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This chapter reviews the new inspectorate, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, and the new Inspection Framework for Fire and Rescue Services in England. It will look at the antecedents of the inspectorate and the history of inspections in both the police and in the fire and rescue services. Prior to the Policing and Crime Act 2017, Fire and Rescue Services in England were without a dedicated independent inspectorate for almost 10 years and the government promised a new independent and a rigorous inspection regime. This chapter critically evaluates the government's response and the early development of the new regime.

The UK has been a pioneer and international leader in the development of fire and rescue services and this has been based on a long attachment and strong adherence to empirical evidence at both the local and national levels. Policy makers, in close collaboration with practitioners, have also developed standards and practices and any changes have traditionally needed robust justification. Yet the evidence base and the tools and techniques for investigating and interrogating the evidence base have been significantly deteriorating over the last 10 years. This chapter sets out what is inadequate, what is missing and suggests what needs to be done about it.

This chapter investigates the history, antecedents and drivers for the latest Fire and Rescue National Framework for England, published in 2018. It reviews the previous five national frameworks published since the first was introduced in 2004 and evaluates them against the model outline in Chapter 2. The authors suggest that that political expediency and speed of delivery have played a greater role in their development than improving services, increasing public safety and providing assurance to the public. It therefore highlights some key areas for improvement in both the national framework and in its implementation.

This paper explores how fire and rescue services in England responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the form and nature of fire and rescue services’ collaborations with the ambulance, police and other services and how effective their emergency planning arrangements prepared them for the pandemic.

The authors briefly set out the background to the emergency services response to recent events of national significance in the UK and North America, focussing on the collaborative aspects of the emergency services response. The authors then examine three sets of secondary sources, namely documents specifically related to Fire and Rescue Services’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

All three investigations found that the pandemic had provided an opportunity for issues relating to planning and collaboration to be re-examined and for the emergence of new innovations (both technological and organisational) to provide new responses and solutions. Although the Inspectorate found that the services had generally responded well, it controversially criticised the role of the Fire Brigades Union in the national and local response to the pandemic.

The research is situationally bound to England although there may be transferable lessons to other services and jurisdictions.

Potential future improvements are identified at national and local levels for policy and for the operational response to widespread and long-term emergencies.

England has had very few contemporary public health emergencies on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic; this research presents an important opportunity for seeking to understand what is working well and where improvements are required to improve both the local and national response in relation to such a complex and dynamic environment.

The fire sector within the United Kingdom has identified a need to further develop their systematic use of academic literature and develop mechanisms to include academic knowledge to inform evidence-based policy and practice. By increasing knowledge exchange between the fire sector and academia, the ability to horizon scan and identify future relevant phenomena of interest to the fire sector will be achieved. Consequently, the evidence base and horizon scanning will increase the specificity of techniques, approaches and practices needed to continually improve the safety of the activities completed within the firefighting occupation, and it will also provide priority areas for investment and increase firefighter safety.

This technical paper primarily features an initial scoping review of academic and grey literature and an operational incident data review. This was completed to provide an initial and updated review of disciplines and areas of academia that are actively engaged in research relevant to the fire and rescue service. Consequently, this method sought to identify and examine the various disciplines of academia involved in fire research. This paper then uses that outcome to suggest a model of multidisciplinarity to inform the fire sector.

As a result of the scoping review, each academic discipline was identified and an initial review developed a predetermined set of key search terms. This was established through identifying the most frequently used fire-related terms within each discipline. This allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the breadth of activity and depth of complexity of fire related research within each discipline and an indicative set of key search terms to be developed. Recommendations are formulated to suggest next steps to routinely incorporate the academic knowledge base in the learning process of the fire and rescue services in the United Kingdom.

This paper provides an initial scoping map of academic literature and disciplines relevant to activities completed in the UK fire sector, which can be used to further develop the evidence base to inform the fire and rescue service of the United Kingdom. It also outlines possible mechanisms and a model to systematically facilitate knowledge exchange between academia and the fire sector by which knowledge exchange could further support the development of evidence-based policy and practice. The broad range of benefits of collaboration between the fire and rescue service and academia are explored.

This paper provides clear evidence as to why fire related research should have an increased priority status to inform the national fire and rescue services learning process and evidence for national policy and guidance development within the UK fire and rescue service. Additionally, recommendations are made to support the consideration of academic evidence in the systematic sector wide learning process.

Previously, the UK fire and rescue service had limited coordinated strategic engagement with academic disciplines to further develop their learning processes in order to produce an evidence base, which is cognisant of academic research to inform practice and guidance. This paper begins the narrowing of that gap by categorising academic literature relevant to fire research into clear disciplines, mapping these to an updated breadth of current activities undertaken by the fire and rescue service across the United Kingdom. The process also details a pilot of the proposed model to support knowledge exchange by producing an academically evidence-based submission to the National Fire Chiefs Council organisational learning process.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the transformation of fire prevention processes via improved targeting of fire prevention interventions over a four-year period.

A four-year case study of the transformation of fire prevention processes involving a UK fire and rescue service, local council, National Health Service primary care trust and a police force was undertaken.

Understanding the socio-economic causal factors underlying unintentional dwelling fires, and the need to work in collaborative partnerships to achieve change in such factors can support more targeted and effective fire prevention activities.

Analysis of underlying causal factors and their relationships, together with population segmentation and working in coordinated collaborative partnerships, can support enhanced fire risk assessment and community safety. This supported more pro-active early intervention fire risk management.

Analysis of socio-economic causal factors and socio-economic groups associated with unintentional dwelling fires can assist in targeting fire prevention activities in a more effective and efficient manner. This enabled the fire and rescue service to target fire prevention to social groups most at risk of dwelling fires and the types of fires (for example, kitchen fires) relevant to the different social groups.

Collaborative public sector partnerships can achieve change in the socio-economic circumstances of at-risk individuals to support fire prevention. This enables the social- and health-related factors underlying fire risk to be addressed by the relevant partner health or social services agencies.

The detailed analysis of the transformation of fire prevention activities that led to an implemented approach to enhance community safety. In particular, the analysis and evaluation of the move to collaborative multi-agency partnerships to support and improve fire prevention activities.

The purpose of this paper is to study how learning within the fire and rescue services may be conceptualized, with special attention paid to tunnel fire safety. Previous studies have developed a model to understand learning in emergency response work. The concept of learning is extended from observed changes in relevant settings to also encompass confirmation of existing knowledge and comprehension of existing practices. We are interested in investigating the properties of the learning model and identifying the mechanisms that influence fire and rescue personnel’s experiences of change, confirmation and/or comprehension.

This study relies on quantitative data obtained from a questionnaire answered by 939 Norwegian fire and rescue personnel. Multivariate methods have been used to identify the measurement model and the structural relations of the factors.

The results confirm the theoretical model and indicate that the outcome of learning is influenced by elements of content, context, commitment, decision-making and response and reflection, and that the influence of content and commitment on the outcome of learning is partially indirect and mediated through reflection.

To date, no systematic analysis has been conducted to investigate the factorial structure, as well as the interactions and relationship between the model’s components. This study makes an important contribution to a detailed understanding of learning within the fire and rescue services.

Theresa May in one of her final speeches as Home Secretary before becoming prime minister, laid bare what she considered to be the major inadequacies in the performance management regime for fire and rescue services. ‘There's no independent inspectorate; no regular audit of performance; and only limited available data on performance over time or between areas’. Based on her earlier reforms to the police she therefore proposed a series of reforms that have now been implemented. This chapter introduces her reform agenda and its antecedents. It also makes explicit the assumptions upon which the authors build their evaluation of the relevant reforms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the form, content and reporting arrangements of “statements of assurance” required from Fire and Rescue Authorities in England since their introduction in 2012 and identify potential improvements for future implementation.

A multi-method approach was adopted which commenced with an analysis of the current official guidance, an exploration of the accessibility and structure of the current statements produced; followed by a review of those statements through a desk based analysis complemented by a series of elite interviews.

The current guidance was found to be too broad and open to interpretation to be fit for purpose. This has led to some significant variations in reporting, limiting the statements’ usefulness to key users and stakeholders. Most authorities provided some form of report on their website but inconsistencies in respect of length, structure, name and content, limit their value. The research found that 30 per cent of authorities did not have an up to date statement available online. These findings were supported by the series of interviews. The result has led to confusion amongst authorities as to the statement’s role and the risk of it being perceived as a “box ticking” exercise rather than a real contribution to public assurance.

This paper provides potential lessons which could be adopted to inform future guidance in respect of the preparation and publication of the statement of assurance and its role within the wider public assurance regime for fire and rescue authorities. If adopted, these would improve the accountability, transparency and public assurance of Fire and Rescue Authorities which is a key objective of their governance arrangements.

The statement of assurance has only been a requirement of authorities since the current National Framework for Fire and Rescue was published in July 2012 and has not been subject to independent research since its inception. The government have recently issued a consultation on a new national framework, but this proposes changes to the statements of assurance. The findings will therefore be of value to the government, the fire and rescue sector and the recently appointed regulators for the service Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.

To examine and account for an innovative project bid and delivery partnership by a fire and rescue service in an area (Eastern European migrant integration) usually thought to be beyond its remit. An interpretation of the findings will be based on public value theory.

The study examines three sets of conditions: national and local political and economic environments facilitating the grant bid and its success; a history of safety and safeguarding work by a specific fire and rescue service that made the bid plausible and leadership of the FRS in constructing both bid (for funding) and turning that into a delivery partnership. Methods included a focused analysis of existing academic work and government reports, observation of partnership meetings, interviews and a focus group.

That the success of the funding bid and delivery of objectives can be explained in terms of national government funding decisions relating to migrant integration; the recognition both locally and nationally that the specific FRS had the capacity, because of previous innovative partnership work, to manage all aspects of a sub-regional partnership; the ability of the FRS to manage the delivery of partnership objectives over a two year period; that the project realised a range of public value outcomes. It generated a range of public value outcomes. Individual managers took risks and worked ‘beyond authority’ but the partnership that they built and maintained was the principal entrepreneurial agent.

The findings may have implications for the reconfiguration of sub-regional public service delivery.

The chapter is a study of a successful innovative, fire and rescue service led public sector partnership creating public value outcomes.