www.avonfire.gov.uk
strategy
For our people to be motivated and inspired to make
all of our communities safer.
To improve public safety through preventing,
protecting and responding.
Foreword
Avon Fire & Rescue Service covers the four unitary areas of Bath
and North East Somerset, Bristol City, North Somerset and South
Gloucestershire. These are places that can and should be where
everyone can live, work and enjoy safe and fulfilling lives.
Achieving this is no easy task but we shall strive to reduce the risks
faced by local people and communities, while improving their wellbeing
and safety.
As a service we are all committed to reducing community risk and,
where possible, the inequalities across the area. It is my intention to
use this strategy to put in place plans which improve the safety and
wellbeing of our people and our communities.
We cannot deliver this alone, so it will be essential to work in partnership
with the Police, Local Authorities, social care providers, public health organisations, voluntary and third
sector organisations and other key agencies.
We take a huge amount of pride in the fact that we have significantly reduced the number of people
killed and injured in fires, road traffic collisions and other emergencies. I want us to continue this trend
and we are working towards this with a number of partners across a wider agenda.
We have ambitious plans set against a number of challenges, not least to reduce our budget by around
25%. This will not deter us and through this strategy, we will align our priorities and work more closely
with our partners in a joined up approach to better protect and improve lives.
Over the last two years I have met with many local people and organisations. I have listened to the
views and experiences of people using our services. This has helped me and my team to understand
what works well and the areas to improve. This local knowledge and our analysis of risk contained in
our Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) will form the central parts of the strategy and the plans
we create to reduce or remove the risks to our people and communities.
Jon Day
Deputy Chief Fire Officer / Director of Service Delivery.
Our vision is for our people to be motivated
and inspired to make all our communities safer.
Our Community Risk Reduction Strategy
provides a clear direction for our own
staff, our partners, and the community.
It shows how we are delivering initiatives
that contribute towards making the
communities we serve safer.
Our staff are essential in delivering our
Community Risk Reduction Strategy
and we recognise that their work must
be supported by appropriate training
and development to enable them to
deliver meaningful prevention, protection,
intervention and education activities.
Our role has widened to include shaping communities rather than just managing effects.
Our direction of travel is one that will place us at the heart of the community, being there
for the community and improving outcomes for local people.
This requires us to continually improve our prevention, protection, response, and education
activities; making them appropriate, meaningful and accessible to our diverse community.
We will do this, safe in the knowledge that every time we touch a life, we will make every contact
count, ensuring that individual is safer in some way.
The fire and rescue service has a role to play in
building more sustainable communities and we strive
to play a full and active part in doing this. As part of
this process, we recognise the strategic areas where
issues of health inequality and social deprivation align
with issues of fire safety and community safety
in general, so our action plans take these issues
into account.
The past few years have seen significant changes
and challenges for all fire and rescue services.
We have already achieved a great deal in reshaping
our Service to meet the needs and aspirations of
our local communities. We have made considerable
progress, achieving positive results from our previous
risk reduction strategies. We are not complacent
however, and will continue to deliver our risk reduction
objectives through balanced resources and constant
analysis of our changing environment. Our status
as one of the most highly regarded and efficient
public services is very important to us. As a result Avon Fire Authority will strive for continuous
improvement by taking an innovative, imaginative and partnership based approach to community
risk management and emergency response.
In developing our strategy we have listened to our stakeholder
groups - including central and local government, the public,
our partners, and our staff, as well as Elected Avon Fire
Authority Members.
We fully recognise the very important role we have to play as strategic partners within the
Local Government framework. As such, it was of utmost importance for us to seek the views
and participation of our stakeholders in the development of this strategy. This is our overarching
direction of travel for the Service’s Risk Reduction department, which has been developed using
legislation, horizon-scanning, local knowledge, discussion groups, local priorities and empirical data.
The following legislation and guidance sets out the expectations of central Government in delivering
our services to the public:
• Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
• Fire and Rescue Framework 2012
• Regulatory Reform Order 2005
• Civil Contingencies Act 2004
Our Community Risk Reduction Strategy has been designed to translate the framework of expectations
laid out in the relevant legislation and guidance documents into appropriate action. The strategy
is intended to dovetail with and compliment other important internal strategies such as:
• Avon Fire & Rescue Service Corporate Plan
• Avon Fire & Rescue Service Community Risk Management Plan
• Operational Response Strategy
• Workforce Development Strategy (People Strategy)
• Health and Safety Strategy
• Asset Management Strategy
This will ensure an integrated approach to the delivery of our services and further underpins
the Service’s corporate planning process. It also ensures that we meet the expectations and needs
of all our partner agencies and communities.
This strategy is also designed to support and compliment national and local strategic plans.
It is underpinned by robust action plans, along with the requisite scrutiny and monitoring processes,
to ensure that we deliver the strategy effectively. Above all, our Community Risk Reduction Strategy
will ensure that, wherever possible, we place prevention before response, as the most effective
means of reducing risk in the communities we serve and ensure that every contact counts.
The move to local risk assessment and Integrated Risk Management Planning (IRMP) has allowed
us to adopt an evidence led approach in the reduction of risk in our communities. Avon Fire & Rescue
Service will continue to make significant contributions to this reduction by working with our partners
on a much broader range of initiatives designed to improve the health, safety and welfare of everyone
in Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and the South
West region.
Vision
Major partners
For our people to be motivated
and inspired to make all of our
communities safer
• CLG
• Audit
Values
• Integrity
• Public & staff
• Trust
• Representative bodies
• Respect
Mission
• Learning
To improve public safety through
preventing, protecting and
responding
• Good practice
• Benchmarking
• Can-do
• Openness
Corporate Plan and objectives
Become more
effective and
efficient
Community
Risk Reduction
Strategy
Preventing
& Protecting
Make the Avon area
safer by preventing,
protecting and
responding
Support
our staff
Integrated Risk
Management Plan
(IRMP)
preventing, protecting
and responding
Four Unitary Area Plans
incorporating station
action plans & targets
Individuals’ objectives, targets,
and personal development reviews
Operations
Response
Strategy
Responding
Our aim is to analyse our community to ensure we better understand their needs and the risks
they face in order to improve the services we provide. Our current ethos in reducing risk is simple:
Prevention, Protection and Response. We hope to bring positive change through effective education,
influencing safer design of products and buildings and many other fire prevention activities.
However in the event of a fire we want to ensure that people are protected and remain safe or can
escape unharmed. It is important to our communities, that if they need our help, we can respond
to a wide range of emergencies.
Our area-wide assessment of risk suggests that in the future there will be:
• More extreme weather events including floods and droughts.
• More traffic on the road network.
• New building materials and methods which can increase the rate of fire spread
and the speed with which fires develop.
• More older people living alone, with mobility problems.
• More transient people moving through a series of shared, rented housing.
• More people living independently with physical disabilities and mental health issues.
• More people living in poor and over-crowded homes as a result of poverty.
• More people who speak English as a second language.
The aim is to target our resources and activities to deliver what is required and where it is needed
most. By using the assessment, our professional judgement and our knowledge of our communities,
we are committed to engaging with and targeting the following:
• Lone parents with children under five years of age.
• Long term unemployed.
• People with disabilities – especially those with mobility and mental health impairments.
• Black and Minority Ethnic communities.
• People who are alcohol dependant and/or smokers.
• Single adult males, over 40 years old, living alone.
• Young people aged 16 to 24 years of age.
• Men over 40 years of age who drive powerful motorbikes.
• People living in areas of high multiple indices of deprivation.
We will help people take responsibility for their own safety, identify
risks, and put effective control measures in place to prevent any
potential harm, loss, or damage.
1
2 3
Vulnerable adults
Children and Young People
Enable vulnerable adults to live longer
and healthier lives by improving their
safety, health and wellbeing.
Enable every child and young
person to thrive, developing skills
to lead a healthy life and achieve
their full potential.
Safety of buildings
Partnership working and
community engagement
Creating a safe and sustainable built
environment and contributing towards
the area’s prosperity.
Work more effectively in partnership
to provide integrated services.
Assistive Technologies
Dementia Support
Education Support & Guidance
Home Safety Advice
Specialist Equipment
Influencers
• Statutory Duty
• Training
• Funding
• Partnership Agreements
Injury Prevention
Falls Prevention
Onward referral
Using
Know
an
Expe
Effective Regulation
Fire Investigation
Safer Working Environment
Advice & Guidance
Development of Protective Safety measures
Local Authority Partnerships
Sprinkler Strategy Group
Enforcement
Fire Safety
Water Safety
Child Protection
First Aid
Road Safety
1
2 3
Firesetters Intervention
Community Cohesion
Arson Prevention
New Parents Advice
Role Models
g our
wledge
nd
ertise
Key Partnerships
Combined Agenda
Volunteers
Collabarative Working
Effective Working
Shared Vision
Shared Facilities & Resources
Needs Assessment
Influencers
• Community Risk Intelligence
• Risk Profiling
• Targeted Approach
Enable vulnerable adults
to live longer and healthier
lives by improving their safety,
health and wellbeing.
Why is this a key area of focus?
We recognise that individuals have unique needs and we aim to provide services tailored to meet
those needs. We also recognise that people within vulnerable groups are at an increased risk
of harm within our communities, however not all ‘vulnerable people’ are at an increased risk of fire.
Understanding and addressing the relationship between vulnerability and risk of fire and injury
is crucial. We know that people who are in poor health, live with mental illness or reside in poor
housing are particularly likely to come to harm. When someone is at risk of a slip, trip or fall
because of mobility problems or sensory impairment, has become isolated, or lives in fuel poverty,
it is a strong indicator that they are at risk of fire and other hazards.
Our demographics and changing population present real challenges. Firstly, those who die in fires
or are injured are more often than not older people with health issues that make them vulnerable
and socially isolated; by definition they are more difficult for us to engage with. Secondly, our
population is ageing, meaning this group is getting bigger (with the over 65 and over 80 year age
group showing significant increases over the past few years) and therefore requiring more of our
time and resources.
We also recognise that the hardest to access people and those who are resistant to our safety
advice, such as families with complex needs, are at an increased risk of fire and other hazards.
From national and local data we are aware that house fires and associated injuries are not spread
uniformly among the population. In other words, fire has a discriminatory nature.
It would appear that house fires are more likely to occur within areas of deprivation, where
a significant challenge around the vulnerability of people or communities exists.
What are we going to do?
• Our approach will be risk driven and outcome focused. Using community risk intelligence,
such as our own empirical data and hospital admissions data, we will identify those most
at risk within our communities and seek to provide them with assistance to reduce that risk.
• We will use our resources effectively to target deprived or excluded sections of our
communities, focussing on the most vulnerable groups.
• We will use a range of methods to deliver our preventative services, including making use
of all staff groups, other agencies, partnership volunteers, and wider community groups.
• We will expand and embed a customer-centred approach to community safety delivery.
• We will influence the design and availability of assistive technologies that support people
in staying as safe, well and independent as possible.
• We will provide representation at the Vulnerable Adults Safeguarding Board and other
like groups in each of Unitary areas. We will monitor the effectiveness of our Safeguarding
of Vulnerable People and ensure that suitable and sufficient referral mechanisms are
in place.
• We are committed to making sure that people are safer at home by educating and
informing them about the benefits of effective home safety. We will enable them to
recognise and reduce risk both within their own property and their wider community.
• We will provide Home Safety Visits to those groups of people who have been identified
as being most vulnerable in our communities.
• We will continually develop and review our Home Safety Visit referral mechanisms and
partnerships to ensure that they are effective and reach those deemed most vulnerable.
• We will commit to a programme of continuous engagement with communities through
a range of mechanisms, rather than conducting one-off visits. We will explore
opportunities for being a commissioned service.
• We will strive to provide equality of access to services for all and improve equality
and diversity through effective service delivery.
• Group and Station managers will be able to locally set performance management targets
according to local priorities as detailed in plans.
1
2 3
Enable every child and young
person to thrive, developing
skills to lead a healthy life
and achieve their full potential.
Why is this a key area of focus?
When young people are struggling or misguided, they often resort to anti-social behaviour and
criminality that has a direct impact on the resources of the Fire and Rescue Service. These young
people are not just creating challenges for the Fire and Rescue Service, but also challenge the
resources of the Police, Local Authority and the Health Service to name three.
Arson is still the UK’s number one cause of fire and it can have a devastating effect on people’s
lives. We have achieved a significant reduction in deliberately started fires, as a result of an effective
programme of multi-agency collaboration, at strategic, tactical and operational levels of service
delivery. However there is still much to do.
We aim to prevent children and young people being harmed or killed in fires or causing fires through
ignorance or carelessness. We also aim to prevent children and young people becoming involved
in fire crime and associated anti-social behaviour. We believe that embedding responsible behaviours
and attitudes towards community safety at an early age helps to positively influence community
risk reduction.
Across our Service area we have significant water-related risk in terms of coastline, rivers,
estuaries, lakes, streams, rhynes and fords, as well as other static water hazards such as ponds
and swimming pools. Water related incidents pose a risk to our communities, especially our children
and young people. Many people use our waterways for both commercial and leisure purposes
and we recognise the need to keep these people safe.
Every day eight people lose their lives and 25,000 are injured as a result of preventable incidents
on the roads within the UK. We recognise that we have a responsibility towards reducing these
incidents and improving public safety by risk reduction and embedding responsible attitudes
towards driving standards within our communities. Statistically young males between 17 and 25
are those most likely to be involved in a road incident and we recognise the need to be creative
and innovative in our methods of reaching, educating, and informing this vulnerable group.
What are we going to do?
• We are committed to working with children and young people in order to raise their
awareness of the dangers of fire, arson, water safety and road traffic collisions.
Through a wide range of programmes, we will be able to educate them on the risks
to themselves and their community posed by anti-social and careless behaviour
and the risk to service personnel through false and malicious calls.
• We will continue to work within schools, providing fire safety and fire prevention
education as well as carrying out a range of activities outside the school environment.
These activities aim to reduce anti-social behaviour and provide positive role models,
as well as promoting the recruitment of firefighters from the areas of communities
that are currently under-represented in the service.
• We will fully explore the potential and value of creating a Fire Service Academy
to support our excellent schools programme. We will explore the benefits of linking
into the likes of the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme, Prince’s Trust programmes, and Young
Firefighters’ Association. We will conduct performance evaluations of each of these
elements. To find out if they are meeting our needs and to identify opportunities for
improvement and development.
• We will monitor the effectiveness of our Child Protection Procedures to ensure that
we are providing suitable training to our staff in order to signpost identified child safety
and welfare concerns. We will provide effective Safeguarding Vulnerable People training
and ensure that suitable and sufficient referral mechanisms are in place.
• We will actively support our partner agencies in a wide ranging-ranging approach
to education and provision of information or guidance to children and young people.
• We will ensure the way in which we analyse data, share intelligence and evaluate
interventions supports organisational learning.
• We will continue to focus on improving the way in which we investigate fire crime
in conjunction with the Police to ensure that offenders are brought to justice and
our communities are kept safe. We will continue to deliver an intervention scheme
to deter children and young people from deliberate fire-setting, subject to resources
being available.
Creating a safe
and sustainable built
environment and contributing
towards the area’s prosperity.
Why is this a key area of focus?
Our vision is to achieve safer business and community sectors where there are no preventable
deaths or injuries in fires, where fire losses are reduced to all time minimal levels, and businesses
receive consistent and common advice, information and enforcement practices.
We know that a growing economy supporting businesses can be confident that their customers
and employees are safe, because they are supported by the Fire and Rescue Service. Key to this
success will be the continued and open engagement with the business sector.
The delivery of fire safety legislation to all non-domestic premises is a statutory duty of the Fire
and Rescue Service. It enables us to make sure buildings that provide public access, public assets,
and places of work are safe from fire and other types of incident. As such we will continue with
our risk-based approach to fire safety inspections and audits.
Businesses need to be confident that our fire and rescue service can provide them with the right
information and advice to support them in being compliant. They also need to be assured that
those enforcing the legislation are consistent in their decision making and where possible to avoid
confusion, our processes are similar. We are committed to providing the best possible service
to our communities by appropriate and proportionate regulation. We are, however, also committed
to using our enforcement and regulatory powers where necessary to ensure public safety.
We recognise the need to make sure that all buildings are safe both for the public and our
firefighters in the event of a fire or other emergency. Our Technical Fire Safety Team enables
us to provide effective communication, education and information to the business community
to enable them to make informed decisions around fire safety matters and to safeguard people,
reduce community risk, and reduce the potential of large financial loss.
What are we going to do?
• We will focus on providing a safe environment. Sprinklers and other automatic fire
suppression systems will be in widespread use.
• We will be proactive in lobbying to develop all aspects of protective safety measures
in buildings, vehicles and all other areas of risk.
• The Service will establish a Sprinkler Strategy Group that will continue to support the
effective delivery of protection issues in relation to legislation and best practice
• We will employ and improve upon our flexible and mobile working methods in terms
of delivering fire safety enforcement activity.
• We will use community risk intelligence to provide key strategic risk data to inform
our buildings inspection process.
• We will explore how we can provide a Better Regulation Partnership to ensure better
enforcement of regulation.
• We will enter into appropriate partnerships with Local Authority regulators to make best
use of resources in identifying and targeting risk in all non-domestic premises.
• We will strategically influence partners and others to reduce community risk within
the external built environment.
• We will continue to work with minority business groups to assist in compliance with fire
safety law.
• We will work with Local Authority Housing, Landlord Associations and tenants to ensure
that Houses in Multiple Occupation are safe for our community to live in.
• We will explore the benefits of establishing a Business Engagement Unit in order to
improve how we work with the business community.
• We will support and influence the identified fire safety work streams in the South West
Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA) action plan.
• We will positively continue our work to protect heritage buildings within the Service area
and will enter all grade one and two* listed buildings on our database. We will conduct fire
safety audits on the highest risk premises during 2014 – 17.
• We will ensure our staff have the requisite knowledge, skills and understanding to make
them competent in their role.
Work more effectively
in partnership to provide
integrated services.
Why is this a key area of focus?
Partnerships bring together two or more groups who hold shared ambitions, and who can derive
mutual benefit from collective working to provide integrated and seamless services to the public.
More specifically, common objectives can be pursued, benefits maximised, risks reduced and
relevant skills and resources used to their best effect.
We are committed to working closely with our partner agencies to reduce risk and to work with the
staff of our local partners including housing, social services, health and wellbeing boards, charities
and voluntary bodies in the targeting and delivery of our risk reduction activities. These partnership
arrangements provide us with particularly effective ways of reaching certain vulnerable groups
in our communities.
We are committed to providing the best possible service to the public and communities we serve
and we will best achieve this by developing and improving key partnerships that produce effective
collaborative working. To do this we need to ensure that the fire and rescue service is represented
locally at each of the strategic, tactical, and operational levels within strategic partnerships.
This will provide a platform for our key partnerships to make a real difference to our communities.
We recognise that it is important that our resources and services meet the needs of the public
and communities. We also recognise that different people have differing needs and that risk within
our communities changes due to time, geography, and demography. We need to be flexible enough
to react to the shift in needs as time passes and that we can provide the best possible service with
our resources in a challenging and ever-changing environment. We also recognise the need to be
able to provide a range of flexible contact facilities for the public to access our services and that
these should be equitable to all.
What are we going to do?
• We will fully integrate with the wider public sector, where it is beneficial and cost effective
to do so.
• We will ensure that we identify where we can enter into key partnerships and fully commit
to ensuring we are proactive members and commit resources to achieving shared
ambitions and delivering on local priorities.
• We will evaluate our partnerships regularly to ensure they are working effectively and
improve them wherever possible.
• We will provide proactive representation at each of the strategic, tactical, and operational
levels within effective local partnerships within our communities. We will work with
partners to identify and access vulnerable groups within our community.
• We will work with relevant local authority departments, landlord associations and tenants
to ensure that Houses in Multiple Occupation are safe for our community to live in.
• We will establish a ‘network of networks’ through our Community Champion Volunteers
to maximise our resources’ potential and to identify those groups that would benefit most
from the targeting and delivery of our risk reduction activities.
• We will use our Community Champion Volunteers in key locations to focus on anti-social
behaviour, children and young people, vulnerable groups, and equality and diversity.
• We will ensure effective partnership working by sharing facilities, protocols, and resources
to maximise potential and optimise working practices.
• We will assist in developing a Memorandum of Understanding between key agencies
to develop a multi-agency referral and information retrieval system.
• We will ensure a comprehensive two-way partnership communications and referral
Translating this strategy into action
This strategy covers the three-year period from April 2014
to March 2017 and will be reviewed in line with our corporate
planning cycle, to ensure that it keeps pace with changing
conditions and remains current. Our strategy will therefore
develop in recognition of emerging risks.
This strategy is the driver for the direction for Service
Delivery for Avon Fire & Rescue Service and provides
the overarching strategy for Community Risk Reduction
for the benefit of the people that we serve. We have set out
a number of strategic objectives that we believe will enable
us to reduce risk within our communities and drive us
towards our 2015 vision, ultimately making life safer for the
communities in Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City,
North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
We recognise that our workforce will need to be adaptable and flexible to the changing landscape
in order to deliver our priorities and ambitions. This will enable us to ensure that we can respond
to emerging risks effectively and efficiently.
Our next steps…
We will produce a comprehensive action plan for each
of the strategic objectives within our four community
safety key areas of focus.
Each action plan will be assigned a designated
owner from our middle management team and will
be programmed with a start date, completion date,
milestone reporting points, and timelines.
Progress against the plans will be performance
managed within the Service Delivery management
structure and will be scrutinised and signed off by the
Service Delivery Management team when complete.
The outcomes of significant projects will be evaluated
which will further guide future improvement.
Produced by:
Corporate Communication on behalf of Community Safety
Avon Fire & Rescue Service, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6EU
Tel: 0117 926 2061
Fax: 0117 925 0980
www.avonfire.gov.uk