Investing in your Fire and Rescue Service

On Monday, 16 September, RBFRS implemented Priority Six of the Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP). This will ensure efficient and effective management of its resources, which sets out the Authority’s commitment to maintain 19 frontline fire engines, and a baseline service provision of 14 frontline fire engines utilising wholetime (full-time) and on-call staff as effectively as possible, through local management.  

The number of fire engines available as part of the Service’s response model remains unchanged from the previous CRMP. The delivery of Priority Six will help better align our resources to risk and helps to improve the resilience and reliability of our emergency response services. 

The implementation of Priority Six will improve resilience and reliability of the Service’s baseline number of fire engines available (14 fire engines), by ensuring the Service is less reliant on the voluntary use of overtime. The anticipated savings support a reinvestment in the frontline and will help pay for the 10 additional frontline firefighter roles that have been added this year.  

The Service and Fire Authority remains committed to achieving its Response Standard of attending all emergency incidents within 10mins on 75% of occasions.

The Service will be monitoring the impact the implementation of Priority Six is having daily.  After a three-month period, the Service will be evaluating the impact Priority Six has had and reporting these findings to the Fire Authority.    

Mark Arkwell, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, shares more information about this change in the below video and how the Service is reinvesting in the frontline.