Two new Fire Standards have been issued by the Fire Standards Board, covering digital and cyber security and procurement and commercial best practice within the fire and rescue services (FRSs)
Issued on 10 September 2024, the new standards seek to “drive continuous improvement and service delivery” across FRSs in England. With the publication of these two standards, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has announced that the initial suite of standards is complete.
These latest Fire Standards follow consultations with stakeholders and the fire and rescue sector. In particular, the Digital and Cyber Fire Standard offers recommendations and procedures that enable FRSs to use information and communications technology (ICT) safely, effectively, and efficiently. The requirements FRSs ‘must’ do to meet the Fire Standard include maintaining a “continually evolving strategy” for implementing ICT to achieve its organisational objectives, deploying and actively maintaining security toolsets to safeguard sensitive data, and understanding the “reliance the service places on ICT in the delivery of its statutory duties and provide strategic investment that enables sustainable technology service provision”.
“In so doing, FRSs will be able to deliver better prevention, protection, and response services, which will in turn contribute to the safety of communities,” NFCC states.
The Procurement and Commercial Fire Standard considers best practice within FRSs to “ensure that contracts and relationships with suppliers realise value for money (VFM) and result in delivery of high-quality public goods and services that support the environment and the diversity, safety and wellbeing of its people and communities”.
As Chair of the Fire Standards Board, Suzanne McCarthy, explains: “The Board has always been intent on ensuring that Fire Standards are focused on achieving positive outcomes, are consistently applied nationally, and are underpinned by national guidance tools and supporting information.
“Through consultation with FRS subject matter experts and wider stakeholders, we have now published a suite of nineteen meaningful standards that together will support improvement and help reinforce the professionalism of the service. The initial suite of Fire Standards establishes what ‘good’ looks like and continues to be increasingly referenced within the HMICFRS’s inspection framework and inspections.”
Other standards included in the suite cover emergency preparedness and resilience, fire control, fire investigation, operational competence, and safeguarding.
FRSs can also assess how well they meet the standards by using the Implementation Tool, which allows them to build an action plan to identify gaps and work to address them.
The Digital and Cyber Fire Standard is available here.
The Procurement and Commercial Fire Standard is available here.