You’ll no doubt remember that we were visited by a team from HMICFRS in summer last year where they spent time going out and about in the county visiting stations, meeting with staff and interviewing a range of colleagues about key areas.

Their report has now been published by HMICFRS and is available to view at: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/fire-and-rescue-services/cumbria/

In assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of each Fire and Rescue Service the inspectors looked at three key areas:

• How effective is the FRSs at preventing, protecting against, and responding to fires and other emergencies
• How efficient are they
• How well they look after the people who work for them

In total, the Inspectorate looked at 11 key areas within the Service and provided their feedback and any recommendations on their findings. We are constantly striving to make our Service the very best it can be for our staff and also the communities we serve.

Whilst we recognise there are areas we can improve on, there are many positive comments within the report, which is testament to the great work that you continue to deliver every day of the year to keep Cumbrian communities safe.

The inspection team commended us on how productive the prevention and protection teams are. The Service carried out over 11,000 safe and well engagements which is significantly higher than the English average rate, in the year to 31 March 2021. When our communities need us, the Inspectorate recognised how good our operational response is and the availability of our firefighters.

We are pleased the Inspectors recognised the ‘near-unprecedented uncertainty about its future governance and the impact that this had on the efficiency of the Service’. This is something entirely out of our control and it is unfortunate that the inspectors were not able to reflect on the Service’s performance over time rather than at a moment in time. However, now that there is a clear future direction for the Service, we are better able to focus on providing the best service we can to the people of Cumbria and responding directly to the areas of concern raised by the Inspectors.

I’m happy with how, as a Service, we have embraced the inspection process and we have already made a start on the feedback received from the inspectors when they visited, and we will continue to work hard to address some of the identified areas for improvement in relation to how we look after all of our people; we will continue to engage with you all to deliver change collectively, as we all strive to be the very best Fire and Rescue Service we can be.

I am absolutely committed to a culture which displays our values and behaviours and where all of our people are able to work in an empowered, collaborative and innovative way to make a positive difference to our communities. As such we will be working hard over the coming months on ways to better embed our values and culture within the service.

The Senior Leadership Team and I will be coming out to talk to teams about how we can take forward the improvements so you will all have the opportunity to discuss this in more detail in due course.

This has been a hugely helpful exercise for the Service, and we will use all the inspectors feedback to continue to make our service the very best it can be.

Best wishes,

John Beard

Chief Fire Officer