Findings into Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue after report published
The service "requires improvement" in four areas
Last updated 25th Jul 2024
Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service has made positive progress in some areas, but further improvements are needed, the fire inspectorate has said.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has graded Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s performance across 11 areas.
It found that the service was ‘adequate’ in seven areas and ‘requires improvement’ in four areas.
The area's for improvement were named as 'best use of resources', 'promoting values and culture', 'promoting fairness and diversity', and 'managing performance and developing leaders'.
HMICFRS said the service has improved its capacity to make sure staff are trained and assessed promptly in safety-critical skills, such as using breathing apparatus, and completes fire safety audits to a good standard.
But inspectors said the service needs to improve how it promotes the right values and a positive and inclusive culture to all staff. It also needs to make further changes to make sure it uses resources effectively to achieve the best results for the public.
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services Roy Wilsher said:
“I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service in keeping people safe and secure from fire and other risks, but the service needs to improve in some areas.
“We were pleased to see that the service has made progress against some of the areas for improvement identified in our last inspection. For example, the service has worked hard to address the delays to training and assessing staff in wearing breathing apparatus. But we were disappointed to find the service still needs to address its response to false alarms to make sure its workforce is as productive as it can be.
“We were concerned to hear that some staff have experienced bullying and harassment at work. The service needs to continue to improve its culture of equality, diversity and inclusion and review how effective its policies are at reducing unacceptable behaviour.
“We recognise that the service is currently going through significant changes which are affecting some areas of work. We will keep in close contact with the service to monitor the effect of these changes.”
Rob McDougal Chief Fire Officer Director of Community Safety at Oxfordshire County Council spoke to us about the report and urged people to read it.
"It's really disappointing to see in the report that some of our staff report bullying and harassment."
He added that there are already measures in place to improve the reporting of issues around that.
"We've got significant plans in place to look at our operating model to make sure we are using our resources really effectively to make sure that, primarily, we can get our fire engines to where they need to be as quickly as possible when emergencies happen, but also making sure we have our resources in place to try and reduce the change of those fires happening in the first place."