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 1041 operational personnel (713 wholetime, 328 retained duty), 29 Control Room staff and 134 support staff. These work from our 32 fire stations (12 wholetime, 20 retained duty), 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 the local communities and partners to improve our community safety function. A major organisational review was undertaken which has resulted in the implementation of a reconfigured organisational structure. This is our largest organisational re-structure in 30 years and commenced on 1st December 2004, resulting in the formation of two Area Commands (north and south of the River Humber), aligned with the boundaries of the local authorities (two unitary authorities in each Area Command).

Within the two Area Commands six Community Protection Units (CPUs) have come into operation, with the aim of projecting risk reduction into local communities more effectively. By design a CPU is not an individual station or building, but an administrative area encompassing groups of stations based upon the risk. Each of the six CPU areas has approximately the same level of potential risk to life from fire and other emergencies.

The CPU concept has created an effective platform from which to launch risk reduction initiatives directly into the community, as well as providing a 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 Government Inspectors from the ODPM.

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

Each CPU has an Arson Task Force Officer, whose role is to target and reduce deliberate firestarting. Risk Managers identify and assess risk and are the link between the Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) task groups and the CPUs. They are tasked with constructing a risk map of their area and identifying the higher risks in the community. The primary role of the CPU Manager is to coordinate the activities of the multifunctional CPU, in order to reduce risk in the community. They deploy their resources to best meet the needs of the local risk, which requires flexibility of resource management. Operational Performance Managers (one at each wholetime fire station) are responsible for the performance and efficiency of their stations. They have each developed a Local Performance Plan (LPP), which focuses station activities on key priorities linked to the Service's strategic objectives, such as reducing the number of accidental fires in dwellings.

Each CPU has designated Community Fire Safety Officers, who implement community safety activities and support the shift-based staff to fulfil their community safety objectives. Fire Safety Technical Officers provide technical support to operational staff and enforce legislative fire safety, using a riskbased approach.

Personal Development Advisors work with CPU staff to help them identify their personal development needs and assist in the planning of staff training.

The Future

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

• A corporate communication and consultation strategy is being developed to improve our engagement with our communities and staff.
• The IPDS system is being rolled out to retained duty staff.
• Evaluation of Partnership and Community Safety work is being developed.
• An Arson Control Strategy and Community Safety Strategy are being developed.
• Local Performance Plans have been modified to improve their consistency.
• A training needs analysis of the Authority's Councillors will be developed.
• Our internal audit, asset management and procurement processes are being reviewed.
• Value for Money processes will be more clearly reported and logged.
• Our People Management Strategy and IT Strategy will be updated.
• Our policies will undergo equality impact assessments.
• Our Risk Management and Performance Management frameworks are being improved.