Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service 'requires improvement'

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said the report "confirms things" it knew it needed to address but their emergency response was "good".

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service needs to improve in three main areas, inspectors said.

A government body's report said it is using 10-year out-of-date information for its risk management plan and for allocating resources for the future.

The study said it responds adequately to emergencies, but needs to do more to be "fully efficient and effective".

The fire service said it "confirmed things" it knew needed addressing, but its emergency response was "good".

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) looked at Hertfordshire fire service in the summer - described as the first independent inspection for 12 years.

Hertfordshire has been rated in three areas - effectiveness, efficiency, and how it looks after staff - and it "requires improvement" in all of them.

HMICFRS chief inspector Zoe Billingham said the service could be "proud of how it responds" to emergencies, but it "has more to do before we can call it a fully efficient and effective service".

She said the risk management plan and local risk profiles were out of date, and its fire prevention strategy was about to expire.

"This has the potential for having a significant impact on how the service can manage and mitigate risk in its communities, and it could prevent the service from working as effectively as it should," she said.

'Snapshot in time'

Chief fire officer Darryl Keen said: "The thing that worries people most is when they dial 999 are they going to get a fire engine quickly?

"The report absolutely says that in Hertfordshire they will."

Mr Keen said the report was based on a "snapshot in time" and they had "moved on a lot since then".

"We have recently published our new Integrated Risk Management Plan for public consultation... already we have got an awful lot of plans in place... the report only confirms things we already knew we needed to address," he said.

Chairman of the Hertfordshire branch of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Derek MacLeod, said: "This report could have been written by the FBU.

"We've been consistently raising some, if not all, of the improvements [needed] for some time."

Ms Billingham said she was "encouraged" the service had "already taken steps to address the areas for improvement".