Bucks Fire and Rescue told to improve public safety and diversity ‘causes of concern’

Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has been told it must improve by a watchdog.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has given the service 28 days to come up with an ‘action plan’ to address the ‘causes of concern’ outlined by inspector Roy Wilsher in a new letter to the chief fire officer Louise Harrison on July 30.

The first concern raised was that the service was ‘still not adequately identifying and prioritising those most at risk from fire’.

The inspectorate recommended that the service create ‘an effective system to define the levels of risk in the community’ and that the service and partner agencies improve their management of safety checks on properties with the ‘highest identified risk’.

This finding relates to the home fire safety checks and visits Bucks Fire and Rescue carries out for people who are at increased risk from fire, such as vulnerable people living alone.

Inspectors also found that the service was not adequately protecting people from fire and told it to improve how it records fire safety activity and properly train its ‘increased’ number of staff in how to reduce risks.

Mr Wilsher said HMICFRS’ third concern with Bucks Fire and Rescue was over equality, diversity and inclusion within the organisation.

He said the service must ‘increase awareness’ of these issues and make sure that it has appropriate ways to get feedback from staff, including those from under-represented groups.

The service also needed to improve the way it collected equality data and ‘be more ambitious’ in diversifying its workforce to ‘better reflect the community it serves’, the inspector added.

In his letter, Mr Wilsher wrote: “We were pleased to see the significant steps the service has taken in response to the causes of concern we issued.

“Despite good progress being made, there is still more work to do. While the action plan is comprehensive, we can’t yet determine how effective the plan will be in making sure it provides a better service to the public.”

His letter follows a HMICFRS inspection of Bucks Fire and Rescue in October 2023, which found that the service did not have a clear plan to provide fire safety audits in highest-risk buildings and that it was overly reliant on neighbouring services.

The inspection also found that staff were ‘frustrated by a lack of clear direction and prioritisation from their senior leaders’, with many feeling ‘overwhelmed by the increasing workloads and constant turnover of staff’.

Following the inspection, Ms Harrison replace Mick Osborne as the service’s new chief fire officer.

Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service and HMICFRS have been approached for comment.