Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) and supporting plans – our process and timeline.

We work in four-year strategy periods to create clarity of purpose, and to support effective action planning. This is the governance structure for our CRMP process:

We follow CRMP guidance from the National Fire Chiefs’ Council, the seven principles of public life (known as the Nolan principles), and the Gunning principles (complete transparency and not making decisions until we have consulted with our customers).
The process starts with a ten-year horizon scan of emerging risks and issues in Kent, the UK, and globally. For example, issues of climate change, societal changes etc. This was carried out in 2011 and again in 2021. These forecasts are shared via colleague and customer consultations.
The next stage is analysing the risks and issues to get more detailed risk information for planning. We use a network of sources such as the National Risk Register, the Kent Community Risk Register, incident data, and local area risk profiles, amongst other data sets. We then clarify and consult on current and emerging risks which will affect the communities we serve for the next few years. Between October 2023 and January 2024, we carried out a large consultation and saw more than 1,800 people respond. More than 90% agreed with our risk assessment. These risks had also been through an internal consultation.
In the forthcoming period 2025 – 2029, we are ensuring effective integration of actions from our Building Safety, prevention, and response and resilience teams. Our CRMP consultation identified areas of focus grouped together under seven themes – climate change and environment; health and society; rescues, major industry; buildings and places; transport; utilities fuel and power. We also assessed the risk from malicious attacks and our response, although we did not publish the detail against this for security reasons.
To ensure we can deliver our strategic priorities and actions, we will produce enabling plans, which highlight the work required from our support teams to allow us to deliver front line services. This provides clarity on work plans and the change management mechanisms for the next period.
Once we have developed our strategic plans and overarching priorities for the four-year period, these will be presented to Kent and Medway Fire & Rescue Authority (KMFRA) in July 2024 for consideration. Once agreed, time will be spent over the subsequent months developing draft detailed plans, so that these detailed plans and proposals can then be presented to the Authority (KMFRA) in the summer 2025, for approval by Members. Once approved, they will then go out for public consultation.
At the November 2025 KMFRA meeting, Members will review the outcomes of the consultation. The final strategic plans and enabling plans will be developed after the public consultation has closed and KMFRA have agreed the responses and consultation recommendations.
Members of KMFRA will review the Medium-Term Financial Planning (MTFP) assumptions at the November 2025 meeting, alongside the consultation responses.
At the February 2026 KMFRA meeting, Members will agree the Medium-Term Financial Plan, which supports the delivery of the strategic priorities and plans over the medium term.
Every team will create an annual plan, which aligns with the organisation’s strategic priorities and plans as agreed by the Corporate Management Board (CMB) and KMFRA.
We evaluate progress against the actions throughout each year to ensure we are meeting customer needs and delivering against our objectives.
The annual process outlined above will be followed throughout each of the strategy periods.
There will be the need on occasion to do focused consultation on a particular subject. In October 2024 for instance, we will launch the annual Council Tax consultation and a consultation on Performance Standards following discussion at KMFRA on the 17th October. The results of which will be presented to KMFRA in February 2025.