Agenda item

Report of the Director of Service Improvement (APRC/20/17) attached.

The Committee received for information a report of the Director of Service Improvement (APRC/20/17) detailing performance of the Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service (“the Service”) during April to September against eight agreed corporate performance measures relating to fires in the home (and emergency response standards to these), fires where people work and visit, vehicle fires; road traffic collisions and sickness absence performance.

The performance status of each reportable measure had been established from analysis of performance against the previous year and medium to long-term trends. Where a measure was reported as “in exception”, commentary on this was detailed in the report providing additional information and analysis and indicating whether further action should be considered.

Positive performance was reported in relation to four the measures (fires where people live; fire related injuries where people work, visit and in vehicles; fires where people work, visit and in vehicles; and emergency response standards for road traffic collisions), with negative performance for fire related deaths where people live; fire related injuries where people live; fire related deaths where people work, visit and in vehicles and emergency response standards for fires where people live.

While the number of fire related deaths was small, analysis over a five year period the majority (30 of 37) were in lone person households and of these 19 were over pensionable age. Age and associated issues were key factors affecting the likelihood of dying from a fire in the home. While a greater proportion of the fatal incidents had an alarm present, the alarm had not been raised more often than for non-fatal incidents which was considered to be attributable to the fact that the victims lived alone. The Service had processes in place (including partnership, self- and third-party referrals) to focus delivery of home fire safety advice to those most at risk and in the 2019-20 financial years had delivered 16,500 home fire safety visits and provided additional fire safety equipment in 10,000 households.

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted on the ability to undertake home fire safety visits although remote support had been provided. The process of reviewing fatal fires had also been suspended but would be reinstated to ensure continual learning and development of knowledge of community risk across the service area.

Fire related injuries where people live had also increased both over the last year and in three and five year trends. The characteristics of those injured were generally similar to those more likely to die from fire, with age and living alone being factors. A process to ensure continual learning and development of knowledge of community risk within the service area to inform appropriate strategies to underpin the Integrated Risk Management Plan was in place.

Measures were also in hand to fully understand and address issues relating to a decrease in performance in emergency response standards to domestic fires.

In response to questions raised at the meeting, it was acknowledged that there was a sector-wide difficulty in measuring with any precision the precise impacts of Service interventions on community safety outcomes, in part due to the relatively low numbers of events involved and the corresponding disproportionate impact that any increase had on associated performance indicators.

In line with an earlier Committee decision, however, work was in hand to develop more appropriate public-facing indicators for Service performance (Minute *APRC/22 refers).

(SEE ALSO MINUTE *APRC/37 BELOW).