Our community plan - integrated risk management plan

Foreword

Having safe, healthy, and resilient communities is at the heart of everything we do. Our continued focus is to keep the people of Lincolnshire safe, and is the golden thread running through every:

  • emergency call we take
  • incident we attend
  • home or business we visit

The Fire and Rescue National Framework for England outlines the requirement for us to publish an Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP).

Our IRMP addresses all requirements within the National Framework by reflecting up-to-date risk information. It covers at least a three-year period, and has been developed in consultation with our:

  • community
  • staff
  • partners

Our community plan summarises:

  • the fire-related risks to our communities
  • our plans to reduce these risks

It is underpinned by our community risk profile ‘Understanding Risk in Lincolnshire’, which together is our ‘contract’ with our communities. We are committed to delivering against it.

Global events such as the Covid pandemic and severe weather events have demonstrated the need to be future focused on the risks and demands on all public services. We are proud of how we stood up and responded to our local communities and supported the national response. We recognise the value fire and rescue gives to the wider response to public health.

There are changes in legislation, national standards and expectations relating to how we protect our communities to work and live in a safe environment.

We are focused on:

  • delivering robust and clear risk-based programmes
  • strengthening our links within our business community

We will monitor this closely to ensure we are able to provide an appropriate regulatory response. Our prevention activities are person-centred and enable us to give the greatest support and advice to the people with the greatest needs.

At a local level, the number of fires we have attended is slowly increasing. Road traffic collisions (RTCs) remain a risk. We have responded to significant severe weather events, most recently the heat wave in 2022.

The health and wellbeing of our communities remains a high risk. Our co-responder scheme is an example of how we are helping to reduce this risk. Although not traditionally a fire-related risk, our responders are well placed, well trained and well-resourced to provide this support.

These events underline the importance of good risk management planning. The ability to understand risks and resource to them is key to delivering a modern fire and rescue service. As a part of the Lincolnshire resilience forum, we work closely with our multi-agency partners in both:

  • planning for these risks
  • responding to these risks

 The strength of our partnership with Lincolnshire County Council will ensure we are well placed to support further improvements in public protection. We will collaborate with colleagues from across the council to further improve public safety.

Reductions in funding over the last decade have driven us to:

  • be more innovative in the way we deliver our services
  • rise to the challenge of continuing to offer a first-class fire and rescue service to people living, working and visiting Lincolnshire

We have sought opportunities to collaborate with our partners, and looked at ways we can enhance and widen the traditional firefighter role.

We are all extremely proud to be part of a fire and rescue service which strives to put the public at the heart of what we do. We continue to recruit and develop our people who represent the diverse communities that exist within Lincolnshire and continue with positive action to reflect this.

We are also supported through our National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) by developing nationally agreed standards that we will be integrating across the service, to ensure we support our people in delivering against our IRMP.

Our commitment will ensure we remain focused on delivering a service to the communities of Lincolnshire that is:

  • professional
  • risk-led
  • innovative

We will build upon our current position of strength to ensure we can deliver on our focus ‘to keep the people of Lincolnshire safe and well’.

Foreword by Mark Baxter, Chief Fire Officer and Lindsay Cawrey, Executive Councillor.

Our vision, mission and service objectives

Our vision is to keep the people of Lincolnshire safe and well.

Our objectives

  • reduce fires and their consequences
  • reduce road traffic collisions and their consequences
  • improve health and wellbeing
  • protect the community and environment from the impact of major emergencies
  • manage our resources effectively
  • manage our people effectively
  • govern the business effectively

Our culture

Having introduced our THRIVE behavioural model in April 2021, we are pleased with the way this has been embedded. It continues to underpin our values and culture across the organisation.

Feedback from staff through our annual audit programme gives us encouragement that we are going in the right direction. Our values are understood and modelled at all levels.

The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) launched a Core Code of Ethics for Fire and Rescue Services in late May 2021. Developed in consultation with the fire sector, the Core Code of Ethics is designed to help employees of the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) act in the best way towards each other and whilst serving the public.

Much work continues to be undertaken to ensure our THRIVE model is fully aligned to the national Code of Ethics.

About us

To deliver our services across Lincolnshire, we deploy the following people, premises, and assets:

  • 707 members of staff
  • 38 fire stations
  • 64 support staff
  • 48 frontline fire engines
  • 19 control room staff
  • joint fire and police headquarters at Nettleham
  • 624 firefighters, 191 full-time and 433 on-call

Evaluating our previous IRMP

The effectiveness of our previous IRMP for 2016 to 2020 has been evaluated. We are proud of some of our progress and achievements in line with our mission and service objectives. Multiple performance indicators tell us that between 2016 to 2017, and 2019 to 2020, we have made Lincolnshire safer, healthier, and more resilient.

  • there has been a 7% reduction in accidental dwelling fires
  • His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) reports:
    • ‘good’ - effectiveness
    • ‘good’ - efficiency
    • ‘requires improvement’ - people
  • co-location at headquarters - Sleaford, Louth, and Lincoln (blue light collaboration)
  • 33% reduction in primary fire casualties
  • 21% reduction in hoax calls received
  • 21% reduction in non-domestic property fires
  • at 90% of co-responder incidents, we made a positive difference
  • unwanted fire signals – 9% reduction in false alarms caused by automatic fire alarms (AFAs) in non-domestic premises

Integrated risk management planning

What is IRMP?

IRMP must assess all foreseeable fire and rescue related risks to our communities. It puts in place arrangements to respond to and deal with these risks.

Our IRMP must:

  • cover at least a three-year time period
  • be regularly reviewed
  • reflect national and local risk
  • be developed through consultation
  • be accessible and cost-effective

The planning process should also have regard to risks of a cross-border, multi-authority, and national nature.

There are several key drivers for the service, some of which are statutory. These impact on our risks and influence how we deliver the service.

Our primary drivers are:

  • Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
  • Fire and Rescue Services National Framework for England
  • Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
  • Civil Contingencies Act 2004
  • Fire and Rescue Services (Emergencies) (England) Order 2007
  • Cabinet Office National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies
  • Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974
  • European Working Time Directive
  • Lincolnshire County Council’s Business Plan

We monitor these drivers closely to determine any changes and impacts upon our community and corporate risks.

This community plan summarises our integrated risk management plan for 2020 to 2024. It is underpinned by a detailed community risk profile ‘Understanding Risk in Lincolnshire’. It is supported by our five key frameworks, which set out how we plan to mitigate our risks over the next four years. This enables us to match our resources to risk, and individuals to interventions. It is used to effectively develop further detailed plans, such as our:

  • annual service plan
  • department plans
  • individual staff appraisals

The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Community Risk Programme is developing a national toolkit. This will provide consistency across UK fire and rescue services in:

  • the way we identify risk
  • the methodologies we use to analyse and evaluate risk 

We have been engaged with the programme throughout its journey to ensure our risk management work aligns with the current practice and future direction.

IRMP cycle

Risk management planning is a continuous cycle. It ensures all foreseeable risks are identified, and analyses their likelihood and consequences. Effective risk treatment measures are then applied to prevent and mitigate the impact these risks have on our communities.

IRMP cycle for understanding risk in Lincolnshire, using community engagement:

  1. Identify risks
  2. Analyse risks
  3. Identify controls
  4. Risk treatment
  5. Consultation
  6. Service planning
  7. Delivery
  8. Evaluation

Supporting frameworks:

  • Prevention and protection
  • Response
  • People
  • Resourcing
  • Evaluation

Our risks

Our document ‘Understanding Risk in Lincolnshire’ provides the context, evidence and background analysis of risk which informs our IRMP. This process is linked to local and national risks as identified in the Community Risk Register for Lincolnshire 2019 to 2020.

Underpinned by data and predictive analytics, ‘Understanding Risk in Lincolnshire’ helps us to target activities, both strategically and on a day-to-day basis. It enables us to better understand the diverse nature of our communities. It helps us to identify, prioritise and plan for both current and foreseeable fire-related risks. As a result of our analysis, we have identified two broad categories of risk (community and corporate) for the period 2020 to 2024.

Community risks

We define community risks as risks to:

  • life
  • property
  • infrastructure
  • the environment

As a fire and rescue service, we help to mitigate these risks.

Our key community risks are shown below:

  • dwelling fires
  • road traffic collisions
  • flooding and severe weather
  • health and wellbeing
  • pandemic
  • non-domestic fires
  • water risks
  • residential high rise
  • malicious attacks
  • heritage
  • deliberate fires

Corporate risks

We define corporate risks as those which have the potential to impact on our service internally. These prevent us from conducting our business effectively. For example, mobilising fire appliances to incidents.

We analyse and review these risks on a continuous basis. This is informed by several factors, both national and local, and is linked to our corporate risk register.

Our corporate risks are recorded on our corporate risk register. We have identified the following categories of corporate risk for the period 2020 to 2024:

  • Risk one – failure to maintain and develop the competencies and skills of the workforce.
  • Risk two – failure to maintain adequate equality and diversity policies.
  • Risk three – failure to maintain an appropriately structured workforce.
  • Risk four - failure to ensure effective financial and performance management in the planning and delivery of service activities.
  • Risk five – failure to ensure appropriate safeguarding procedures are in place.
  • Risk six – failure to respond to a major disruption of service.
  • Risk seven – failure to manage and discharge health and safety responsibilities.
  • Risk eight – failure to communicate and consult with all internal and external stakeholders.
  • Risk nine - failure to identify and engage with partners, both locally and nationally, to deliver efficiencies and ensure effective inter-service and inter-agency operations.

Supporting frameworks

We use five supporting frameworks designed to mitigate the risks identified within our community plan:

  • Prevention and protection framework
  • Response framework
  • People framework
  • Resourcing framework
  • Evaluation framework

 These frameworks outline:

  • why we provide each part of the service
  • what we provide
  • how we have decided to approach the problem

These frameworks are a strategic document, providing a link between IRMP and service delivery, evaluation, and assurance of all our activities.

The following pages provide an overview of:

  • the challenges identified within our community profile
  • how these challenges will be met by our ambitions for each area of service

Prevention and protection framework

The challenge

Over the last five years the number of fires attended has slowly increased. Domestic fires make up 35% of our fire related incidents. Almost half of those were caused by cooking.

84% of fire fatalities over the same period occurred in dwelling fires. Our analysis of future risk shows us that housing in Lincolnshire is set to increase significantly in the next few years. We must be able to respond to this growth and any potential impact on our communities.

At the same time, the numbers of road traffic collisions on Lincolnshire’s roads has increased:

  • In 2013 there were 375 collisions resulting in death or serious injury
  • In 2017 there were 507 collisions resulting in death or serious injury

Our analysis shows that most of these collisions happen during the daytime and at peak travelling times.

We must work closely with our partners and make good use of demographic data to identify vulnerable groups. Once we have located them, we need to gain their confidence when delivering safety messages.

Our 2018 HMICFRS inspection identified areas for improvement in how we protect the public through fire regulation. A risk-based approach to protection, regulation and enforcement of premises will be key to ensuring the highest risks are given priority.

Changes in legislation arising from the Grenfell inquiry will rightly impact upon how we deliver our protection work in the future.

Our ambitions

For prevention and protection, we have set the following ambitions for 2020 to 2024:

  • we aim to ensure our community safety activities are developed to meet the needs of communities; keeping our communities safe and well, now and in the future
  • we aim to promote safety and risk reduction with businesses across the county
  • we aim to provide support and advice, in conjunction with our partners, to improve health and wellbeing within the communities of Lincolnshire
  • we aim to ensure we have sustainable, effective, and appropriately skilled teams to support our specialist prevention and protection activities
  • we aim to monitor national developments and updates to key pieces of legislation relating to prevention and protection activities, ensuring local policies reflect requirements

Response framework

The challenge

The nature and range of emergency incidents we respond to has changed in recent years. However, the expectation of the community remains the same; when emergencies happen, we respond in the most effective and safe way to protect and limit damage to:

  • life
  • property
  •  the environment

We need to ensure:

  • our staff are competent and our firefighting vehicles available 
  • we have a clearly defined response standard, based on risk and balanced against the challenges of operating within a large rural county
  • our response is resilient to any disruption to service

Effective business continuity planning will be key to this.

The availability of our on-call staff has steadily declined over the last five years. This has had a direct impact on our ability to meet our response times. This is one of our most significant challenges and we will develop strategies to mitigate the impact on our response.

We will continue to be flexible in the way we manage and deal with emergencies, from receiving the call to after the incident. We seek to develop collaborative opportunities in our response to emergencies.

We must ensure we have the right people in the right place to enable us to meet the expectations of our communities.

We will continually evaluate our operational response to ensure it delivers our intended outcomes. Incident monitoring and debriefing will ensure operational learning is captured and shared in the interests of continuous improvement.

Our ambitions

To meet the challenge, we have set the following ambitions:

  • we aim to provide the most effective and efficient response to a range of emergencies, both current and emerging, across the county
  • we aim to provide a service to our communities that is:
    • efficient
    • effective
    • person-centred
  • we aim to provide robust plans to deal with major emergencies and critical events in conjunction with other blue light and wider partners (JESIP)
  • we aim to maintain an ability to respond to national emergencies as required
  • we aim to ensure we carry out operational activity in a safe and effective manner
  • we aim to ensure we have sustainable and effective duty systems to support operational activity
  • we aim to continuously improve our response through active learning both locally and nationally (for example Grenfell Tower)

People framework

The challenge

Our 2018 HMICFRS inspection highlighted the need for us to:

  • improve the way we look after our own people
  • ensure we have the right people with the right skills
  • promote our organisational values
  • better develop our leaders

Our people framework sets out how we will meet these specific challenges. 

For the benefit of our communities, we will:

  • maximise the capacity, resilience, and wellbeing of our workforce to deliver our key priorities
  • help develop and support our workforce to do their job well

Our people framework aims to develop our service, and most importantly, our people. At the heart of our people framework are our ethical principles which guide our decision making.

We will achieve our vision through delivering on our five key focus areas of our people framework. These are:

  • culture, values and behaviours
  • leadership
  • equality, diversity and inclusion
  • health and wellbeing
  • talent, learning and development

Each focus area has:

  • a summary narrative
  • specific ambitions
  • objectives
  • success measures

The five key focus areas have been mapped to national best practice.

Our people framework is a living document and will be reviewed annually in line with our:

  • IRMP
  • service plan

We recognise that to achieve our vision it will take time, investment, and leadership. This is why we have developed a framework that gives us a great foundation to build upon.

Our ambitions

To meet the challenge, we have set the following ambitions:

  • we aim to create a positive and inclusive culture. This will enable our people to thrive during their time with us, in a safe environment, which encourages openness
  • we aim to become an employer of choice, where people want to work, with roles that provide meaning and purpose
  • we aim to develop and attract our leaders through:
    • improved recruitment
    • talent spotting
    • development programmes
  • we aim to have an open and fair process to select staff for leadership roles. This is reflected in the diversity of staff represented at all levels of the organisation
  • we aim to build a diverse, inclusive, and supportive working environment. This encourages the attraction, development, progression and retention of our current and prospective employees
  • we aim to ensure our leaders demonstrate personal commitment to:
    • reducing inequality
    • challenging discrimination
    • delivering services that are inclusive and accessible to diverse communities
  • we aim to develop a holistic view of wellbeing in the workplace covering all aspects of wellbeing, including:
    • physical
    • mental
    • social
    • financial
  • we aim to ensure all our staff understand our wellbeing, offering policies and procedures, and know where to get help
  • we aim to provide our people with opportunities to reach their full potential within their careers
  • we aim to give our people the skills required to deliver their roles to the best of their abilities

Resourcing framework

The challenge

It is important in these financial times that the planning and management of our finances is:

  • clear
  • robust

This will enable us to provide the resources we need to meet the risks identified within our Community Risk Profile. To meet our stated objectives, with limited financial resources, it is vital that we have agile and reactive abilities to align resources to meet any changing risks.

We need to maintain our strong culture of financial scrutiny and assurance that enables us to make the most of our financial investments. This will be tested throughout the lifespan of our IRMP. There is a level of uncertainty following the impact of Covid-19 and the Comprehensive Spending Review. This will be mitigated though:

  • robust planning for short and medium-term financial planning
  • ongoing budget management on a monthly basis

Our objectives will always be to:

  • deliver our service against our agreed budget
  • have the agility to make in-year changes to our resources to reflect budget and risk

Throughout the lifespan of the IRMP, we need to ensure we:

  • provide and place our resources in the right place to meet the identified risks
  • support the delivery of all of our frameworks

We will do this in a clear and transparent manner with open engagement with our workforce.

We are committed to drive forward our resourcing solutions through a collaborative approach, whether that is from joint procurement or entering into multi-agency agreements. We have a duty to collaborate, and it is a duty that is at the heart of our resourcing solutions. This ensures we provide appropriate solutions to meeting our risks.

Our ambitions

To meet the challenge, we have set the following ambitions:

  • we aim to have clear and robust scrutiny of budget management throughout the service
  • we aim to provide effective and efficient use of resources to meet our risks
  • we aim to enable flexible and agile solutions for resourcing to support all other frameworks in mitigating our risks
  • we aim to identify present and future resourcing requirements to meet the needs to mitigate our risks
  • we aim to have clear and transparent processes for decision making relating to resource requirements

Evaluation framework

The challenge

Within a difficult financial climate, it is a challenge to deliver a service that is:

  • effective
  • innovative
  • efficient

To meet this challenge, we remain committed to continual improvement, whilst delivering value for money. To achieve this, we must constantly evaluate our activities across all areas. This allows us to understand what works and what can be improved.

In the operational context, this means:

  • identifying learning from incidents
  • sharing this learning across the organisation and with the wider UK fire and rescue services

To provide a measured and informed approach to the purchase of new resources, we will:

  • use historical data sets
  • use continual risk analysis
  • evaluate existing provision

This ensures we have the right distribution of equipment across the county to:

  • manage the local risk
  • continue to provide the communities of Lincolnshire with the best possible service

Our ambitions

To meet the challenge, we have set the following ambitions:

  • we aim to improve our analysis of data to become more effective and efficient
  • we aim to ensure our community has a clear understanding of our performance
  • we aim to develop a learning organisation
  • we aim to ensure our measures are aligned to the outcomes the public expects from their fire  and rescue service
  • we aim to ensure we have data-driven methodology which allows the service to:
    • remain agile over the life of the IRMP
    • react to emerging risks to our delivery models
  • we aim to support continuous improvement throughout the organisation

Delivery

Service plan

Our service plan for 2022 to 23 onwards will be different to those we have previously worked towards. The new service plan will be focused on a smaller number of priorities. These priorities will directly impact the seven objectives we have outlined in our IRMP.

This revised approach provides greater clarity to staff on the impacts their work is having, in response to the commitments we have made to the communities of Lincolnshire.

The outcomes of this approach will be:

  • monitored through department plans
  • reviewed through our performance management board on a quarterly basis

Evaluation and assurance

 Our scrutiny committee oversees governance of our plans and activities. Key tasks are monitored and reviewed through our:

  • internal service management board
  • performance board
  • service delivery board
  • programme board

Managers at all levels are responsible for managing performance against service plan objectives.

Annual review cycle

 It is important that our IRMP process is reviewed on an annual cycle. This helps us to:

  • identify any new or emerging risks
  • ensure our resources remain matched to those risks

We will:

  • keep our community risk profile up-to-date on an annual basis
  • highlight any emerging community and corporate risks as appropriate

Planning for the service plan starts in October with a full review of our current priorities. The plan will go out to consultation internally from January and will go live from April.

Measuring success

The success of our strategies will come from:

  • measuring how well we achieve them
  • how cost-efficient they are

We will measure the social economic benefits of our activities. This will ensure we are delivering value for money for our communities.

We will compare ourselves with other fire and rescue services and ask our communities how well they think we are doing. Our activities will have their own performance indicators to help us measure and report on our performance.

We will:

  • know how well we engaged with staff and our communities on major changes affecting the service
  • obtain community feedback on our performance
  • have audit and inspection reports telling us how we’ve done
  • have effective data capture and management reporting
  • publish our data and key performance indicators
  • readily share information about us to everyone
  • have an external audit by HMICFRS
  • have no significant loss of functionality through any of our identified corporate risks
  • achieve all compliance standards
  • meet statutory requirements for responding to freedom of information requests
  • measure delivery against time, cost, and quality on projects
  • publish an annual report and statement of assurance

Finance

Our financial plan

We receive our revenue and capital funding from Lincolnshire County Council on an annual basis. View our budget and financial strategy.

At a time when public sector organisations face an uncertain future, it is essential we have a financial plan that is:

  • realistic
  • effective

This will be managed through robust and regular financial scrutiny at all levels within the organisation. It will ensure we can demonstrate best value for money in delivering our objectives. To allow us to plan for the future, we will ensure accurate planning assumptions are based on agreed funding from both central and local sources, against our agreed objectives.

We currently have a year-on-year financial plan. Our medium-term financial plan will become clearer following guidance on future funding from the government.

We remain committed to looking for more efficient ways of delivering our services in partnership with other agencies. This may be through:

  • shared facilities
  • joint procurement
  • partnership agreements

We are also committed to understanding the:

  • economic cost versus benefit of investment into our service
  • the value this adds for our communities

We are closely involved with the NFCC economic cost of fire project. We will ensure the outcomes of this work are aligned with our:

  • evaluation framework
  • financial planning in the future

Our budget

Our revenue budget pays for the day-to-day running of the organisation. This is predominantly our salary and wages budget.

  • Revenue budget 2022 to 23 - £21.9m
  • Capital budget 2022 to 23 - £5.3m

Our capital programme pays for works of long-term benefit. The programme up until 2021 includes:

  • improvements to fire stations
  • replacing firefighting vehicles and equipment
  • purchasing ICT hardware

We have planned up until 2025. During  this time, we have projected budget to invest and replace our existing feet and non-feet assets.

Feedback

Have your say on the future of Lincolnshire fire and rescue.

We have commenced work on developing our Community Risk Management Plan for 2024 onwards. This process analyses risk to the communities of Lincolnshire. It explains how we plan to mitigate those risks. The CRMP drives what we do and how we allocate resources over a four-year period.

To make our CRMP truly community focused, we want and need your views throughout its development.

During 2022 to 2023 there will be three opportunities to feedback your views on the development of our next CRMP.  

Look out for updates on: