A lucky coincidence?
An interesting meeting on Friday that began with a great piece of luck. Before the meeting the County Council website showed the committee’s Chairman as Kevin Boram and the Vice Chairman as Jacky Pendleton. As you can see at the very start of the meeting Mr Boram even had his chairman title on his desk.
The tension mounted when Jacky Pendleton got to item 2 on the agenda – “Election of Chairman and Vice Chairman”. Out of the blue, and to everyone’s surprise, Jacky Pendleton then nominated Councillor Boram as Chairman and, no doubt to his great relief, there were no other nominations. That meant he could keep the Chairman title displayed on his desk.
Now, as Councillor Boram began his duties as Chairman, to everyone’s astonishment he nominated Jacky Pendleton as Vice Chairman. Incredibly, once again, there were no other nominations. So, by an incredible coincidence, whoever put the committee details on the website had managed to predict the outcome of the election of Chairman and Vice Chairman days before the meeting.
Operational performance inadequate
One of the most disturbing items in the performance report was the increasing number of fire deaths. Not just a leap in 2020/21, but evidence that the trend in West Sussex is of fire deaths rising, whilst nationally they are falling.
One of the Council’s justifications, they claimed, for closing fire stations and removing a quarter of frontline fire engines was that it would allow more prevention work, which would save more lives.
There has never been any evidence to support that claim and the latest figures prove that it is baseless.
Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen Hatton was right to say that there is no common theme responsible for these deaths. Fires, with or without lives in danger, are random events that cannot be predicted. That is why the service must be ready, at any time of the day or night, to respond quickly and effectively to any location in West Sussex.
However, she also claimed that victims have often died before the ‘999’ call is received. That does sometimes occur, but I have yet to see any evidence that it is ‘often’ or usual. What does occur often is fire & rescue authorities, when they are criticised for an excessive response time to fatal fires, especially after they have cut resources, claiming the victim died before the call was received.
I have experience of attending fatalities where the victim was sadly seen to be alive shortly before we arrived, and also of rescuing victims in the nick of time. There are some occasions when it can be established that the victim had died before the 999 call was received, but in many cases it is impossible to be certain at what time death occurred.
Response times are a significant factor in whether lives are saved or lost at fires and other emergencies.
Cabinet Member wrong to say targets are challenging
Cabinet Member Duncan Crow claimed that they have set challenging targets, but that is certainly not the case for response times. In Hampshire, an 8 minute target for the first fire engine across the county is challenging, in Surrey a 10 minute target across the county might be considered challenging, the 10 minute target across rural Devon & Somerset probably is challenging.
But, a 14 minute target for nearly two thirds of West Sussex and 12 minutes for nearly all the rest is very far from challenging.
If
they have become challenging for the service, then it is only because the
County Council has taken away a quarter of the frontline response resources and
fails to ensure the remainder can always be crewed. The latest figures, just released
by the Home Office, show how average response times to fires in West Sussex homes, where most fire fatalities occur, are getting worse. Up from 8 minutes
19 seconds in 2012/13 to 9 minutes 11 seconds in 2019/20.
Councillor Chris Oxlade asked if the response times for 2020/21 would have been worse if Covid hadn’t happened. The Chief Fire Officer said it had a dramatic improvement in the 1st quarter due to the first lockdown, but that drained away in quarters 2, 3 and 4. However, the figures in the report show that the availability changes did not translate in the same way for the response time for the second fire engine at critical fires. With only two fire stations having a second fire engine crewed by immediate response (Wholetime) firefighters, there is heavy reliance on the On Call (Retained) crews to provide the second fire engine across West Sussex.
There
are many people who were furloughed or working from home for most of 2020, not just during the lockdown periods. It is inevitable that this had a
significant effect on the availability of On Call firefighters throughout 2020,
so it is far too soon to determine if any improvements were because of Covid, or because
of any measures intended to improve On Call availability.
HM Inspectorate fail to review all their concerns
The letter from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) claims that the revisit in February reviewed all the concerns they had after their first inspection in 2018. Yet in none of the revisits since the initial inspection have they looked at the fundamental concerns under ‘responding to fires and other emergencies’. In that report they said:
In its response to fires and emergencies, the service isn’t making the best use of resources. It hasn’t met its response standards since 2014/15. Its fire engine availability is low and it is struggling to recruit and retain sufficient on-call firefighters. It hasn’t produced a clear plan for aligning its procedures to national guidance, its management of information after an incident is often poor and it has had little success in reducing the high number of false alarms it receives. Finally, its cross-border exercising is limited and inconsistent.
It is quite right that HMICFRS look at issues such as fairness, diversity, values and culture, but ignoring their initial concerns about operational response cannot be justified. Those issues affect the safety of everyone in West Sussex and they are fundamental to West Sussex County Council’s legal duty to provide a fire & rescue service. Perhaps, as their inspectors have no prior knowledge or experience of the fire & rescue service, they shy away from delving too deeply into operational deficiencies, but that is no excuse.
They were identified during the original inspection and should have been covered in their revisit reports.
Irrespective of the HMICFRS failure, the Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee should, if it is doing its job properly, scrutinise these matters. However, I have little confidence that they will. The committee is controlled by Conservative Councillors, so they are effectively marking their own homework. Many of these deficiencies result from cuts and poor decisions made by Conservative Cabinet Members and approved by the Conservative controlled County Council.
It is a great shame that the Council and the committee do not reflect the votes cast in the May elections. 48% of people voted for Conservative candidates and 52% voted for other candidates, yet there are five Conservative Councillors on this committee and only two Councillors from other parties.
I would urge all Councillors on the scrutiny committee to set aside any party allegiance and scrutinise the operational effectiveness of the service in depth.
Concerns over Surrey Fire Control grow
Councillor Chris Oxlade voiced concerns about the lack of an effective back up for the Surrey fire control. I believe he was referring to the inability of Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service's control, who receive West Sussex ‘999’ calls when Surrey Fire Control cannot, to mobilise any help to the caller. No help will be sent until Merseyside Fire Control staff can get hold of Surrey Fire Control. Difficult if they are busy, impossible if they are out of action.
Interestingly, the Chief Fire Officer acknowledged that it was the Fire & Rescue Authority (WSCC) that had a statutory responsibility to receive emergency calls and to respond to incidents. She then asked Assistant Chief Fire Officer Jon Lacy to answer the question. I was not reassured by the answers.
It was good to hear that they plan to improve resilience and to hear a little more detail about the current options to deal with technical failures and occasions when the control is overwhelmed with emergency calls.
However, the resilience is inadequate, and it seems incredible that the County Council chose Surrey when their resilience was so poor.
Jon Lacy referred to the fall-back arrangements for when they get an unprecedented amount of ‘999’ calls during bad weather. He then said they maintain adequate staff to deal with multiple calls and that it is the first call that counts as that is the one you mobilise resources to. That really makes no sense.
If they did actually “maintain adequate staff to deal with multiple calls”, then they would not need a ‘buddy control’ to answer calls, and I am at a loss to see how it is only “the first call that counts”. Most of the calls coming in during bad weather are for many different incidents, some much more serious than the first. It isn’t even true for multiple calls for the same incident, as calls after the first may give a better location, or be from someone trapped and in need of fire survival guidance.
He then went on to the issue of West Sussex '999' calls going to Merseyside Fire & Rescue and claimed that this would give callers assurance. However, that is a false assurance, as they will assume help is on the way when it isn't. The details still have to be passed to Surrey Fire Control, as only they can actually mobilise West Sussex resources. His answer ignored the problem that an overwhelmed control is no more likely to be able to answer a call from Merseyside Fire & Rescue than they were to answer the original ‘999’ call.
The final part of Jon Lacy's answer related to communication links between Surrey and West Sussex, which was not the concern raised. I hope committee members understood that, as links between the two controls are not resilient.
This lack of effective resilience ensures that further delay is unavoidable.
A glimmer of hope
It was good to hear councillors praise fire & rescue service staff for their efforts during the pandemic. Dealing with a pandemic at the same time as trying to deal with some of the problems created by the Council’s underfunding and mismanagement of the service must have demanded a great deal from all staff. They deserve to be praised.
The new Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee Chairman certainly appeared enthusiastic about his new role, and he said he was keen to support the service. As a lack of effective scrutiny had much to do with the problems found by HMICFRS, I hope the Chairman understands that the best way to help the service will be to constructively challenge the Cabinet Member's assertions and to seek evidence to support any statements made by the service.
Effective and detailed scrutiny is the best way to help the service
and to protect residents.
