An Introduction To HFRS

The Past

HFRS in its current form goes back over three decades now with a history before that of many more.

Humberside Fire and Rescue Service was formed in 1974 following local government reorganisation from the amalgamation of the East Riding of Yorkshire County Fire Service, Grimsby Borough Fire and Rescue Service, Kingston Upon Hull City Fire Brigade and part of the Lincoln (Lindsey) Fire Brigade and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Fire and Rescue Service.

The Fire and Rescue Service area encompasses the 4 Unitary Authorities of East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston Upon Hull, North Lincolnshire & North East Lincolnshire, and covers 1,356 square miles including the Humber Estuary. The City of Hull and towns of Scunthorpe and Grimsby are the main centres of population. The geography of the County ranges from the Yorkshire Wolds in the North, the Vale of York in the West and the Lincolnshire Wolds in the South. The Service covers a population of almost 890,000 people.

The Present

To provide our services we employ 1034 operational personnel (674 Wholetime, 360 Retained Duty System) 30 Control Room staff and 220 support staff. These work from our 31 fire stations (12 Wholetime, 19 Retained Duty System) offices and workshops strategically located within our four Unitary Authority areas.

Following risk analysis, we identified that the previous organisational structure and risk management arrangements were not aligned with local authority boundaries. There was also a need to improve our engagement with local communities and partners to improve our community safety function. A major organisational review was undertaken which has resulted in the creation of four Community Protection Units (CPUs) whose boundaries are co-terminus with the Unitary Authorities. Their aim is to project risk reduction into the local communities more effectively. By design, a CPU is not an individual station or building, but an administrative area encompassing groups of stations.

The CPU concept has created an effective platform from which to launch risk reduction initiatives directly into the community, work more effectively with our partners, as well as providing an administrative structure and base for our fire engines. The CPU structure and flexibility of our resources are critical to the successful protection of our communities and working towards our vision.

Other fire and rescue authorities are now being urged to look at our CPU model by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The roles of personnel have been redesigned, particularly managers in the CPUs with the aim of improving service delivery and engagement with our communities and partners. This will ensure that community safety is improved and focus moved to prevention management.

The primary role of the CPU Service Delivery Manager is to coordinate the activities of the multifunctional CPU and manage performance in line with its CPU Plan. They deploy their resources to best meet the needs of the local risk, which requires flexibility of resource management. This function is assisted by a Community Risk Manager who identifies risks in the community and is the link between the Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) task groups and the CPUs.

Each CPU has designated Community Fire Safety staff, who implement community safety activities and support shift-based staff fulfil their community safety objectives. This includes a role to target and reduce deliberate fire starting.

An operational support team, led by the Operational Support Manager are responsible for identifying risks to operational staff, providing information of the risks and planning development opportunities to confirm operational procedures will address those risks.

Performance and Standards Managers ensure the efficiency of fire stations by verifying that operational personnel fulfil their duties to an appropriate standard and that the work of the station focuses on key priorities linked, through the CPU Plan, to the Services strategic objectives, such as reducing the number of accidental fires in dwellings.

The Future

The following are some of the development areas we are addressing:

In This Area