Another worrying Freedom of Information request refusal

Fantasy "parties with an intention to cause mischief"

WSFRS has just refused a request from a Charlie Healy for a copy of the risk assessment for the more compact fire engines introduced by the service.

The spurious grounds given for refusing this request - "that disclosure of the information you seek would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health of any individual or the safety of any individual."

I don't know which is more worrying with this latest refusal:

Is it that WSFRS has decided that, "likely to endanger the physical or mental health" etc., can be used as an opt out whenever they want to conceal things from the public?

Or, is it that the risk assessment for the 20 plate UHP pumping appliances reveals serious flaws or weaknesses that affect firefighter or public safety?

Or, is it that a proper risk assessment was not carried out and they do not want to admit that?

Creating imaginary "parties with an intention to cause mischief", is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. Especially when the information would be of no use to them if they really existed. This would be laughable were it not for the serious issue of a public body trying to evade their legal duty.

These refusals are not in the interest of the public or firefighters, so who are they trying to protect from scrutiny?

Poor performance prompts more spin and cover up

With elections next May, it seems that West Sussex County Council's leadership is desperate to cover up how their cuts have damaged the fire & rescue service's performance. 

Bogus grounds used to refuse Freedom of Information request

A recent request for copies of the service's 'Failure to meet response standard reports', covering the period from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2024, has been refused. This is particularly suspicious, as the information was provided when the same reports were requested in 2018 and 2021. One can only assume that performance is now much worse.

The first bogus reason for refusal was that disclosure "would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health of any individual or the safety of any individual". With imagination worthy of a conspiracy theorist, they suggest that a person with malicious intent could use the data to delay the response to future incidents.

So, what is this information that was previously not valuable to a person with malicious intent, but now suddenly is? 

The information simply shows that at some past incidents the service failed to meet their response standard for reasons such as long travel distance, slow turnout, nearest station off the run, appliance did not book in, difficulty in locating the incident, nearest appliance attending another incident, and heavy traffic. 

All reasons that would be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense.

Bizarre personal data refusal, when no personal data was requested

Presumably, in case the first reason does not pass the Information Commissioner's tests, they throw in the personal data exemption as a second reason for refusal. Yet no personal data was requested, and the information held, and previously provided, does not include personal data. 

The Council's leadership and the Chief Fire Officer regularly claim to be open and transparent, yet this demonstrates, once again, that they are not.

Complacent and ineffective Fire & Rescue Service Scrutiny Committee meeting 

This committee met at the beginning of the month and, sadly, scrutiny was inadequate. The Performance Report for quarter 2 of 2024/25 revealed further deterioration in the service's response to critical fires, but committee members voiced no concerns.

Critical Fires – First Appliance Attendance

The response target for critical fires across most of the County is a lengthy 14 minutes, yet this is failed on nearly 10% of occasions. The report said that 'performance often dips in quarter two', but no one asked the Chief Fire Officer why it was nearly 8% worse than the same quarter last year (it was 94.7% in quarter two last year, but was down to 86.9% this year).

Inadequate crewing on retained frontline fire engines

Councillor complacency on this crisis is astonishing. Not only was this the worst ever quarter two performance, it was the worst quarterly performance on record. With up to three quarters of the County's fire engines dependent on retained firefighters this continuing deterioration is putting lives and property at risk. Yet, instead of demanding action, Councillors just accept Cabinet Member Duncan Crow's lame excuses and move on to the next item. 

Source: WSCC reports 

(Note - the target was cut between 2013/14 and 2019/20 without consultation or explanation)

Councillors rightly praise staff in the fire & rescue service for their efforts, but fail to examine how decisions by the Council have contributed to this worrying decline. Not only has the County Council cut the number of retained firefighters they employ, their policies are having a negative effect on the recruitment and retention of retained firefighters.

The County Council could set an example to other employers by having a policy to positively support all County Council employees who wish to become retained firefighters, and a policy to release them from their primary employment for training and response to emergencies. Yet the Council has no such policy and selfishly expects other employers and the self employed to step up and do what they will not do.

Why are establishment and strength figures not published?

It is interesting that the report refers to the Retained Duty System being 14% below the ‘authorised establishment.’ Establishment figures are no longer published, so Councillors cannot properly scrutinise the service without updates on changes to the establishment and actual strength figures. 

Source: Home Office statistics

The retained firefighter strength in 2024 is two thirds lower than the Council's approved establishment in 2004! 

Lean or inadequately resourced?

During the meeting, Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton referred to the service being a lean one. An understatement if ever there was one. The County Council has cut the service to the bone, which leaves it struggling to cope with routine demand. It is no longer able to provide an effective service when there are more demanding incidents, or when several incidents occur at the same time. 

Instead of recognising that deteriorating performance is the result of Council cuts, Duncan Crow was more interested in boasting that the County Council's spend on the fire & rescue service is £6 less per head of population than the average in England. That missing £5 million has much to do with why there are not enough firefighters in West Sussex and, as a consequence, why response times have got worse.

The County Council is failing to properly protect residents

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.

Top job changes could cost taxpayers an extra £300,000

On 1st April, I submitted a Freedom of Information request for details of the business case and costs in relation to the recent splitting of the Executive Director & Chief Fire Officer post in to two posts. I also requested the same information in relation to the decision to combine the two posts in 2014. The request was acknowledged and I was told to expect a response by 4th May. It did not come, so I sent a reminder. It was acknowledged, but I still had no response.

I contacted the Information Commissioner’s Office, and they wrote to West Sussex County Council, on 16th June, to point out their failure to comply with the legislation. They also directed WSCC to respond within ten working days, but they did not. This breach of the law is currently awaiting allocation to a case officer at the Information Commissioner’s Office.

On 7th August, I finally received a response from West Sussex County Council, but it is far from satisfactory. Astonishingly, they claim that there are no documents to justify these senior management changes. The suggestion that the person, or persons, approving the decisions in 2014 and in 2017 had no paperwork setting out the justification, rationale and cost of these changes defies belief. If the claim is true, then I feel sure the Local Government Ombudsman and the National Audit Office would have serious concerns about such lax governance.

According to West Sussex County Council £532,000 - £353,000 = £19,000

They have provided some salary costs, but claim they don’t know the associated cost of provided vehicles, accommodation and support staff. Something else I suspect the Local Government Ombudsman and the National Audit Office would be concerned about. The salary figures provided are incomplete and appear designed to mislead. They claim that replacing a combined post, which cost £193,000 per year, with two posts totalling £372,000, will only cost an extra £19,000!”

The figures shown for the combined post included the Deputy Chief Officer post, but the figures for the separate posts do not. As they still have a Deputy Chief Officer, that cost should be included, so the extra cost is at least £179,000. That figure does not include the vehicle, accommodation and support staff costs associated with the extra post.

It should also be remembered that the original plan was for Sean Ruth to continue as Executive Director, whilst receiving a Chief Fire Officer’s pension in addition. Despite retiring from the Chief Fire Officer part of his combined role, it seems his salary was not going to be reduced. That is quite astonishing when you consider that the new Chief Fire Officer would be responsible for 90% of the directorate’s budget.

Add in the pension payments and the difference in costs between 2016-17 and 2017-18 must be an increase of around £300,000 per year. Sean Ruth recently changed his mind and left WSCC, but if the Council appoint a new Executive Director, council taxpayers would still be forking out an unnecessary £193,000 on top of the pension costs.

Since 2010, the County Council has cut personnel crewing fire engines by 32% and middle managers by 26%. Senior manager posts were initially cut, but increased again in 2013.

It is utterly scandalous that nearly a third of the firefighters who save lives in West Sussex have been cut, whilst highly paid manager posts have doubled, even though they manage fewer people. The Council said they could not afford £63,000 a year to keep second fire engines at Midhurst, Petworth and Storrington, but they are happy to squander money on senior manager posts.

The misleading figures from WSCC mean the exact full costs are unclear. It is obviously more than £19,000, but is it £179,000, £193,000, £300,000, or something else? We must be told exactly what the full costs of this debacle are and council taxpayers deserve a thorough investigation in to this appalling misuse of their money.

WSCC’s creative accounting:

Single post 2014	Pay	NI	Pension	Total
Executive Director and CFO	140,000	18,000	35,000	193,000
Director & Deputy Chief	116,000	15,000	29,000	160,000
Total	256,000	33,000	64,000	353,000
Separate posts 2017
Executive Director	140,000	18,000	35,000	193,000
Director & CFO	130,000	17,000	32,000	179,000
Total	270,000	35,000	67,000	372,000

Difference: £372,000 – £353,000 = £19,000

The figures for the separate posts that should have been shown:

Separate posts 2017	Pay	NI	Pension	Total
Executive Director	140,000	18,000	35,000	193,000
Director & CFO (new post)	130,000	17,000	32,000	179,000
Director & Deputy Chief	116,000	15,000	29,000	160,000
Total	386,000	50,000	96,000	532,000

Difference: £532,000 - £353,000 = £179,000

(not including Sean Ruth’s pension, and vehicle, accommodation & support staff costs for the new CFO post)

Can West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service management be any more stupid?

I had thought that it would be difficult for West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service management to appear any more stupid with their efforts to avoid proper scrutiny, but it appears that they can. Regular visitors to this blog will be aware that even promises made to County Councillors to publish incident performance data have been broken. 

Now a group of people has submitted Freedom of Information requests for incident data for the years 2010-2015 to Fire & Rescue Services across the UK. Not sure who they are, but it is probably an academic research project. So far, at least ten Fire & Rescue Services have provided the information and London Fire Brigade has told them that their information is already publicly available on-line from the London Datastore.

So how do West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service respond? They refuse the request, because 'it would threaten national security'. A quite outrageous attempt to misuse the legitimate exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act to withhold information that should be in the public domain.

If there was any substance in the claim, then they would be saying that the at least ten Fire & Rescue Services who have already provided this data have put our national security at risk. Or perhaps they stupidly think that West Sussex is more security sensitive than Essex, Hampshire, Humberside, Lancashire, London, Staffordshire, and West Yorkshire. Neither is the case of course.

Louise Goldsmith insists that West Sussex County Council is open and transparent and David Barling denies that their Fire & Rescue Service is secretive. Well it is time they did something about West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service regularly proving their statements to be untrue.

They should look at the London Fire Brigade example, where detailed incident data is provided on-line and updated monthly. No need for any Freedom of Information Act requests in their case. They say, “we publish this information to assist the public in accessing details of the incidents attended by the London Fire Brigade”. It also saves them an enormous amount of time dealing with requests for incident data.

WSFRS’s desperate attempts to cover up their deteriorating performance have clearly sunk to a new low with this latest irresponsible abuse of the Freedom of Information Act.

Does the Fire & Rescue Service know about this 'Customer Promise', or do they just ignore it?

I was intrigued today to receive an invitation from West Sussex County Council to provide feedback on their 'Customer Promise'. For those who have not heard of it, it includes promises to make it easy to get information, to be friendly and helpful, to be honest and trustworthy, and to value your feedback.

Anyone who has followed the discussion on cuts to the Fire & Rescue Service might be forgiven for thinking that this promise was unknown to West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, despite them being a department of West Sussex County Council.

I have certainly found it difficult to get the right information, as illustrated by my having to submit two appeals to the Information Commissioner after Freedom of Information requests were refused. I should have both decisions in a month or so.

In case anyone else would like to give feedback to WSCC, the survey is at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CustomerPromise2015.

I should add that I have now had to request an internal review on my FOI request, submitted in February, for information on what Cabinet Member David Barling referred to as "super duper new 4x4" vehicles. The reasons for the review are:

"I have not been provided with all the requested information. In addition, despite Mr Coleman saying in his reply dated 23 June 2015, “If you have any queries about this reply, please contact me”, my queries submitted in response have not been answered. In particular:

• Details of the equipment to be carried, both on the vehicles all the time, and occasionally in pods, has not been provided.
• WSFRS reports on the outcome of the vehicle trials, during the research and evaluation process, have not been supplied. The claim that such information is commercially sensitive is not valid.
• No business case has been provided. The original reply said that “would be written once the research is finished.” The latest reply changed that to saying that the business case was in the ‘Fundamental Fire and Rescue Review’. I have neither received, nor requested, that document and its provision under FOI is outstanding.
• It also appears from WSFRS social media that, as well as the 6x6 Mercedes Benz Sprinter, WSFRS has a 4x4 Mercedes Benz Sprinter in build. No details of this vehicle have been supplied, despite it being clearly covered by the FOI request."

You can read the history of this request at WhatDoTheyKnow.

Fire & Rescue Service or Secret Service in West Sussex - part 2

Having circulated a press release to the media on this, I have had a number of calls from them today. Interestingly some of them told me that they were suspicious when WSFRS stopped saying where appliances were sent from. Surprise, surprise, some also suspected a connection between this change and the cuts, and they have certainly not been impressed with the official excuse.

One of the things I was involved with, during my time with WSCC, was training for responder organisations in Sussex about information provision to the media and the public. I have also attended events with national and international speakers on the subject. Time and again speakers have said that the reputation of organisations depends on information being timely, accurate and honest.

WSFRS media professionals have attended some of this training, so I feel sure they would have advised against these changes. As for information requests, I cannot believe that any media professional would refuse it, unless there are specific legal reasons, or unless instructed to do so by senior officers.

More information is emerging about things that can be hidden by this new policy, which I see seems to have started just before Christmas. It appears that when there was a serious house fire in Crawley on the 30th December, the first pump to arrive was Horsham and the response time was some 15 minutes.

This was apparently because two Crawley pumps and the Reigate pump, out posted to Horley, were at other incidents. I don’t know if it was the same incident, as details have come from various sources. Crawley’s 3^rd was not available. Crawley’s two then became available and were sent on the ‘make pumps four’ request. Turners Hill (only available 72% of the time in 2013-14) and Horsham’s 3^rd (only available 52% of the time) were luckily available this time and responded to the ‘make pumps 6’ request.

If West Sussex County Council wants to avoid further reputational damage, they need to quickly reverse the decision to withhold station details on incident information. If they really want to avoid accusations of cover up, they should start including the response times. Now that really would be honest.

Fire & Rescue Service or Secret Service

Details of the response to fire & rescue service incidents has always been readily available in West Sussex, until now that is. Now it seems they want to keep this information secret.

Information about which fire stations sent fire engines to incidents has been of general interest to the press and public for over 200 years. It has also been of specific interest to fire service professionals, enthusiasts, and especially those monitoring the performance of our fire services.

Concerns about increasing secrecy have been growing alongside plans for cuts to the fire & rescue service, and as more questions have been asked about the service's deteriorating performance. 

As with any secret service they have cover stories ready. When they stopped showing the station name on the side of new fire engines they said it was to save money. Funny though that it coincided with growing concern about nearby fire engines not being crewed, and others having to be sent from stations further away.

Now they have stopped including details about where the fire engines attending incidents have come from on their incident newsletter. They have also now refused to answer a direct request from a member of the public. The reply with their 'cover story' is reproduced below.

It is clearly not, as Mr Towson asserts, to avoid misleading the public. It is another move to try and deceive the press and public in a futile attempt to avoid awkward questions. Not surprising when it appears that to get just 8 standard fire engines at the recent emergency landing at Gatwick Airport they had to attend from as far away as Worthing! Fire cover in West Sussex must have been dire on that day.

It is disgraceful that WSFRS is abandoning the principles of openness and honesty that are fundamental to the Freedom of Information Act. They need to be reminded that "Openness is fundamental to the political health of a modern state", and that "Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making". 

I am not surprised that County Council Cabinet Members are happy to treat the Freedom of Information Act and the public with contempt, but it is deeply disturbing to learn that the Chief Fire Officer is doing the same. Responsible County Councillors and the media should be objecting strongly to this new secrecy.


The letter:

Dear Mr Allison,

We have stopped routinely providing this level of detail after reviewing our media and communication priorities.

The focus for fire & rescue services is to improve public safety and reduce risk through our protection and prevention activities, supported by a professional response capability. All WSFRS resources and activities work to achieve this objective, including the role of our media & communications team.

We welcome interest in the operational role of the fire and rescue service and we will continue to provide basic incident information, particularly where this can be used to highlight public safety messages. However, to allow our small media team to focus on our wider priorities we are changing the way incident news is reported. We no longer include ‘low level’ incidents like bin fires, for example, or details like the home station of every fire appliance that attended.

To provide home station information does not always accurately reflect the FRS attendance. Our firefighters and fire engines are county-wide assets and we have always moved them around the county to match risk and demand, and provide the best strategic cover. ‘Pumps’ can be moved for a number of reasons, including incidents in progress or a pre-arranged swap to cover training or large exercises. If a pump from one station is on standby at a different station and subsequently attends a fire there, this does not mean the ‘home’ station was the nearest available and it can mislead the public if it is reported so. In another example, a fire engine from one station can be mobilised as the support crew to a nearer ‘special’ appliance from another station. The ‘support crew’ is more about our operating practices than an indication of the size of the incident, and the type of vehicle used (a 4x4 for example) is often just the mode of transport used for getting firefighters to the scene. Again, this can be misleading if appliances are simply listed.

As I have already stated the reason for recent changes to our bulletins is to support our wider comms objectives and improve public safety, and brings WSFRS more in-line with the working practices of other FRS comms teams. My colleague Sarah has already provided you with the numbers of appliances attending the incidents you mentioned, and I hope this further explanation helps to why we no do not routinely provide the additional information you asked for.

Regards

Gary Towson