Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue–

Recognised for Excellence

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) is the statutory emergency fire and rescue service for the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, England with their headquarters located in Swinton, Manchester.

GMFRS is the second largest fire andrescue service in the country coveringan area of approximately 500 squaremiles and serving a growing populationof around 2.8m residents, with manyother people working or visiting thecity region. Each year we answerover 50,000 emergency calls andattend around 14,000 emergencies.

We employ 2,009 personnel,of whom 1,446 are uniformedoperational personnel and 563 arenon-uniformed support staff.

When did you start using the EFQM Excellence Model?

We started using the model in 2011.

What prompted this?

In 2010 the Government abolished the Comprehensive Area Assessment and other national reporting obligations, making local authorities responsible for their own performance and the improvement of outcomes in their local area.

How did you get started?

After some research we settled on the EFQM excellence Model and engaged the services of North of England Excellence (NoEE), a British Quality Foundation partner to support us.

We chose in the first year for a facilitated self-assessment using the Excellence Toolkit Certified for Excellence (C2E) rather than an external assessment using the Recognised for Excellence (R4E) format. This was done in recognition of the staff resources available at the time and the amount of change that the Service was undergoing.

The supported self-assessment involved a half day workshop providing our nominated middle manager assessors with a working knowledge of:

the EFQM Excellence Model and how to self-assess

This was followed by a Consensus Meeting (Whole day)

To enable assessors to agree, as a team, for each section of the Excellence Model:

•A set of strengths

•A set of areas for improvement

•And A score

NoEE then undertook an interview programme which simulated the site visit conducted by Excellence Awards assessor teams. They carried out interviews with managers and facilitated focus groups with more junior staff over a two day period. The purpose of the site visit was to externally validate the findings of the internal self-assessment.

Finally they facilitated a half day Action Planning workshop, with senior management, the purpose of which was to help us make sense of the findings.

Why did Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue apply for Recognised for Excellence?

In 2012 we embarked on the full R4E Recognised for Excellence programme.

Using North of England Excellence again, two assessors visited over four days in November. They used as the basis for their work, a self-assessment completed by the brigade some weeks in advance. Expanding on and triangulating our self-assessment, they interviewed around 70 people. Those people had been briefed about the process and asked to contribute honestly and comprehensively.

The visit was finished by a short feedback session giving us their initial findings.

Within two weeks we received a report outlining our performance in relation to the Model and we achieved a three star award for Excellence.

This process supported the organisation implementation of an improvement framework to:

  • Create an improvement agenda to add momentum to its journey to excellence
  • Provide external validation to calibrate its progress
  • Help identify pockets of excellence within the Service
  • Achieve external recognition for the progress made
  • Provide a means of benchmarking performance against other Fire Services and those in other sectors
  • Enable process benchmarking to understand how others have achieved excellence and to identify best practices elsewhere

What challenges did you face in preparing for the assessment and how did you overcome them?

We are spread over 44 sites making it a challenge to embed the process and the purpose throughout the service. We held a series of events for mangers connected to each location to explain the model and the benefits and we backed this up with a poster campaign for every venue.

Which aspects of the feedback report are you particularly proud of?

Recognition of our successful partnerships. GMFRS is now far more than an emergency response service and we are proud of our work with health and social care services, reducing demand and preventing ill health.

Acknowledgement of our expertise as a training provider. We are in the process of building a new training site and this externally-validated credibility will be helpful in the success of this project.

As a result of being Recognised for Excellence, have you been able to identify improvements in any of the following?

a)Employee satisfaction

b)Customer satisfaction

c)Society results

d)Expenditure

e)Revenue

f)Productivity

g)Other

The potential areas for improvement identified by the 2012 report covered 11 main areas such as KPI development; customer insights and continuous improvement.

These recommendations have been used by us to inform our priorities and activities going forward. For instance, communication was one of the areas identified. We have now reintroduced traditional face-to-face staff briefings, alongside newer forms of communication including a weekly internal news brief, a regular online Q&A with the Chief Fire Officer (CFO) and a weekly conference call between the CFO and borough managers. The Service has also devised a new competency framework and measures to embed leadership within the core behaviours of the 150 middle managers. This includes a bi-monthly conference where it can explore ways to achieve greater collaboration and shape the future direction of the service.

Applying the lessons learnt from the assessment, Our approach to learning and development has since been hailed as “exemplary” and “outstanding” and scooped us a 2013 North of England Excellence Award. In October 2014, we were named overall winner of the Leadership Achievement Awards 2014, beating Virgin and First Trans Pennine Express.

The awards recognise our performance in key areas, our approach to leadership and sustained commitment to consulting, engaging and involving staff.

“Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the community in which they serve through strong leadership, and the engagement of their people.”

Ian Stokes, Chief Executive, British Quality Foundation

Going forward, we have been shortlisted as one of three finalists for the British Quality Foundation Sustainable Future Achievement Award.

What do you think are the key benefits of being Recognised for Excellence?

The success of our work, especially in the light of Greater Manchester devolution and public sector reform, will rely increasingly on our partnership with other organisations many of whom are not connected to the emergency services.

The model has helped us look at ourselves outside the scope of an emergency service and see ourselves as a potential partner might, both our strengths and our weaknesses. This insight is vital in forging new partnerships in both the public and private sectors. Our successful appraisal has helped validate our reputation beyond the fire sector increasing further our credibility as a go-to partner.

The model is truly organisation-wide, allowing us to embed excellence at every level of our service delivery.

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