Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Annual Governance Statement 2018/19

In January 2018, we established a new Operational Assurance (OA) team to monitor, review and improve the quality of our operational response. The OA team gather operational performance information and collate examples of best practice and emerging learning. A large amount of the team’s focus and organisational attention has been on formal debriefing of incidents, with 48 completed to date, compared to seven being completed in the year before the team was formed.

This year we have further improved our arrangements to protect children and vulnerable adults, reflecting the increase in activities we undertake in this area. Updated safeguarding training has been provided to all staff using an online e-learning package. Combined with previous work in this area, we believe these measures will continue to improve both our processes and improve the service we provide and safeguard any vulnerable individuals we come into contact with. The Authority is required to undertake regular operational exercises against key current risks and threats in Kent and Medway. In 2018/19 a three year training and exercise plan was developed to co-ordinate these Service-level exercises. A large-scale, unannounced exercise was held at Service headquarters in December 2018. This allowed us to test our procedures, ensuring a cohesive response whilst being able to maintain our front line emergency response and critical support functions.

With the policy framework a number of documents have been updated and the driving-related service orders have been extensively reviewed and amalgamated into a single new service order. There are strong arrangements in place for planning, monitoring and reporting operational plans and targets. There has been a consistently higher level of fire activity over the past three years, which can be attributed to outdoor fires as a result of prolonged dry weather. As a result, performance against 
the fire indicators was higher than target. The exception to this however was accidental dwelling fires, which at 522 for 2018/19 is the lowest level ever recorded. Our response time to life-threatening incidents has not changed significantly compared to previous years, although they remain slightly below the levels we would like to achieve. Road traffic collisions and the number of people who die or suffer life-changing injuries as a result, is a priority area for us and our partners. 

Partnership working is a key feature of how the Service operates. We have worked hard to develop strong and lasting working relationships with Kent Police, SECAmb, other fire and rescue services, local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, and many other agencies. These are partnerships that are delivering real improvements to our customers throughout Kent and Medway, as evident in the increasing number of life-threatening medical emergencies we respond to and the safe and well visits we undertake.