Warwickshire FRS - 'doing the right thing'

Page 1

Focus on Warwickshire

Warwickshire FRS – ‘doing the right thing’

Lt d

WFRS has completely reviewed its approach to training since the Atherstone-on-Stour fire of 2007. In this brigade focus on Warwickshire, FIRE correspondent Catherine Levin speaks to CFO Andy Hickmott about their focus on ‘assertive firefighting’

T

hin g

an dM ed

ia

system and upgrades to the Integrated Communications Control System in 2013. These are just some examples of the work going on in WFRS against a backdrop of the need to deliver significant savings. DCFO Gary Philips says he is “proud of our record on delivery” and that much of the innovation in service delivery comes from the staff who are proactive and engaged.

lis

CFO Andy Hickmott

Pa

vil io

nP ub

here are only 14 county council led fire and rescue services left in England. In ’Shakespeare’s county’ of Warwickshire there’s a polarised geography where the north hosts post-industrial towns that bear little resemblance to the rural beauty of the Cotswolds that lie to the south. With just over 400 firefighters, 150 of whom are retained, Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service (WFRS) is a small organisation of which Andy Hickmott became Chief Fire Officer in May 2013. CFO Hickmott comes from London Fire Brigade but has experience in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, so was familiar to the county fire service environment. He is also quite unusual in that he has worked at a senior level in all of the different FRS governance models, County Council, Combined, Metropolitan, and an elected Mayor, so he sees the advantages and disadvantages of each. Like all fire and rescue services, WFRS is cutting back; responding to reductions in budgets in an age of austerity. Expected to find 12 per cent savings over two years, the WFRS experience is no different to its peers. And yet it is different in many ways. There is an energy at WFRS that is kept in check by its own modesty: there has not been a fatality in an accidental dwelling fire in the county since January 2011. Deliberate fires are a different story. In the northern part of the county they have been a problem, with the Nuneaton and Bedworth district accounting for 51 per cent of arson activity across the county. The Arson Reduction Team works in partnership with Warwickshire Police, Youth Justice, Probation and the county council project teams in what is known locally as the Harm Reduction Hub. This approach was recognised in the 2013 LGA Fire Peer Review as notable practice. The outturn report for 2013/14 speaks volumes about the success that WFRS is having in many areas of its performance, from the impact of call challenge on the numbers of false alarms, to approaches to attending special service incidents and its youth engagement work. There have been improvements in efficiency and co-operative working with neighbouring fire and rescue services as a result of investment in a new control room, command and control

“It was inevitable that following the Atherstone-on-Stour fire, there was doubt

‘Assertive firefighting’ The conclusions of the LGA Fire Peer Review Report suggests that WFRS needs to ‘recognise, celebrate and learn from operational success’. The review notes this in a section focused on operational training and development. Warwickshire FRS has completely reviewed its approach to training since the Atherstone-onStour fire of 2007. The warehouse fire of November 2, 2007 tragically claimed the lives of WFRS firefighters, John Averis, Ian Reid, Ashley Stephens and Darren Yates-Badley and had ‘a profound effect on all involved’ writes CFO Hickmott in his foreword to the detailed report on the fire published in 2014. The LGA Fire Peer Review team visited WFRS in late 2013 and was asked to test the operational and organisational confidence of the service in the light of progress made since the tragedy of 2007. The report stated: ‘It was

amongst many about what is the right thing to do operationally”

WFRS has achieved no fatalities in an accidental dwelling fire since January 2011

July/August 2015 | www.fire–magazine.com | 37


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
Warwickshire FRS - 'doing the right thing' by Elginfire Consulting - Issuu