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His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue has published the results of a recent consultation where it proposed to look at, for the first time, how fire and rescue services in England are affected by their governance arrangements and finds high levels of support for this approach.
In a routine consultation on its inspection plan, HMICFRS said it was including governance as an area of inspection for the first time as it wanted to ‘focus more on the robustness of these arrangements’ as part of its overall assessment of a service’s effectiveness and efficiency. Of the 71 respondents, 94% agreed with including governance, scrutiny and oversight in the next round of inspections starting in summer 2025.
As part of this look at governance, the inspection will examine how the fire authority (however it is constituted) supports the fire and rescue service “to keep the public safe, establish a positive culture and standards of conduct, and look after the health and well-being of its staff.”
In its response published on 16 January, inspectors noted concerns about the governance inspection resulting in one model being favoured over others but said that the inspections are looking at the effect the governance has on the fire and rescue service, not the authority itself. The consultation response states: “It is possible that we could find that one kind of governance model typically has a more positive effect on fire and rescue services than others.” There will be no graded judgement on the effect of governance.
Currently West Midlands Fire Service is subject to a Best Value inspection of its governance.
Inspecting 44 English fire and rescue services over the next two years, HMI will also make changes to other areas, including leadership at all levels which also found strong support among respondents as well as looking at innovative practice in community resilience when working within local resilience forums and other partnerships.
Read in full here – HMICFRS response to consultation on Fire and rescue services draft inspection programme and framework commencing June 2025.
