Overview
- His Majesty’s Inspectorate rated HIOWFRS ‘good’ in two areas, ‘adequate’ in five, ‘requires improvement’ in three and found one area ‘inadequate’ for skills alignment and on-call availability.
- Inspectors warned that chronic shortages of on-call firefighters and a lack of service-wide workforce oversight could hamper the service’s community risk management plan.
- A long-standing issue with a nightly software update was identified as delaying incident mobilisation by up to five minutes until a manual fix was applied.
- The report flagged heavy reliance on radios and paper-based systems for tall-building incidents, raising concerns about information sharing during Grenfell-type emergencies.
- Chief Fire Officer Neil Odin said the report’s recommendations are being addressed through a temporary mobilisation workaround, a new workforce plan and recruitment initiatives, which HMICFRS will monitor.