Consultation outcome

Fire and rescue services inspection programme and framework 2025–27

From:
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
Published
19 August 2024
Last updated
16 January 2025 — See all updates

Applies to England

This consultation has concluded

Detail of outcome

We are grateful for all the responses to the consultation. Throughout this process, our objective has been to make sure that we continue to focus our inspection work on what matters most to the public. While we outlined our proposed framework of inspection activity in the consultation, we are open to considering other priorities and ways of working.

Overall, the consultation provided useful feedback and suggestions for the continued improvement of our inspection approach. We were pleased to have received broad support for each of our proposals.

Read the full response to the consultation on ‘Fire and rescue services draft inspection programme and framework commencing June 2025’ on the HMICFRS website.

Detail of feedback received

1. We propose to evaluate how each FRS is affected by its FRA’s governance, oversight and scrutiny arrangements. We also propose to examine how the FRA supports the FRS to keep the public safe, establish a positive culture and standards of conduct, and look after the health and well-being of its staff. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?

We received very strong support for our proposal – 94 percent of those that responded using the online survey agreed.

Respondents raised the following concerns:

  1. Would our inspections favour one governance model over the others? FRAs in England are constituted under a variety of models, including county councils, unitary authorities, combined authorities, police, fire and crime commissioners and mayors.
  2. If we were to find and report on difficulties between a chief fire officer and their FRA, could this create further tensions and a deterioration in that relationship?
  3. How would FRAs would be held to account for implementing any recommendations we make?
  4. Do HMICFRS inspectors have the necessary skills and experience to assess the effect of governance arrangements?

Our responses are as follows:

  1. We note the concerns raised about our inspections favouring one governance model over the others. Our inspections are designed to focus on the effect that FRA governance has on the FRS, not on the FRA itself. We also won’t provide graded judgments of the effect of governance. It is possible that we could find that one kind of governance model typically has a more positive effect on FRSs than others. If such a pattern were to emerge, it would be subject to our rigorous evidence-based inspection methodology.
  2. We agree that it is possible that a chief fire officer, or an FRA, or both, could react badly to an adverse inspection report. However, this could be the case in any inspection regardless of the topic. Our view is that the balance of public interest is firmly in favour of bringing about improvements in the service provided to the public, regardless of this risk.
  3. The query about holding FRAs to account for recommendations is likely a misunderstanding about our intention. We will focus on how FRSs are affected by FRA governance, rather than on the FRA itself. We don’t intend to make recommendations directly to FRAs in our upcoming round of inspections.
  4. We will provide thorough training to all our inspectors before introducing the new round of inspections. We will work with partner organisations to develop this training, such as the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Local Government Association.

2. Do you agree or disagree that we should assess leadership at all levels of FRSs?

We received very strong support for our proposal – 94 percent of those that responded using the online survey agreed.

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Could the inspections favour a particular leadership style, bearing in mind that diverse leadership styles are beneficial?
  2. Can HMICFRS inspect how services develop leadership through recruitment, appointments, promotion, support and mentoring?
  3. Do HMICFRS inspectors have the necessary skills and experience to assess leadership?

Our responses are as follows:

  1. We agree that diversity in leadership styles is beneficial. We will focus on the outcomes that arise from leadership, rather than on the specific styles of individual leaders.
  2. We agree that recruitment, appointments, promotion, support and mentoring are all important elements and they will all form part of our assessment.
  3. Many of our inspectors are former or current leaders, including many from FRSs. But we will provide thorough training to all inspectors before introducing our new round of inspections.

3. We intend to combine the current efficiency questions 2.1 and 2.2 into a single question. This would concentrate on how resources are allocated and used in support of the outcomes required for the community risk management plan. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?

We received strong support for our proposal – 80 percent of those that responded using the online survey agreed.

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Would the new combined question reduce our focus on how well firefighters’ time is being used, how productive they are, and whether the service can afford enough of them?
  2. Are the current efficiency questions too different to be brought under a single heading?
  3. Will combining the current efficiency questions prevent comparisons between inspection rounds?
  4. Combining the current efficiency questions could appear to reduce the importance of efficiency compared to our questions about effectiveness and people.

Our responses are as follows:

  1. It isn’t the case that combining the questions will reduce our focus on these issues. We will remove some duplication that currently exists between the two questions, but we don’t intend to reduce our focus on these areas.
  2. We disagree that the efficiency questions are too different to combine. On the contrary, the evidence we use to inspect these questions and our analysis of the results currently overlaps. Combining these questions would remove this overlap.
  3. We discourage comparing our judgments between inspection rounds. We review and make improvements to our inspection methodology after every round of inspections. This means that such comparisons are never like-for-like and could be misleading.
  4. We also disagree that combining the questions would reduce the importance of efficiency in the overall inspection framework. It will allow us to make a more powerful assessment of efficiency, with judgments that carry more weight.

4. We propose to examine how FRSs work with local communities to make them more resilient. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?

We received strong support for our proposal – 85 percent of those that responded using the online survey agreed.

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Community resilience isn’t a statutory responsibility for FRSs.
  2. Community resilience work can take many forms and varies by local area.

Our responses are as follows:

Respondents are correct that community resilience, considered broadly, isn’t a statutory function for FRSs and varies between local areas. We will therefore focus our inspection activity in this area on the contribution that FRSs make to local resilience forums. Contributing to these is a statutory responsibility for FRSs. However, we will also consider what activities FRSs carry out beyond that statutory responsibility to make their communities more resilient. This will help us to identify promising and innovative practice and to make sure that this additional activity is recognised.

5. Does the draft ‘characteristics of good’ include the right questions to gather evidence for a comprehensive assessment of FRSs? How could this be improved?

We received strong support for our proposal – 81 percent of those that responded using the online survey agreed that they were comprehensive.

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Could our characteristics of good refer to the fire standards? [Characteristics of good describe the levels of performance needed for an FRS to achieve a grade of ‘good’, which allows us to make consistent assessments across all services and helps services to see what we are grading them against.]
  2. Can we introduce ‘characteristics of adequate’ or characteristics for all judgment grades?

Our responses are as follows:

  1. We agree that the fire standards are vital for FRSs’ improvement, and we designed the draft characteristics of good to be consistent with these. However, the purpose of inspection isn’t to audit how the standards are implemented. Respondents didn’t provide any concrete examples of our draft characteristics of good being at odds with the standards.
  2. We won’t implement the suggested characteristics of adequate, or characteristics for all judgment grades. This would essentially be a return to the full ‘judgment criteria’ approach we used in earlier inspection rounds. We replaced the full judgment criteria with characteristics of good in our most recent 2023–25 inspection round. This has helped us to better focus our efforts on service improvement and we haven’t identified any negative consequences to the change.

6. To expand some areas that we currently inspect and/or include new areas for inspection, we would need to reduce or remove some of those currently considered. What do you think we should spend less time on?

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Could we introduce an element of risk-based assessment? There were several versions of this proposal, but all included the idea that we would reduce inspection in areas of low risk. Most frequently this equated to deprioritising areas of high performance in the previous round.
  2. Could we reduce the amount of data we collect and surveys that we run, and work better with partners that carry out similar activities?

Our responses are as follows:

  1. We have concerns about risk-based approaches to inspection, especially for a service that is critical to public safety. Our inspection rounds take two years to complete, so this could result in some aspects of an FRSs not being inspected for nearly four years. We consider this to be too significant a risk.
  2. We are working to review our data collection and surveys, including exploring opportunities for collaboration.

7. Is there anything we can do to improve the way we report our findings?

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Can we report on the financial, geographic and demographic context within which FRSs operate?
  2. Can we produce reports more quickly after the end of an inspection?

Our responses are as follows:

  1. We agree that we could better report on the financial, geographic and demographic contexts within which FRSs operate. We are developing our analysis to support this.
  2. We share the ambition to produce reports more quickly but won’t make changes that affect the accuracy and quality of our reports. We have reviewed our end‑to‑end report writing process but haven’t identified any efficiency savings.

8. Are there any areas that you think we should examine more?

Respondents made the following points:

  1. Could HMICFRS carry out more thematic inspections of FRSs? (These are in‑depth assessments of particular themes or issues.)
  2. Could we assess environmental sustainability in the upcoming inspection round?

Our responses are as follows:

  1. We have no current plans to carry out thematic inspections as part of the forthcoming round of inspections, although we may carry them out if we consider it necessary. The Home Secretary can commission thematic inspections on individual matters if needed.
  2. We already assess FRSs’ readiness to deal with environmental risks such as flooding and wildfires. We don’t currently have any plans to inspect the environmental impact of FRSs themselves. We will keep this under review as we consider the design of future inspection programmes.

We thank those who took time to help inform our programme.

Original consultation

Summary

This consultation seeks your views on HMICFRS's proposed fire and rescue services inspection programme and framework for 2025–27.

This consultation was held on another website.

This consultation ran from
to

Consultation description

This consultation document provides details of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services’ proposed fire and rescue services (FRS) inspection programme and framework for 2025–27.

It asks for your views on whether we cover the right areas of FRS activity. In particular, we are seeking your responses to the following consultation questions:

  • We propose to evaluate how each FRS is affected by its fire and rescue authority’s governance, oversight and scrutiny arrangements. We also propose to examine how the fire and rescue authority supports the FRS to keep the public safe, establish a positive culture and standards of conduct, and look after the health and well-being of its staff. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?
  • Do you agree or disagree that we should assess leadership at all levels of FRSs?
  • We intend to combine the current efficiency questions 2.1 and 2.2 into a single question. This would concentrate on how resources are allocated and used in support of the outcomes required for the community risk management plan. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?
  • We propose to examine how FRSs work with local communities to make them more resilient. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?
  • Does the draft ‘characteristics of good’ include the right questions to gather evidence for a comprehensive assessment of FRSs? How could this be improved?
  • To expand some areas that we currently inspect and/or include new areas for inspection, we would need to reduce or remove some of those currently considered. What do you think we should spend less time on?
  • Is there anything we can do to improve the way we report our findings?
  • Are there any areas that you think we should examine more?

These questions are repeated in the body of the document. At the end of it, we explain how you can let us have your views.

Updates to this page

Published 19 August 2024
Last updated 16 January 2025 + show all updates

  1. The consultation responses have been added to the page.

  2. First published.

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