HMICFRS keeps Devon and Somerset prevention concern open after revisit

by Featured News

HMICFRS revisit keeps prevention concern open

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service has had its prevention cause of concern and all six related recommendations left open after a January 2026 revisit.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) set out that position in a 6 March 2026 letter from Kathryn Stone OBE, His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary and His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services, to Gavin Ellis, Chief Fire Officer, following a revisit between 19 and 21 January 2026.

The cause of concern relates to prevention activity and the service’s need to give greater priority to home safety visits for people most at risk from fire, with clear timescales for different risk levels.

HMICFRS said the service had made progress since its inspection between November and December 2024, when the cause of concern and six recommendations were first identified.

The letter states that the executive board recognises more needs to be done in prevention and that progress since the previous inspection has not been enough to make prevention a sufficiently high priority.

An action plan was submitted on 15 April 2025 and reviewed during the revisit through interviews with senior leaders, managers and staff involved in delivering the actions.

Governance arrangements were found to be in place through monthly professional standards board meetings, further progress reports to the chief fire officer and deputy chief fire officer, and quarterly updates to the community safety committee and the fire and rescue authority.

HMICFRS said the governance process could be stronger because some reports to the fire and rescue authority provided only narrative updates and did not give enough clarity on progress against actions and timescales for closing the recommendations.

The service’s action plan listed 16 actions, with 13 recorded as completed and three recorded as in progress before the revisit.

HMICFRS found that none of the 16 actions had been recorded as closed in the service’s electronic recording tool because the service had not yet completed the assurance needed to close the linked recommendations.

The letter says the service recognises more work is needed to close the recommendations and that it is unclear when that work will be complete.

HMICFRS findings on systems backlogs and prevention activity

HMICFRS said the service had prioritised work by risk and developed a new risk stratification process, yet its prevention management information systems continue to limit how effectively and efficiently staff can work.

The letter says there is strong strategic backing for a new prevention management information system and that the service is confident it can secure funding approval for the 2026/27 financial year.

The digital, data and technology department was found to be working closely with the prevention team to define user requirements for a replacement system.

On referral backlogs, the service reduced the number of people waiting for home fire safety visit appointments after partner referrals.

The letter says 2,051 people were waiting to have appointments booked on 14 November 2025.

The service told inspectors that 1,293 cases were awaiting allocation on 16 January 2026, against its stated aim of keeping between 500 and 1,200 cases awaiting allocation to maintain a continuous flow of appointments for prevention technicians.

New key performance indicators for different home fire safety visit risk categories had been developed at the time of the revisit and had not yet been put in place.

HMICFRS found high completion rates for additional online home fire safety visit training introduced for wholetime and on-call firefighters.

Robust quality assurance arrangements were found for technicians, and the service plans to apply a similar approach to wholetime crews as prevention work is introduced more widely at stations.

A pilot scheme was running at two wholetime stations in which firefighters carried out higher-risk visits, with plans to expand the approach across the remaining ten wholetime stations by 1 April 2026.

Inspectors also identified inaccurate risk labelling in some home fire safety visit referrals, with some high-risk vulnerable people wrongly classified as low risk.

The service has since completed home fire safety visits for those cases and reviewed the data and system issues that led to the errors.

HMICFRS said measures were in place for pilot stations to provide feedback on the scheme and that the service should make sure appropriate systems are in place to consider that feedback before the model is expanded.

HMICFRS says more work is needed before recommendations can close

HMICFRS found good progress on post-incident prevention activity after the service reviewed dwelling fires and home safety activity dating back to January 2024, updated its incident recording system, communicated changes to staff and introduced performance management measures.

Most of that work was carried out in December 2025 and the letter says further supervision and monitoring are needed to evaluate the changes.

The service also completed actions to evaluate home fire safety visits, including a framework for measuring effectiveness and a text message survey for people who received visits.

The evaluation report for September to December 2025 found that 96 percent of respondents, or 506 out of 528, either agreed or strongly agreed that they felt safer in their home.

It found that 71 percent of respondents, or 373 out of 528, made changes in their homes after a visit.

It also found that 91 percent of respondents, or 474 out of 528, were very satisfied with their visit, and a further seven percent, or 39 out of 528, said they were satisfied.

The service told HMICFRS that seven percent of those invited to take part in the survey had provided feedback.

An external advisor also assessed home fire safety processes in a report dated 29 December 2025, covering national data comparisons, visit quality, productivity and post-incident prevention activity, and setting out recommendations for the service to consider alongside its action plan.

HMICFRS said the service had completed a large amount of activity shortly before the revisit and now needs to evaluate those actions, manage and reduce risk for vulnerable people, make sure staff understand and accept the changes and sustain them over time.

The inspectorate said it will return to Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service to assess whether satisfactory progress has been made against the action plan and whether the service provided to the public has improved.

Proposed fire inspector numbers are “gross underestimate” of building safety crisis after Grenfell blaze

by Passive

The UK government expects to fund just a dozen extra staff to inspect and enforce fire safety in more than two million homes after the Grenfell Tower blaze, new analysis reveals, in what’s being termed a “gross underestimate” of the resources needed to tackle the building safety crisis in England.

The revelations have prompted calls from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) for ministers to establish a permanent statutory advisory body for the Fire and Rescue Service, allowing the voices of front line firefighters and inspectors to influence the “dangerously short-term thinking” of Whitehall and to provide a ‘reality check’ before final votes take place on the Fire Safety Bill.

Currently in its committee stage, the Fire Safety Bill would extend responsibility for Fire and Rescue Services to inspect and enforce fire safety in the common parts of all of England’s multi-occupancy buildings, including building structures, external walls, stairs and doors between residences.

The Government doesn’t know how many flats will be covered by the legislation, but a Home Office impact assessment estimate lies between 1,189,200 and 2,198,600. However, there are currently just 951 Fire Safety Officers in England qualified to carry out fire safety audits.

Numbers “should be doubled”

The Government estimates that just £700,000 extra per year will be required for the inspections, a sum of money that would pay for just 12 full-time fire safety inspectors. The maximum estimated spend is £2.1 million, which would pay for just 35 inspectors. This equates to less than one per Fire Brigade in England.

The FBU says that fire inspector numbers should be doubled to seriously tackle the building safety crisis.

The Home Office assessment “does not include any additional enforcement costs” despite clear testimony from tenants’ organisations and housing campaigners alike that fire inspectors are likely to find breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 when they carry out audits.

The Government did not consult the FBU when drafting the bill.

Matt Wrack, general secretary at the FBU, gave evidence in front of the Fire Safety Bill Committee on Thursday 25 June. He criticised cuts to specialist fire safety teams and has called for investment in Fire and Rescue Services.

For most of the post-war era, there was a statutory fire sector body that would oversee policy and legislation, with representation from fire chiefs, fire safety experts and front line personnel through the FBU. The Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council was scrapped back in 2004, “allowing consecutive Governments to pursue a period of significantly reduced oversight and deregulation of building safety”

National disgrace

Wrack said: “Three years after Grenfell, Britain’s fire safety regime remains a national disgrace and politicians are responsible. This legislation is long overdue, but insufficient. The Fire Safety Bill in its current form is a gross underestimate of the realities of the crisis. Without funding a significant increase in fire inspector numbers, this change in the law will not ramp up enforcement on rogue landlords. Ministers need a serious reality check.”

He continued: “At best, the Government is planning to fund less than one extra fire inspector in each Fire and Rescue Service for a massively expanded workload. We should be talking about immediately doubling inspector numbers to make a dent in this crisis. Oversights like this are symptomatic of a system that excludes those most affected from the policy-making process. Better engagement with tenants and firefighters would mean the chances of another disaster like Grenfell could be significantly reduced.”

Wrack concluded: “The Government must finally bring back a statutory fire sector body that represents the views of front line firefighters, fire safety inspectors and tenants. It’s the only way to end the dangerously short-term thinking that prospers in Whitehall.”