select Committee, this committee’s chairman, Andrew Barrett-Miles, tried to shoot the messenger. Quite irresponsibly he accused her of “hugely damaging morale” and undermining public confidence.  

What damages morale and undermines public confidence is cutting resources and staff to such an extent that the service faces an impossible task. Councillors failing to scrutinise effectively also damages morale and undermines public confidence. To make matters worse, just ahead of the report’s disclosure, three members of this committee, who were not afraid to ask challenging questions, were removed from the Select Committee. 

Their replacements are:

Lionel Barnard, the former Cabinet Member who approved the last round of major cuts to fire & rescue, despite clear evidence of risks to public safety. Cuts that their own modelling indicated could result in an extra death every two years and over £80,000 extra property damage each year.

David Barling, the former Cabinet Member who implemented those cuts and dismissed concerns about increased response times as “scaremongering”. He called on Councillors to ignore the Council's extra death and property damage figures and angrily attacked anyone, including residents, who voiced concerns. Concerns that have since proved well founded.

Roger Oakley, former Vice Chair of the Governance and Standards Committees who refused to investigate the dubious deal that saw an extra senior post created by Council officers for the benefit of a senior Council officer. He also refused to do anything about the Council’s inadequate record keeping after a Judge led tribunal criticised the County Council’s “surprisingly poor record keeping practice.”

The timing of these changes suggest they have less to do with
ensuring proper scrutiny and more to do with damage control.

The truth about failed response times

As if to confirm those concerns, David Barling tried to play down the Inspector’s comment that the service hasn’t met their own standard for response times since 2014/15, by saying it was just one percent below last year. What he did not say was that the West Sussex standard is lower than most fire & rescue services.

Unfortunately, the Inspector’s report only quoted the West Sussex standard for very high-risk areas (first fire engine in 8 minutes and the second in 11 minutes). Yet the service says they no longer have any areas requiring that standard. I don’t know if the Inspector made an error or was misled, but I intend to ask the question.

The actual standard they are failing to achieve for response to life threatening incidents is:

Risk grading	Area covered by this grading	To arrive within (minutes)
		First fire engine	Second fire engine
High	2%	10	13
Medium	37%	12	15
Low	61%	14	17

Compared to Hampshire’s 8 minute target and Surrey’s 10 minute target for all areas, 

West Sussex’s failure to meet their generous targets is nothing to be proud of.

 Funding cuts are directly responsible for poor response times.
"Long travel distances have increased as a reason for failure, as we have four less operational fire stations in West Sussex." "The 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."

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service 2018-19 Quarter 3 Operational Performance Report

Heads in the sand over bullying

David Barling also questioned the Inspector’s comments on bullying, because no one had complained to him about bullying when he was Cabinet Member! I am afraid his comments demonstrate a complete lack of understanding about harassment and bullying. My WSCC training on the subject made it very clear that victims tend to withdraw into themselves and often won't talk about it.  If Mr Barling genuinely believes that firefighters would open up about such things to a Cabinet Member, then he is really naïve.

I have some sympathy for Neil Stocker, as he has been left holding the baby, and a sickly baby it is. However, his optimism on morale is misplaced. It is at an 'all time low', and just because he and a FBU official were unaware of harassment and bullying, is not evidence that things are OK. I accept that it is difficult to detect, but trying to downplay the report's findings is not going to improve anything.

The Chief Inspector pointed out that West Sussex had evidence of bullying 
at least two years before the inspection, but had failed to take action.

I welcome that they now say they are taking steps to address the problem with new policies and a new officer post, but will that be enough? The County Council has had policies, training and staff responsible for diversity and inclusion for many years, and that includes Fire & Rescue. I first attended WSCC/WSFRS diversity training, delivered by external specialists, over 20 years ago.

If Councillors and managers can't grasp the fundamentals of bullying and harassment,
I have serious doubts they can improve the situation.

WSCC policy in 2010

A few Councillors do support the fire & rescue service

Thankfully there were two County Councillors at the meeting who do recognise the County Council's failings and voiced their genuine support for fire & rescue service staff. Michael Jones and James Walsh have long campaigned to prevent the Council's reckless cuts and they continue to try and hold the Council to account. 

Councillor Michael Jones said that he thought the problem was not just confined to fire & rescue. He saw the link between less staff trying to cope with an impossible workload leading to stress and that sometimes resulting in bullying. A problem I witnessed when I was working with different departments at County Hall as cuts and poorly planned reorganisation took place. I raised my concerns with the then Chief Executive and my comments included:

“With less staff, people are under greater pressure, so have less time to help colleagues, and managers have less time to support staff. Training is either not given, or people do not have time to attend it. Many experienced staff have left, so we have managers who are not only less experienced, they are also less well trained. Lack of time is also stopping effective consultation.

Standards of behaviour are dropping, and people do not treat others with respect. Now some of that may be a social problem, but pressure of work and stress will also be a factor.”

The Chief Executive accepted there were problems and was clearly trying to address them, but unfortunately Louise Goldsmith decided she no longer needed a Chief Executive. When he left, things went from bad to worse.

County Council may make things worse

Councillor James Walsh also pointed out that these problems were not new and that he had spoken to staff who had told him about low morale in the service. He identified the direct link between funding cuts and failed response times, especially in rural areas.

He correctly identified that the Council is in danger of making things worse by advertising for a Chief Fire Officer who doesn't need to have fire service experience. He said, "The idea of the army being led by an accountant, or the police led by a business manager would be an anathema in those services. It is the same in terms of respect and leadership in the fire service."

He said that the message in the report is that the problems start at the top, with the political leadership of the Council, where the cost of everything is known, but the value of the service to the public is not understood.

Debbie Kennard's silence after the concerns voiced by Michael Jones and James Walsh spoke volumes. 

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service does not need an enthusiastic cheerleader, 

it needs a Cabinet Member with a grip on the problems and a determination to improve. 

Residents and firefighters need an experienced fire service professional as Chief Fire Officer. 

The County Council needs a leader who puts the safety of residents before party political ideology.

West Sussex deserves better

County Council Hypocrisy and Cabinet Member Misinformation

Hypocrisy

The answer to a written question from County Councillor Chris Oxlade exposes shocking hypocrisy regarding the issue of On Call Firefighters. As the Fire & Rescue Authority, the County Council regularly calls on employers to release staff from their jobs to respond to emergencies as On Call Firefighters.

Yet the County Council does nothing to ensure that their own staff are able to respond to emergencies as On Call Firefighters. Astonishingly, there is no policy on the matter and they only support staff doing so, “as long as it does not conflict with their main employment”. You must be pretty dim to think that leaving their main employment to respond to emergencies is not going to conflict, so instead of supporting On Call Firefighters, they immediately put a great big obstacle in the way.

They go on to admit that they have no policy to ensure On Call Firefighters working for the County Council are not penalised financially, or in terms of career progression. The Council also admits they put no requirement in contracts with companies, providing contracted out services to the Council, to ensure they also encourage and support On Call Firefighters.

Asked if the Council ensures that managers actively encourage employees to become On Call Firefighters, it appears they don’t. All they say is that internal communication campaigns have “generated little interest to date either from managers or employees”. Hardly surprising when there is no support or encouragement.

This is yet another example of inept leadership from the County Council. 

Expecting other employers to help them out by releasing staff to respond as On Call Firefighters, whilst restricting and even preventing County Council staff from doing the same. With such hypocrisy it is no wonder there is such a shortage of On Call Firefighters in West Sussex. Shortages that are resulting in increased response times, which put the public in greater danger.

Cabinet Member Misinformation (again)

At the last County Council meeting, Councillor Dan Purchese asked Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard to agree that the next Chief Fire Officer needed to have experience of the fire service. Not only did she fail to agree, she falsely said "we have other fire officers who did not come up through the ranks". That is not true, all the officers in West Sussex came up through the ranks.

She also said that they will appoint the best person for the job. Well if she means that, then it can only be someone who has came up through the ranks. A career's worth of in depth knowledge and experience are vital for any Chief Fire Officer.

What will tomorrow bring?

The report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services is due to be published tomorrow. The signs are not good, as the County Council has already transferred £365,000 from reserves to begin addressing areas identified in the report as needing improvement. 

HMICFRS say they expect fire & rescue services to achieve a rating of 'good'. Sadly, with such severe cuts to the service I am not optimistic that West Sussex will achieve that as an overall grade, so the question is will it achieve a 'good' rating in any of the key areas:

• How effective is the fire and rescue service at keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks?
• How efficient is the fire and rescue service at keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks?
• How well does the fire and rescue service look after its people?

The categories of graded judgement are:

• outstanding;
• good;
• requires improvement; and
• inadequate.

Whatever the outcome, we must remember that primary responsibility for any inadequacies rests with the County Council. Staff must not be blamed in the way the Council shamefully tried to do for their failings in Children's Services.

More bad news for West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, as County Council makes changes behind closed doors

It seems that Chief Fire Officer Gavin Watts is to retire early, after just 29 years’ service, and Nicola Bulbeck’s post of Executive Director of Communities and Public Protection seems to have vanished from a new structure dreamt up by one of “Private Eye’s” favourites, West Sussex County Council Chief Executive Nathan Elvery. 

From "Inside Croydon" earlier this year

It is particularly surprising, because it was Nathan Elvery who brought Nicola Bulbeck in to the Council after the dodgy deal involving Sean Ruth was exposed.

The deal that would have allowed Sean Ruth to give up being Chief Fire Officer but continue as Executive Director Communities and Public Protection on the same salary. A deal that was costly, as it meant two highly paid posts were needed to replace one. Despite Sean Ruth deciding, or being told to walk away, Nathan Elvery went ahead with the extra post at an additional cost of around £180,000 a year.

So, what part has Council Leader Louise Goldsmith played? Well we know that the County Council told the Information Commissioner that Councillors were not involved in the dodgy deal and that there were no records of who came up with the deal, who approved it or why the decision was taken. However, as Nathan Elvery was the only council officer senior to Sean Ruth, he must be a strong suspect.

Louise Goldsmith & Sean Ruth

Now, if Council Leader Louise Goldsmith and Cabinet Members were really not involved, then why is it that they are refusing to investigate to see if the decision breached regulations or standing orders? Even after a Judge led tribunal was highly critical of the County Council’s “surprisingly poor record keeping practice”, they refused to review the adequacy of those regulations and standards.

Coming after their shocking admissions of failure regarding Children’s Services, it is difficult to have any confidence in changes orchestrated by Nathan Elvery and approved by Louise Goldsmith. Especially when they were responsible for earlier changes that they now seem to be undoing!

BBC News

We don’t know why Gavin Watts is leaving now and we may never know the real reason, but it does raise worrying questions, including:

• Is it anything to do with inadequate funding, or the failure of Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard to get answers about unfair Government funding?

• Is it to do with the report of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which is due soon? I could quite understand that he would not want to be the fall guy for failings that result from his predecessor’s decisions and the failings of local and national politicians.

• Is it to do with the imposition of the new management structure and the loss of wider public protection responsibilities?

• Is it because the County Council has diverted money, which should be going to fire & rescue, to prop up other services?

• Is it because fire & rescue is going to face even bigger cuts to fund the measures needed to fix the problems in Children’s Services?

• Did the Chief Executive pressure the Chief Fire Officer to leave?

Or might it be all of those things?

As for Nicola Bulbeck’s post vanishing, it seems to be confirmation of what campaigners said at the time, that it was an unnecessary post and a waste of money. As for Nicola herself, there is no news. If she has in fact been purged, I assume it will once again cost taxpayers a lot of money. 

"The Times" 14 June 2018

Less Safe & Weaker Communities

We were told that fire & rescue, community development and regulatory services were brought together "to help build safer and stronger communities”. Yet Mr Elvery is now removing responsibility for other public protection departments, such as Trading Standards and the Resilience & Emergencies Team, from the Chief Fire Officer. 

Is he really trying to build less safe and weaker communities, or were we lied to before?

Public protection is strangely being added to the Director of Environment's already significant responsibilities, and the new Chief Fire Officer is going to be required to report direct to the Chief Executive. 

Or is something else being plotted? Perhaps fire & rescue is being separated from other WSCC departments to allow for more than just fire control to be taken over by "inadequate" Surrey County Council?

None of these changes will improve the safety of West Sussex residents

and continuing secrecy and lack of scrutiny is an insult to residents 

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