Read how we are going to keep Lancashire safer over the next 5 years

Lancashire is an area in the Northwest of England neighbouring five counties; Cumbria, Greater Manchester, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Merseyside. Lancashire comprises twelve districts within the Lancashire County Council area, and two unitary authorities in Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool.

The county consists of urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and countryside locations covering 3076 square kilometres of land with 123 kilometres of coastline.

Mid-2019 population figures show that Lancashire has a population of 1,508,869 people. Since the 2011 census, the population has grown by 3.3% with a rise of 0.8% between 2018 and 2019.

Lancashire is home to some of the most deprived areas in the country, as calculated by the indices of multiple deprivation (IMD), which can lead to increased risk in communities:

• The largest ethnic group was white (90%)*. The black and minority ethnic (BME) group formed 10% of the population. Numerically, there were almost 141,000 black and minority ethnic people living in Lancashire.

• The over 65 age group saw a higher annual growth rate, 1.58%, than the 0-17s (0.6%) and 18-64 (0.5%).

• Average life expectancy for males is 78.5 and for females is 82.2 years old.

• The 2018 fuel poverty statistics indicate that 12.6% of households were fuel poor compared to the national average of 10.3%.

• 13.2 %* of all Lancashire’s households were occupied by one-person living alone aged 65 and over. In total, 16.9% of all households in Fylde had one person in this age-group, which was the 12th highest rate in England and Wales.

The Lancashire Combined Fire Authority (CFA) is responsible for leading and supporting Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service. The CFA has a membership of 25 elected councillors consisting of 19 from Lancashire County Council, three from Blackburn with Darwen Council and three from Blackpool Council. Under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 the CFA is legally required to enforce fire safety legislation and to reduce the risk of fire causing death, severe injury and property related losses to the community. It must also make provision for rescuing people in the event of road traffic collisions and for protecting people from serious harm arising from road traffic collisions in the Lancashire area.

The CFA is legally responsible for the enforcement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 which is applicable across England and Wales. This Order places the responsibility on individuals within an organisation to carry out risk assessments to identify, manage and reduce the risk of fire within public and commercial buildings.

The CFA governs Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, which is a designated Category 1 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. This Act requires emergency responders in England and Wales to co-operate in maintaining a public community risk register which is a product of the Lancashire Resilience Forum (LRF). The LRF gives responders the opportunity to consult, collaborate and share information with each other to facilitate planning and response to emergencies.

The CFA meets five times a year with five sub committees, which report back to the Authority, meeting separately throughout the year. The CFA makes key strategic decisions including setting the Council Tax precept, approving the budget requirement and reviewing items referred for a decision by a sub-committee.

Our aim is to make Lancashire safer. It’s what we are here for: making Lancashire safer is our commitment to making sure that everything we do improves the safety of our diverse communities.

Our priorities are the areas we focus our activities and resources on. They are what we deem important to helping us achieve our aim of making Lancashire Safer and are further developed every year into specific actions which are set out in our Annual Service Plan:

• Valuing our people so they can focus on making Lancashire safer

• Preventing fires and other emergencies from happening

• Protecting people and properties when fires happen

• Responding to fires and other emergencies quickly and competently

• Delivering value for money in how we use our resources

Our values are the qualities that we believe are the most important to us and describe the expectations the public have of us and that we have of each other. We use them every day to influence how we work to achieve our priorities and guide the professional behaviours we expect of our staff. We strive to make Lancashire safer in a way that is guided by strong principles of:

• Service – Making Lancashire safer is the most important thing we do.

• Trust – We trust the people we work with

• Respect – We respect each other.

• Integrity – We do what we say we will do.

• Valued – We actively listen to others.

• Empowered – We contribute to decisions and improvements

Our Service values are supported by the national Core Code of Ethics for Fire and Rescue Services in England. The code sets out five ethical principles, which provide a basis for promoting good behaviour and challenging inappropriate behaviour.

Putting our communities first – We put the interests of the public, the community and service users first.

Integrity – We act with integrity including being open, honest and consistent in everything we do.

Dignity and respect – Making decisions objectively based on evidence, without discrimination or bias.

Leadership – We are all positive role models, always demonstrating flexibility and resilient leadership. We are all accountable for everything we do and challenge all behaviour that falls short of the highest standards.

Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) – We continually recognise and promote the value of EDI both within Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service and the wider communities in which we serve. We stand against all forms of discrimination, create equal opportunities, promote equality, foster good relations and celebrate difference.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service takes a collaborative and proactive approach to planning to ensure we are well positioned to respond positively to future challenges and evolve in a way that reflects the changing risk and demand in our communities.

We are dedicated to continuous learning, locally and from across the sector, to shape our development and improve the quality of our services.

National Change

National change is influenced by political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal and organisational factors. The key contributors driving national change include the Home Office, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), HMICFRS, the Fire Standards Board, inquests and regulations. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service will continue to engage with stakeholders and lead improvements and innovation in our sector.

Local Change

The Service continues to adapt how we deliver our services and mitigate the risks brought about by local change. We regularly assess our immediate environment through intelligence driven reporting and working collaboratively with local stakeholders, for example community safety partnerships and the Lancashire Resilience Forum. Our resources are managed at a local level based on emerging threats and trends enabling us to adapt to changes within the built environment, new road infrastructures or the development of commercial enterprises for example.

Collaboration And Partnerships

The Policing and Crime Act 2017 places a legal duty on blue light services to collaborate efficiently and effectively. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service has a strong history of working with others to make a real difference in local communities and will continue to explore opportunities to improve services for the people of Lancashire along with our blue light partners.

All collaborative work will be evaluated to ensure the anticipated benefits are fully realised through our established Blue Light Collaboration Board.

Demand Change

Demand changes and risk factors can be seen in more detail in our Strategic Assessment of Risk which underpins this plan.

We anticipate that we will see an increase in emergency response between 2022 and 2027 including the impacts of climate change, leading to increased levels of wildfire and flooding related emergencies . This is based on the incident types that we currently respond to, however national and local change may influence our future response arrangements. We will continue to evaluate incident volume and type to ensure our prevention, protection and response activities are resourced to risk.

We will set out a 5 Year Delivery Plan through our Climate Change Operations Plan which will look at preparing and responding to future effects of climate change.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is committed to valuing and understanding diversity within our communities and enabling our workforce to meet their needs through inclusive services.

Serving Our Diverse Communities

Making Lancashire safer requires us to work with our diverse communities to deliver services that further reduce fires and other emergencies from happening; as well as identifying and raising safeguarding issues, preventing extremism, and being able to identify, and refer appropriately, potential signs of human trafficking and modern slavery etc. By understanding the needs of people

from different backgrounds we can support them most effectively and in ways that make a difference. Ensuring our workforce represents our communities enriches both our understanding and offering to those we serve.

We have set ourselves the following equality objectives in relation to how we work with communities:

• Reduce the number and impact of fires and other emergencies on our diverse communities across Lancashire.

• Develop and deliver a prevention service targeting our most vulnerable communities.

• Support local businesses to reduce the risk of fire and remain compliant within fire safety legislation.

Our Diverse Workforce

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service recognises that a modern fire and rescue service needs to fully reflect the communities it serves, so we aim to recruit people of different backgrounds, knowledge, skills and experience.

The more our staff represent the communities we serve, the more we understand their needs, concerns, and risks, keeping them safe.

We positively strive to be an inclusive service, taking deliberate action to create an environment where everyone feels respected and able to achieve their full potential.

We aim to achieve this by:

• Identifying and using good practice identified and promulgated through the NFCC’s EDI strategy.

• Using our EDI steering group to ensure that EDI is at the centre of everything we do.

• Engaging with employee voice sub-groups; race and religion, women and families, LGBT+ and other under-represented groups to seek

• feedback to inform policy development and decision making.

• Consulting with existing staff, community members and blue light partners to identify what is seen as barriers to recruitment and progression.

• Undertaking positive action with universities and colleges to directly engage with members of under-represented groups and promote the fire and rescue service as a career of choice.

• Engaging with and educating community members and representatives about employment opportunities within the service.

• Engaging with and educating our existing workforce about the benefits of having diversity within the service and the need for positive action.

• Delivering targeted recruitment campaigns.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service will continue to progress apprenticeship opportunities in line with the Public Sector Apprenticeship Targets (Amendment) Regulations 2021. This stipulates the proportion of workforces that apprentices should represent each year.

Since 2019 the service has been registered as an ‘employer provider’ for level three operational firefighter apprenticeships. We will look to maintain this status over the duration of the CRMP and continue to deliver and develop our offering while working towards an outstanding OFSTED rating.

We also commit to providing wider apprenticeship opportunities within non-operational roles as we believe offering development packages to new and existing staff benefits individuals and subsequently our organisation.

Our STRIVE values help to communicate our standards and promote an inclusive working environment where everyone can feel valued and respected, without fear of bullying, discrimination or harassment. We aim to give people equal and fair opportunities to fulfil their potential and do this by engaging and consulting with them in a variety of ways, including through our employee voice groups, to understand what it is like to work for us and how we can make improvements. Our organisational development plan sets out our approach to developing our staff and leaders, ensuring they have the required skills and competencies to meet challenges now and in the future.

We have set ourselves the following equality objectives in relation to our workforce:

1. Promote equality in our workforce policies and practices.

2. Develop our staff to ensure they can respond competently meeting the unique needs of our diverse communities.

We use equality impact assessments to ensure that we are aware of the full impact of our policies and decisions on our staff and our communities, and our activity is monitored through our EDI steering group and reported to the CFA in an annual report.

To enable the Service to operate efficiently and effectively in the short and medium to long term, we apply a wide range of planning tools for corporate, financial and people management:

• The CRMP is our medium-term plan and covers what we aim to deliver as a fire and rescue service.

• Our Annual Service Plan is a short-term plan that covers the activity we aim to deliver within a 12-month period linked to emerging risk and the CRMP deliverables.

• The People Strategy aims to maintain staffing levels enabling us to deliver a service in line with legislation as detailed below.

• Our Financial Strategy is a short to medium term plan that enables us to effectively distribute our financial resources efficiently.

• The Annual Service Report is an end of term report that provides a detailed account of how we have performed against the objectives set out in the Annual Service Plan.

The legislation that we consider within our planning process and must be adhered to is:

The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 explains how we; respond to fires and other emergencies; prevent fires and other emergencies (home and community safety); protect (commercial and public building) and educate and inform the public.

The Fire and Rescue Service (Emergencies) (England) Order 2007 places a duty on fire and rescue services (in England) to have the capability to remove chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive contaminants from people at an emergency. There is also a duty to contain water used for decontamination for a reasonable time. Fire and rescue services must take steps to prevent or limit environmental damage when decontaminating people.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 explains how we work with other agencies to deal with emergencies.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to all premises other than single private dwellings and places expectations on responsible persons to keep people in and around their premises safe from the risk of fire. The Fire Safety Act 2021 has clarified that the Order now includes the external wall systems and dwelling front doors in multi-occupied residential buildings. In 2022 fire safety legislation will be further strengthened with the introduction of the Building Safety Bill regulating both new and existing High Risk Residential Buildings (HRRBs).

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in Great Britain. It sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, to themselves and to each other.

The Fire and Rescue National Framework 2018 explains how we; identify and assess risk in Lancashire; prevent fire and other emergencies and protect buildings and people; respond to emergency incidents; collaborate with other organisations; put in place business continuity arrangements so we can deliver our services even when faced with an emergency like the pandemic; and provide national resilience when major incidents happen anywhere in the country.

The national framework places a statutory duty on all fire and rescue services to produce and deliver a Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP). The plan must cover at least a three-year time span and be reviewed and revised as often as is necessary to ensure that the authority is able to deliver the requirements.

Corporate planning at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service follows a rigorous yet flexible process that permits the organisation to assess and respond to opportunities and threats. The process must allow for adjustments as the environment in which it operates evolves.

The planning framework sets out the various sources of information which inform the planning process and the inter-dependencies between the various elements of planning strategy.

Risk management is the process of identifying, assessing and responding to risks that occur in the day- to-day management of the fire and rescue service. We will attempt to eliminate risk completely; this may not always be possible. Our aim is then to introduce further control measures to reduce risks that may be harmful to our staff, our communities, our reputation and our objectives.

To enable risk to be managed effectively, the nature of the risk must first be identified. This is done by reviewing the Service’s strategic, operational, departmental and project objectives, considering both external and internal factors that influence these and identifying all significant risks which could impact upon them. The basis of risk identification within the service is PESTELO analysis which is accompanied by the Strategic Assessment of Risk.

Risk in Lancashire will always remain dynamic: it changes over time, differs by area and demographic, and needs different interventions to reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring or to lessen its consequences. We identify these risks in our Strategic Assessment of Risk which is refreshed annually and informed by the Lancashire Resilience Forum’s Community Risk Register. Through our risk management framework, we continually assess changing risk and prioritise our response framework.

Risk is calculated and assessed in several ways.

Lancashire is split into small geographic areas that are known as Lower-Level Super Output Areas (LLSOA). These each contain between 1,000 and 3,000 people and there are currently 941 of these within the county. The formula produces a risk grading of low, medium, high and very high which in turn underpins the performance criteria within our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The full range of our operational activity has also been assessed, scored and ranked through the Strategic Assessment of Risk.

The wider impacts, consequences and likelihood of these incidents underpin this assessment.

Risk Outcomes

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s data driven identification and assessment of risk has brought to the fore the incident types that present the greatest risks to the communities and people of Lancashire, in our Strategic Assessment of Risk (SAoR).

When an event does occur, we commit to be prepared to respond and minimise the impact caused. Through this assessment of risk, we have identified all the incident types that we are likely to encounter. Our highest risk activities have been identified and our responses, both proactive and reactive, are outlined in this document.

Our commitment to you is that we will continue to carry out a significant amount of proactive work to prevent adverse events from happening and as a result, reduce the risk to communities and our workforce.

Wide area and localised flooding can devastate parts of the community and leave an impression for years beyond an event. Water related incidents also tragically account for a number of deaths in Lancashire each year and can incur considerable economic loss. Below are some of the measures we have in place:

Proactive

• Maintain wading response capability, equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) across all operational stations.

• Maintain swift water rescue, flood rescue technicians and boat capability at strategic locations.

• Maintain DEFRA boat capability.

• Provide flood water incident managers (FWIMs).

• Maintain our high-volume pump and hose layer capability.

• Continue working with partners to develop multi-agency flood plans and rapid catchment flood area response plans.

• Continue to work collaboratively with key partners for training and equipment provision.

• Water safety boards (information, advice and guidance) positioned at prominent water risk sites.

• Education packages offered to all secondary schools.

• Targeted and intelligence led water safety campaigns delivered.

• Continue to engage with local businesses within high-risk flood areas to provide guidance and ensure fire safety measures are considered in business continuity planning.

Reactive

• Deploy specialist water rescue resources to assist in the rescue and evacuation of those affected by flooding.

• Deploy high-volume pumps and hose layer to mitigate the impact of flooding.

• Utilise drone assets for reconnaissance and situational awareness during wide area flooding.

• Provide flood water incident managers (FWIMs).

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Work with partner agencies during the emergency and recovery phase.

• Targeted prevention activities post incident.

• Work with partner agencies during the emergency and recovery phase.

Wildfires can quickly escalate and spread across large areas, causing major disruption to life, environment, property and infrastructure.

Proactive

• Maintain our initial wildfire response capability across all operational stations.

• Maintain specialist wildfire response teams at strategic locations.

• Maintain 4×4 and all-terrain vehicles and associated equipment provision and skills.

• Maintain our specialist wildfire burn team.

• Continue to develop our national wildfire tactical advisors through local, national and international support.

• Continue to develop our internal provision of wildfire tactical advisors.

• Engage with partners and land and property owners to inform, educate, and subsequently mitigate the impact wildfire has on communities through the national Firewise initiative.

• Continue to use intelligence to inform campaign activity

Reactive

• Deploy specialist wildfire resources to assist in the management of wildfire incidents.

• Deploy wildfire tactical advisors to assist in the co-ordination of wildfire incidents.

• Utilise drone assets for reconnaissance and situational awareness during wildfire incidents.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Work with partner agencies during the emergency and recovery phase.

• Effective investigatory work into the cause of fire which subsequently feeds into national wildfire databases.

• Targeted prevention activities post incident.

• Utilise or support existing mutual aid arrangements.

• Provide business support to ensure safe re-opening of businesses during and post wildfire events.

Each year, we experience accidental fires in people’s homes that can have a devastating effect to those who are involved and can cause significant injury and even death.

Proactive

• Maintain a community safety module for all operational staff.

• Continue to train and assess operational competence.

• Continue to deliver externally accredited breathing apparatus, compartment fire behaviour and positive pressure ventilation trainer instruction qualifications

• Continue to deliver fire investigation training.

• Continue to innovate and review fleet and equipment to meet the emerging needs of the built environment and to enhance firefighter safety.

• Continue to deliver a wide range of prevention packages across educational settings and identified high risk groups.

• Continue to deliver intelligence led campaigns to increase awareness and knowledge amongst owners, responsible persons and residents.

• Continue to offer business support to owners/responsible persons in relation to fire safety compliance.

• Continue to collaborate with other regulatory bodies through shared training and intelligence.

• Continue to provide trained and competent inspectors who inspect premises such as Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) in line with the relevant competency framework.

Reactive

• Respond to dwelling fires within the criteria of our key performance indicator.

• Respond to dwelling fires in a manner that minimises the impact on life, the environment and infrastructure.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP)

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Targeted prevention activities post incident.

• Continue to support those affected by dwelling fires with the Fire and Emergency Support Service (FESS).

• Continue to support operational incidents to ensure fire safety compliance.

• Continue to enforce on non-compliance of fire safety legislation.

• Continue to work collaboratively to investigate the cause of fire.

Each year, we experience deliberate fires in buildings that can affect those who are involved and the local community and cause severe injury and even death.

Proactive

• Continue to train and assess operational competence.

• Continue to deliver externally accredited breathing apparatus, compartment fire behaviour, and positive pressure ventilation trainer instructor qualifications.

• Continue to deliver fire investigation training for both operational staff and specialist fire investigation officers.

• Continue to innovate and review fleet and equipment to meet the emerging needs of the built environment to enhance firefighter safety.

• Continue to deliver a wide range of prevention packages across educational settings and identified high risk groups.

• Continue to deliver intelligence led campaigns to increase awareness and knowledge amongst owners, responsible persons and residents.

• Continue to collaborate with partners (e.g. the police) to identify those at risk of arson and provide preventative advice and measures to protect against arson.

• Continue to conduct arson vulnerability assessments on commercial properties to reduce the threat and impact of deliberate fire setting.

• Continue to offer business support to owners/responsible persons in relation to fire safety compliance.

• Continue to provide trained and competent inspectors who inspect in line with the relevant competency framework. 

Reactive

• Continue to provide intervention activities to adult and child fire setters.

• Investigate in collaboration with Lancashire Constabulary to establish the cause of fire and provide evidence that leads to successful prosecutions.

• Respond to deliberate fires within the criteria of our key performance indicator.

• Respond to deliberate fires in a manner that minimises the impact on life, the environment and infrastructure.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Targeted prevention activities post incident.

• Continue to support those affected with the Emergency Support Service (FESS).

• Continue to support operational incidents to ensure fire safety compliance.

• Continue to enforce on non-compliance of fire safety legislation.

Death and serious injuries on Lancashire’s roads because of road traffic collisions (RTCs) and road vehicle fires occur each year. They can also affect infrastructure, communities, the environment and visitors to the county.

Proactive

• Maintain a response capability across all operational stations through ongoing training and the development and provision of equipment and PPE.

• Maintain our urban search and rescue and heavy rescue capability.

• Maintain our major rescue unit provision.

• Continue to deliver externally accredited road traffic collision instructor qualifications.

• Continue to deliver clinically governed trauma training.

• Continue to be an active member within the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership.

• Continue to deliver a wide range of prevention packages across educational settings and identified high risk groups.

• Continue to use intelligence to inform campaign activity. 

Reactive

• Respond to RTCs and vehicle fires in a manner that minimises the impact on life, the environment and infrastructure.

• Respond to RTCs and vehicle fires within the criteria of our key performance indicator.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Targeted prevention activities post incident.

Incidents involving collapsed structures can often be life threatening to those involved, pose significant hazards to responding agencies and can cause disruption within local communities.

Proactive

• Maintain urban search and rescue and confined space response capability.

• Maintain technical rope rescue capability.

• Maintain canine response capability to enhance our search function.

• Ongoing collaborative training with neighbouring urban search and rescue teams and other specialist response partners (e.g. ambulance hazardous area response teams).

• Maintain national resilience urban search and rescue training in line with national concept of operations. 

Reactive

• Deploy appropriate resources to meet the needs of an incident, both locally and nationally.

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

Hazardous materials can present a risk to the public from a range of sources including road transport, industrial sites and malicious use by terrorist or organised criminal groups.

Proactive

• Maintain a response capability across all operational stations through ongoing training and development and provision of equipment and PPE.

• Maintain our hazardous materials unit capability through regular and ongoing training.

• Continue to develop our specialist, internal hazardous materials and environmental protection officers.

• Continue to collaborate with appropriate partners to mitigate the impact hazardous materials have on people, property and the environment.

• Continue to share intelligence gathered during inspections to assist in operational pre-planning.

• Continue our collaborative training with neighbouring fire and rescue services and other specialist response partners (e.g. ambulance hazardous area response teams).

• Continue to undertake training provided by specialist or scientific organisations. 

Reactive

• Deploy appropriate resources to meet the needs of an incident, both locally and nationally.

• Respond to hazardous materials incidents in a manner that minimises the impact on life, the environment and infrastructure.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Continue to seek advice during and after operational incidents from specialist or scientific organisations.

• Continue to report health and safety concerns to the appropriate regulatory bodies.

With a large rural area within the county, we are inevitably called to incidents where animals are in distress, and where people often put themselves at risk.

Proactive

• Maintain large animal rescue capability at strategic locations.

• Continue to work collaboratively with key partners for training and equipment provision

• Maintain technical rope rescue capability.

• Continue to develop our specialist, internal large animal rescue instructors through attendance on externally provided courses

Reactive

• Deploy large animal rescue resources to assist in the rescue and evacuation of trapped animals.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service carries out a number of activities to support other agencies, such as gaining entry to properties where there’s a medical emergency and searching for missing people.

Proactive

• Continue to provide specialist equipment and training that supports operational staff when attending gaining entry incidents.

• Maintain canine response capability to enhance our search function.

• Continue to deliver missing persons training to operational staff to assist in searches.

• Continue to develop our internal group of national inter-agency liaison officers.

• Continue to develop and deliver a safe and well package which addresses wider health challenges (e.g. falls) and refer those at risk to partner agencies.

• Respond appropriately to complaints regarding fire safety compliance.

• Continue to collaborate with other regulatory bodies through shared training and intelligence. 

Reactive

• Respond to requests for assistance from other agencies.

• Continually assess and review the appropriateness of the assistance we provide to other agencies.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Utilise drone assets for reconnaissance and situational awareness whilst providing operational support to other agencies.

When under construction buildings are more susceptible to fires which can have a damaging effect on people, infrastructure and local communities.

Proactive

• Continue to train and assess operational competence.

• Continue to innovate and review fleet and equipment to meet the emerging needs of the built environment to enhance firefighter safety.

• Continue to conduct arson vulnerability assessments on commercial properties to reduce the threat and impact of deliberate fire setting.

• Continue to offer business support to owners/responsible persons in relation to fire safety compliance.

• Continue to collaborate with other regulatory bodies through shared training and intelligence.

• Continue to provide trained and competent inspectors who inspect in line with the relevant competency framework.

• Fire protection teams to apply the SiteSafe scheme for timber framed buildings.

• Fire protection teams to undertake planning, licensing and building regulation consultations 

Reactive

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Targeted prevention activities post incident.

• Continue to support operational incidents to ensure fire safety compliance.

• Continue to enforce on non-compliance of fire safety legislation.

• Continue to work collaboratively to investigate the cause of fire.

Fires at waste disposal sites can have a significant impact on local communities, residents’ health, infrastructure and the environment.

Proactive

• Continue to collaborate with appropriate partners, particularly the Environment Agency, to mitigate the impact waste fires have on people, property and the environment.

• Maintain a waste fire tactical advisor role within the service. This role sits under national resilience and the NFCC waste group.

• Continue to share intelligence gathered during inspections to assist in operational pre-planning.

• Collaborate with the Environment Agency providing specialist advice to support them in developing fire prevention plans and issuing permits.

• Develop the waste fire tactical advisor role through continued professional development (CPD) events and shared learning.

Reactive

• Deploy appropriate resources to meet the needs of an incident, both locally and nationally.

• Respond to hazardous materials incidents in a manner that minimises the impact on life the environment and infrastructure.

• Support the Environment Agency in enforcement where breaches of permits have been identified because of attendance at incidents.

• Maintain a national resilience role in attending incidents within Lancashire and other areas to support incident commanders at waste fire incidents.

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

High-rise property incidents have the potential for severe injury and loss of life and pose significant hazards to responding agencies. Local communities, infrastructure and the economy can also be adversely affected.

Proactive

• Train at specialist facilities utilising collaboration opportunities.

• Continue to innovate and review fleet and equipment to meet the emerging needs of the built environment to enhance firefighter safety.

• Continue to offer business support to owners/responsible persons in relation to fire safety compliance.

• Continue to use data to target our inspection activity to the highest risk premises.

• Continue to deliver intelligence led campaigns to increase awareness and knowledge amongst owners, responsible persons and residents.

• Continue to collaborate with other regulatory bodies through shared training and intelligence.

• Continue to provide trained and competent inspectors who inspect in line with the relevant competency framework. 

Reactive

• Deploy appropriate resources to meet the needs of an incident.

• Targeted prevention activities post incident

• Continue to work effectively and efficiently in a collaborative way with other responding agencies utilising Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

• Utilise drone assets for effective situational awareness and to support fire investigation.

• Use assurance monitoring system to gather service-wide and multi-agency learning post incident.

• Report areas of notable practice or learning via national or collaborative bodies (national operational learning and joint organisational learning).

• Continue to enforce on non-compliance of fire safety legislation.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service has six core strategies: our People, Prevention, Protection, Response, Financial and Digital Strategies. Our prevention, protection and response activities address the fire and rescue related risks that are identified in those strategies and outline the measures in place and actions we take to make Lancashire safer.

Each strategy is periodically reviewed and evaluated to ensure we are delivering against our outlined objectives and are doing so in the most efficient and effective way. Wherever necessary, changes will be made within each strategy to ensure we operate in line with our aim, priorities and values.

People Strategy

We employ in the region of 1200 staff, with most employed in an operational capacity. As an employer our aim is to have a workforce that is professional, flexible, highly skilled and diverse. Our workforce plan identifies the strategic challenges faced by our staff and the actions we undertake to meet those challenges, ensuring we have the right number of employees with the right skills, qualifications and competencies now and in the future. We continue to improve the diversity of our workforce and our recruitment targets are supported by the delivery of positive attraction and retention activity, aimed at recruiting a workforce which is best able to meet the needs of residents and mitigate the risks they face.

We invest in the training and development of our staff and the leaders within our organisation, ensuring we have a workforce that can meet the challenges of a dynamic operating environment, and leaders who can deliver highly performing teams where all members of staff feel valued and are given the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Since 2019 the service has been registered as an ‘employer provider’ for level three operational firefighter apprenticeships. We will look to maintain this status over the duration of the CRMP and continue to deliver and develop our offering while working towards an outstanding OFSTED rating.

We also commit to providing wider apprenticeship opportunities within non-operational roles as we believe offering development packages to new and existing staff benefits individuals and subsequently our organisation.

We are committed to safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our staff, creating a resilient workforce which can respond positively and effectively to diverse types of emergencies.

Prevention Strategy

We will build on learning acquired during the pandemic and develop new innovative ways to deliver our community safety activities

• Continue to develop our operational and community safety staff in the field of fire safety regulation and hazards in the built environment, to increase the effectiveness of our business fire safety checks, risk intelligence and referrals to fire protection.

• Seek to build on learning acquired during the pandemic and develop new and innovative ways to deliver our community safety activities, ensuring the focus remains on engaging our target groups and delivering effective outcomes.

• Continue to refine our Home Fire Safety Check and Safe and Well service in line with evolving national guidance to ensure the offer remains person centred, and risk is evaluated in a manner that reflects best practice.

• Refine and expand our preferred partner register to ensure we work with a range of organisations whose service users’ needs align to recognised fire risk factors.

• Identify and review opportunities for sharing data and risk intelligence with organisations who work with people who are at significant risk from fire.

• Seek to strengthen our links with Lancashire’s telecare providers to collectively build and operate a domestic automatic fire alarm policy.

• Continue to act as an enabler and work with partners to reduce water risk.

• Continue to refine our core education offer and develop new products and delivery methods where the data and evidence demonstrates this is needed to help keep young people safe.

• Continue to deliver the Team programme on behalf of the Prince’s Trust ensuring recruitment focusses on those who will benefit the most and community projects are aligned to mitigation of local risks.

• Explore and enable the establishment of a Lancashire Water Safety Partnership.

• Continue to develop our cadet offer in line with national guidance and expand the locations on offer in line with risk and resources.

• Ensure the investigation of crime scenes involving fire conforms to evolving regulatory requirements.

• Continue to develop how we gather and use incident intelligence to refine our prevention and campaign approaches.

Protection Strategy

In line with identified risks, our protection strategy focuses on the following key areas:

• Continue to develop strategic collaborations to raise fire safety awareness and improve fire safety standards in premises before inspections are undertaken.

• Use local, regional and national intelligence and learning to continually evolve and refine our protection services.

• Seek to build on the learning acquired during the pandemic and create new and innovative ways to deliver protection services, adopting digital approaches where appropriate.

• Contribute to the continual improvement of fire protection activities coordinated through the NFCC community risk programme and seek to refine our risk-based inspection programme in line with emerging national guidance.

• Review fire protection delivery arrangements to ensure inspection and consultation resources are aligned to risk and working practices are efficient and effective.

• Review fire engine attendance policy to automatic fire alarms and the associated unwanted fire signals policy.

• Continue to adopt the NFCC competency framework for fire safety regulators.

• Complete the improvement actions required by virtue of the Grenfell Inquiry.

• Continue to develop strategic collaborations to raise fire safety awareness and improve fire safety standards in premises before inspections are undertaken.

• Use local, regional and national intelligence and learning to continually evolve and refine our protection services.

• Seek to build on the learning acquired during the pandemic and create new and innovative ways to deliver protection services, adopting digital approaches where appropriate.

Response Strategy

• Ensuring that the service has sufficient and proportionate emergency response arrangements available to respond to and manage a wide range of risks and threats, delivered through a range of local, regional and national delivery models.

• Enabling the service to achieve its priorities: preventing, protecting, responding, valuing our people and delivering value for money. Our STRIVE values are the foundation of everything we achieve.

• Supporting the creation of a positive, inclusive culture that encourages innovation and perpetual improvement. Enabling us to give the best services to our communities and be the best fire and rescue service in the UK.

• Our response strategy has been written to translate the framework of expectations laid out in relevant legislation, guidance documents and national reports into appropriate action as well as considering this plan and the three pillars of the HMICFRS inspection framework: efficiency, effectiveness and people.

• Constantly reviewing our approach to providing and deploying resources to ensure they remain flexible. Where possible, seeking to improve our response capabilities to deal with the wide range of foreseeable emergencies and risks faced by the service in an ever-evolving landscape, mitigating demand and risk.

• Continuing to prioritise this statutory requirement, ensuring that our firefighters are provided with the best training, facilities, appliances and equipment to ensure they remain as effective and efficient as possible while remaining focussed on their health, safety and wellbeing.

Our Financial Strategy

Due to economic uncertainty, an anticipated multi-year settlement was again postponed, hence the Local Government Finance Settlement only covers 2023-23. Similarly, the Fair Funding Review, which looked to reassess the methodology under which funding was allocated to individual authorities, and the implementation of a revised Business Rates Retention Scheme, have both been put on hold for at least a further 12 months.

The lack of a multi-year settlement makes longer term planning more difficult as there can be no certainty around future funding forecasts. Offsetting this is the opportunity provided by the £5 council tax flexibility allowed in 2022-23. Raising council tax by this amount provides an opportunity to address some of the capacity, resilience and pay issues within support functions, supporting the delivery of further efficiencies. As this increase sets a new council tax base for future years it provides greater long term funding certainty, which eases longer term budget pressures and forms the basis of future investment requirements, as set out in our £47m capital programme. These investments are essential if we are to achieve our ambition to be outstanding in all that we do by being the best trained, best equipped, best accommodated and most professional fire and rescue service in the country.

Our Digital Strategy

• Our Digital Strategy sets out a framework of how we will progress that agenda together with setting out some of the external influences there are that we need to consider.

• These include our active engagement in digital and data workstreams that are underway in the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) and which are attempting to standardise data and technology approaches within FRS across the country. This will ensure best practice and best value to the communities that we serve.

• In addition, we will consider best practice guidelines from central government together with other partner agency collaborations wherever possible.

• We will also look to align ourselves with established and accepted best practices and working patterns from across the technology sector.

• The underpinning focus throughout our digital journey will be on maximising the effectiveness and efficiency of our workforce to ensure the best possible service and levels of engagement for our communities.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service aims to allocate resources to risk, providing the most effective and efficient service and value for money to the people of Lancashire. Our offering is based around prevention, protection and response arrangements which are all tailored to current and emerging risks and applied proportionately to maintain risk at levels that are as low as reasonably practicable.

We aim to primarily prevent fires and other emergencies from happening. We allocate resources through our prevention and protection teams, supported by operational crews and partner agencies to educate inform and advise our diverse communities.

When incidents occur, we operate a range of operational crewing systems both wholetime and on-call. This allows us to allocate resources effectively based on the risk associated with geographical areas within Lancashire. To maintain a highly trained operational provision we are supported by our service training centre, which incorporates specialist training facilities and highly skilled and accredited instructors.

To effectively serve Lancashire and support national resilience, our trained staff utilise specialist vehicles, skills and equipment to respond to the risks we face.

Over recent years Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service has invested in developing our capabilities to respond to  the ever-changing challenges we face in our risk environment. We have invested in, and built upon, our capability to respond to emerging climate change related incident types such as flooding and wildfire and developed a multi-agency drone capability and canine provision. We have continued to develop our existing offerings and specialist skills such as urban search and rescue (USAR), our specialist rope rescue team (RRT). A full breakdown of our assets and equipment can be found in our Response Strategy.

To supplement our response, we also work collaboratively with partners for support from specialist organisations such as the Environment Agency, United Utilities, Mountain Rescue and Bay Search and Rescue along with a host of National Resilience assets.

To support operations at larger incidents our flexible duty officers (FDOs) provide 24/7 cover across the county. They are also trained with a range of specialist skills to enhance our front-line capabilities and offer tactical and strategic support across a wide range of incidents such as wildfire, flooding and water, hazardous materials and environmental protection and waste fires. We also have trained National Inter-agency Liaison Officer (NILOs) who work with and co-ordinate multi agency responses.

• Administration and contact centre

• Corporate programme and intelligence

• Corporate communications

• Digital transformation

• Finance

• Fleet and engineering services

• Human resources

• Information and communications technology

• Occupational health

• Prevention, The Prince’s Trust and youth engagement

• Procurement

• Property

• Protection delivery and support

• Response and emergency planning

• Safety, health and environment

• Stores

As a forward-thinking organisation, we commit to continue to invest in our fleet, equipment and people to mitigate the risks within Lancashire and to keep our staff and the people of Lancashire safe.

To promote improvements in organisational efficiency and effectiveness, we have established an improvement and innovation department. Its objectives include organisational assurance, which actively monitors holistic service performance around preparedness, response and learning.

This department is a key driver in delivering organisational change through collective learning, both from an internal perspective and from a national viewpoint, ensuring that we remain abreast of current or topical issues that affect our ability to provide an efficient and effective service.

In terms of innovation, we will identify items of transformational change and notable practice that have been delivered through the pandemic and establish opportunities to further utilise this learning and innovation in other parts of the Service.

Additionally, we will explore opportunities and work collaboratively with key stakeholders, both internal and external, to research and develop new ways of working. The team will propagate innovation through the Service wherever possible, for example by establishing ways to utilise technology and digital platforms to improve efficiency and effectiveness, therefore reducing duplication of ineffective or inefficient processes, and identifying solutions to negate or remove them.

To ensure we are effective, efficient and provide value for money, we use a range of targets to measure performance which are scrutinised under our governance arrangements. These are known as key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs are quantifiable measures used to evaluate success in meeting our objectives. They help to monitor and measure our performance and are scrutinised quarterly by the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority, and subsequently published in our Measuring Progress Reports, which are available on our website.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service also uses local indicators to monitor trends and changes in activity and risk, which help us to plan local activities and resource allocation accordingly.

Throughout this CRMP period we commit to constantly review what we do and how we do it, to ensure that we deliver the best possible services to the people of Lancashire. This involves reviewing several key areas within the Service to maintain delivery methods that are effective and efficient, value people and provide value for money. To do this we plan review periods on several deliverables, however they may be evaluated out of planned frequency should the need arise:

• Corporate risk

• Strategic Assessment of Risk

• Collation of risk information

• Emergency cover provision

• Organisational assets

• Collaborative opportunities and partnership working

• Service strategies

Should the findings of any of the above reviews be of significant magnitude, or the environment we operate within change significantly, we will also review this plan to ensure the changes are reflected within our key deliverables.