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Fire and rescue services should have the same legal basis as policing when it comes to inspection, says Andy Cooke, Chief Inspector of Fire in the latest State of Fire report published today.
In a hard hitting report, Mr Cooke says that some fire and rescue services have attempted to influence the outcome of its inspections and that services are not taking enough action to respond to recommendations. Unlike policing, fire and rescue services are not required to respond formally to an inspection report and Mr Cooke says that the law should be changed so that services should have to respond within 56 days as well.
More significantly, the inspectorate has no legal power to enforce its recommendations in policing or in fire. Mr Cooke raised this point with the Home Secretary after the publication of the State of Policing only to be told it would not happen in this Parliament.
He also argues for this enforcing power to be extended to other bodies, including the National Fire Chiefs Council, where recommendations rest with it. “Widening the requirement beyond fire and rescue authorities in relation to our recommendations would make sure that we can bring about system-wide change.”
Adding to the list of legal changes, Mr Cooke also asks for powers to direct police and fire and rescue services, “in certain, limited, circumstances where an inspection identifies a failing that poses a significant risk to public safety.” For fire and rescue services, this power would require another recommendation made by the inspectorate for Chief Fire Officers to have operational independence first.
The Home Secretary, in his respond to the consultation to the fire reform white paper agreed that chiefs should have operational independence like their police counterparts but has yet to bring forward legislation to make this happen.
Culture and misconduct
Unsurprisingly, Mr Cooke also majors on culture in this report, stating that since the publication of its spotlight report on values and culture in March 2023, he has seen some improvements but there remains much to be done. The report contains examples of both innovative and promising practice across different services and Mr Cooke says that the inspectorate will publish an update on progress by services and the work they still need to do, ‘in due course.’
“…cultural change is notoriously difficult and isn’t something that can happen overnight. This is evidenced in our latest findings. We gave a ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ grade for values and culture to 5 of the 15 services we have inspected. Three services’ grades have declined in this area since their previous inspection.”
The report contains an update on work the inspectorate is doing on reviewing approaches to managing misconduct in fire and rescue services. Since January 2023, services have been required to provide information about ‘significant misconduct matters that arise in their services’ The Home Secretary commissioned the inspectorate to carry out a thematic inspection of the handling of misconduct allegations in fire and rescue services. Having concluded its inspection in January 2024, Mr Cooke says that the report will be published in summer 2024.
The full report, State of Fire and Rescue: the Annual Assessment of Fire and Rescue Services in England 2023, is published by His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services.
Cover art reproduced here is from West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service.
