HERTFORDSHIRE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE
At Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, we welcome inspection as a key function which supports our drive for continuous improvement. We aim to deliver the best possible service to the residents of Hertfordshire. Inspection and self analysis provides the opportunity to reflect and share best practice in areas of good performance, as well as highlighting areas where improvement is required. The Service has made significant improvements in the delivery of outcomes, ensuring that Hertfordshire is a safer place to live and work.
The diversity and breadth of environment within Hertfordshire presents the need for localised and tailored delivery of services. We aim to provide this by maintaining a strong local presence in communities which enables us to deliver localised initiatives – samples of which are presented throughout this self assessment document. We are also committed to the delivery of services through partnership with other service providers, at local, county, regional and national level. We recognise that, as an organisation we can achieve optimal impact by engaging in partnerships with other agencies. We strongly believe that successful partnership working will provide increased capacity and deliver improved outcomes for our residents.
The self assessment document provides evidence of our performance against the key lines of enquiry set by the Audit Commission. It also details the improvement made by Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service over the past year. In addition, it outlines the impact that our work has had on improving the safety of residents. The document focuses upon areas which have improved and on areas where there is room for improvement.
We submit the document as an honest and accurate portrayal of the quality of service delivered by HFRS for our residents and customers, and we are proud of the significant steps forward we have made in the delivery of service.
We welcome feedback and challenge as it will provide direction and guidance to support us in building on our successes and continuous improvement.
Roy Wilsher. Richard Smith
Chief Fire Officer Executive Member for Community Safety
“Hertfordshire stretches from Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire in the north to the outskirts of London in the south. It borders Buckinghamshire in the west and Essex in the east and is one of six counties in the East of England. There are no major cities or towns, but it is the second most densely populated county in England, with a mix of new towns, market towns and rural villages. This gives much of Hertfordshire a semi-urban feel without the problems associated with large cities.
Proximity to London is double-edged, with some concerns over urban growth out of London, but the capital provides many employment and leisure opportunities enjoyed by Hertfordshire people. Managing that relationship is critical as the challenges of growth emerge.
The county enjoys a high quality environment, including the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the west and north, river valleys in the south and a concentration of nationally important woodlands in the south-east. Historic buildings and landscapes make a significant contribution to the county’s character.
Hertfordshire is a prosperous place with a population of just over one million. The high standards of living and low levels of unemployment, coupled with a rich mix of rural and urban environments add to the attraction of living in the county.
Our residents are generally well-educated, well-paid, healthy and live in safe communities. Nevertheless this prosperity masks areas of relative deprivation, disadvantage and social exclusion - all stakeholders in the county are passionate about addressing such gaps, ensuring the most vulnerable in society are not overlooked and everyone is able to enjoy a good quality of life. For that reason, our overarching and cross-cutting vision about tackling vulnerability and ensuring cohesive communities is what underpins our strategy and the themes below.”
Hertfordshire 2021: A Brighter Future June 2008
Profile of Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is an affluent area, within which lie areas of relative deprivation. The Index of Multiple Deprivation reveals that four wards in Hertfordshire fall into the top 10% of the (119) most deprived wards in the east of England, all of which lie within new towns or former London overspill settlements[1]. Just over 11 per cent of Hertfordshire residents regard themselves as belonging to a minority ethnic group[2], both black and white. This masks considerable variation ranging from 1 in 5 in Watford to 1 in 15 in East Hertfordshire. The age profile of Hertfordshire is broadly in line with the regional average. The average house price in Hertfordshire in Oct-Dec 2006 was £275,130, compared with a UK average of £207,572.
The residents of Hertfordshire generally feel safe. Crime levels are low, but low level graffiti and anti-social behavior stimulate fear of crime. Risk from fire is not considered a major priority or concern for the county, as represented in the Sustainable Community Strategy and LAA2 agreements by Herts Forward[3], with fire deaths and injuries having been driven down significantly during recent years across the County.[4]
Map 1: HFRS FSEC risk analysis by Output Area.
In terms of fire risk, Hertfordshire consists of a mixture of low risk rural communities and dense urban settlements. Risk analysis according to the Fire Service Emergency Cover (FSEC) model is based upon the demographic makeup of the output area, with the highest risk areas generally centring around the most densely populated settlements. The service has 30 operational fire stations, (12 wholetime, four day crewed and 14 retained), which are well positioned within the county to respond to risk[5]. These are serviced by Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s (HFRS) establishment of 570 wholetime firefighters, 260 FTE retained firefighters, 26 control staff and 106 FTE non-uniformed support staff.
The level of incidents attended by the Service has generally fallen over the last four years, underpinned by a significant drop in fire incidents. However, Special Services incidents (which includes calls to road traffic collisions and response to hazardous materials) have consistently risen.
2004/05 / 2005/06 / 2006/07 / 2007/08Fire Incidents / 5026 / 4948 / 4519 / 3745
False Alarms / 5198 / 4539 / 4779 / 4683
Special Services / 1889 / 2096 / 2313 / 2348
Over The Border Calls / 976 / 836 / 857 / 796
Total / 13089 / 12419 / 12468 / 11572
Table 1: 4 year comparative incident trends
Deaths and Injuries in Hertfordshire
HFRS continues to strive to meet its vision of no preventable deaths from fire or other emergencies.
Road Traffic Collisions (RTC)
Of all the emergency calls to which the Service responds, RTCs continue to be the primary cause of deaths and injuries in Hertfordshire. During 2006/07, the Service attended 553 RTCs, a reduction of 39 or 7% on the previous year. There were a total of 18 fatalities and 347 casualties recorded in 2006/07, this is in comparison to 2005/06 when there were 16 fatalities and 388 casualties. (See example 7 – Megadrive)
Fire Deaths and Injuries
In 2006/07 the Service responded to a total of 4520 fires, a reduction of 428 or 9.5% on the previous year. There were 708 dwelling fires in 2006/07, a reduction of 96 or 13% on the previous year. This resulted in 110 casualties and 2 fatalities and an additional 20 casualties and one fatality were recorded in other buildings. In 2005/06 there were 147 casualties and three fatalities recorded in dwelling fires and 23 casualties and no fatalities recorded in other buildings. HFRS has continued to drive down the number of fire deaths in the County from a peak of twelve deaths in 1997/98 to just two deaths last year.[6]
Performance Data: 4 Year ComparisonYear / % reduction
Incident Type / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 2006/07 / 2007/08
Primary Fires / 2352 / 2371 / 2056 / 1779 / 25%
Accidental Dwelling Fires / 647 / 771 / 654 / 565 / 13%
Deliberate Fires: / 3098 / 2897 / 2245 / 2009 / 36%
Deliberate Primary Fires Excluding Vehicles) / 354 / 301 / 255 / 247 / 31%
Deliberate Primary Fires in Vehicles / 602 / 522 / 395 / 339 / 46%
Deliberate Secondary Fires (Excluding Vehicles) / 2003 / 1959 / 1520 / 1385 / 31%
Deliberate Secondary Fires in Vehicles / 139 / 115 / 75 / 38 / 73%
Table 2: Four year comparative performance
Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue
Direction of Travel: Self Assessment Submission September 2008
The following section of this self assessment provides evidence of improvement activity over the past 12 months, which HFRS believes shows strong improvement in many areas. On the whole it the Service believes it is ‘improving well’ according to Audit Commission criteria. Evidence has been provided directly against each of the Key Lines of Enquiry as required, but the document also illustrates the ‘story’ of the Service’s improvement journey through case studies and examples. This also represents the strong emphasis the Service places on impact and outcomes in terms of service delivery.
1.1 Are services improving in areas the FRA has identified as priorities and areas the public say are important to their communities?
As outlined by the Community Safety Plan 2007 Onwards[7] (CSP 07), performance against the Service’s strategic objectives is currently monitored via key BVPIs. Targets set by the Strategic Leadership Group (SLG) against each of the best value performance indicators are based around an analysis of trends in Hertfordshire. Benchmarking data against national and family group FRAs, consideration of localised priorities[8], and stretch targets are used to drive performance beyond the national BVPIs. Targets are communicated to the Service Delivery Team and district/station target progress is measured within the PB Views management information system. As demonstrated below, the setting of targets, which spans the three years from 2006/07 to 2008/09, has yielded significant successes:
BVPI 2007/08 results vs 2007/08 targets / NumberTarget Exceeded / 15 / 56%
Target missed (<5%) / 3 / 11%
Target missed (>5%) / 9 / 33%
Table 3: 2007/08 Targets Overview
Example 1 Broxbourne Housing Association Fire Safety
One of the key FSEC groups deemed to be at high risk are those living in rented accommodation, particularly in social housing. The incident at Harrow Court High Rise in Stevenage in 2005, which resulted in the deaths of a resident and two firefighters, has led to improved procedures which ensure that this target group is a key focus for HFRS. Cheshunt fire station personnel made contact with Broxbourne Housing Association (BHA) in an effort to build a relationship to allow the successful targeting of BHA high rise residents in Broxbourne[9]. Efforts have been made to raise awareness of fire safety to all residents[10], including tea light (candle) adverts in the residents’ newsletter[11]. In addition HFRS trained twenty-two BHA Community Rangers in general fire safety and smoke alarm fitting, in order to allow Community Rangers to carry out ‘vigilance checks’ on properties. The work (focussed around the Waltham Cross ward) has contributed to a reduction from seven accidental dwelling fire in 2005/06 and the same in 2006/07, to four accidental dwelling fires in 2007/08.
In general, HFRS is performing well, and has made significant improvements in performance over the past two years across most BVPIs. Against BVPI 207 (Fires in non-domestic premises) for example, the Service has improved nationally from the worst performing quartile in 2005/06 to the third quartile in 2006/07, and has improved upon this performance again according to 2007/08 data by 32% (see Table 4). The Service benchmarks itself against its Family Group IV members, which numbers 15 like and comparable FRSs. As can be seen, outcomes have improved significantly across the board, building upon already sound performance. Improvements were recorded in 15 BVPIs between 2006/07 and 2007/08, and in three of the four BVPIs where performance is less favourable, the Service is still in the best or second best quartile.
Table 4: Family Group IV Comparative BVPI performance
In 2006, Herts Forward, the county-wide local strategic partnership (LSP) agreed the following indicators to be four of the forty-three community priorities for the county through the Local Area Agreement 2006/09:
· The recorded numbers of deliberate primary fires per year.
· The recorded numbers of deliberate secondary fires per year.
· The number of deaths arising from accidental fires in dwellings as measured by BVPI 143 [i].
· The number of injuries (excluding precautionary checks), arising from accidental fires in dwellings as measured by BVPI 143 [ii]
HFRS as the lead contributor within Hertfordshire for these indicators is currently on track to meet challenging stretch targets against these four indicators through effective prioritisation (See example 2 - Prevention of Arson at Garden Fields School) and will be able to contribute reward grant funding to the tune of £1.66m of a possible £1.67m[12] on behalf of the LSP. This forms part of the predicted total of £22.6m reward funding across all stretch targets within the LAA 2006/09.
In order to help reduce the likelihood of dwelling fires, the Service has maintained resources allocated to fire prevention activity, both centrally and through operational staff. The number of home fire safety checks (HFSC) carried out by the Service increased from 4,846 in 2006/07 to 6,832 in 2007/08[13]. The vast majority of these were undertaken by operational crews with support from the Community safety task Force and other central preventative resources. HFRS has tried to make sure that the prevention activity of crews is targeted towards those areas and communities in the county which might be considered high risk. The dissemination of district profile information to District and Station Commanders has helped ensure that HFSCs are carried out in the right areas so that they have the biggest possible impact on preventing death and injury from fire[14]. There has been particular emphasis on engaging with hard to reach risk groups around the county (see example 5 – Watford Asian Carers project). The recent purchase of Mosaic and Total Mapping Solutions/Phoenix in 2007/08 will help to ensure that the Service can target prevention activity even more accurately in the future.