Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner Elections - 2 May 2024
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE FIRE & RESCUE
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE FIRE & RESCUE
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) is led by its Chief Fire Officer. The Chief Fire Officer is supported both by a Principal Officer team and a Strategic Leadership team. This collective senior management team has responsibility for, and oversees, the day to day running of NFRS.
NFRS employs around 900 staff, serving the county of Nottinghamshire 365 days a year. There are 24 fire stations with 30 fire engines and the Service responds to around 10,000 incidents a year. The Service headquarters is currently based at Bestwood in Arnold, but construction is well under way for a new joint headquarters at Sherwood Lodge, where NFRS will be based alongside Nottinghamshire Police.
The Service’s Vision is to ‘Create Safer Communities’ by putting safety at the heart of the community. A lot of the Service’s work is therefore focused on preventing accidents and injuries through education and safety intervention, as well as responding to emergencies whenever needed. NFRS has a Strategic Plan, that can be accessed here, as part of the Service’s Integrated Risk Management Process (IRMP). The NFRS Website can be accessed here for more information.
Legislation
The National Framework Document, found here, sets out the priorities of Government with regard to fire and rescue authorities. The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 (FRSA) places a legal duty on Government to produce this framework and keep it current. Other legislation, such as the Regulatory Reform Order, 2005 and the Civil Contingencies Act, 2004 support the FRSA to provide a legal duty regarding matters such as fire safety, response to major incidents and the forming of Local Resilience Forums to coordinate local resources.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
For over 160 years, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary independently assessed and reported on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces and policing, in the public interest.
In summer 2017, HMIC took on the inspections of England’s fire & rescue services, assessing and reporting on their efficiency, effectiveness and leadership. To reflect this new role, the HMIC was renamed as His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS). You can access the HMICFRS website on fire and rescue here.
All 45 fire and rescue services in England were subject to HMICFRS inspections through 2018/19, the details of this inspection plan can be found here. These inspections assessed and reported on the following areas; ‘Effectiveness’, ‘Efficiency’, and ‘How well does the fire and rescue service look after its people?’
The outcome of Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service’s (NFRS) inspection can be accessed here.
The Combined Fire Authority
The Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire Authority is responsible for ensuring Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has the people, equipment and training needed to carry out its duties for fire prevention, fire safety, firefighting and rescue, road traffic collision extrication and rescue, and other emergency rescue activities such as responding to flooding or terrorism.
The Authority is known as a Combined Fire Authority (CFA) as it is made up of Councillors from Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council.
The latest CFA meeting minutes can be accessed here and further information regarding the CFA can be accessed here.
NFRS Budget
NFRS’s budget for providing services across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in 2020/21 is £45m.
£36m, or 79.5%, of the budget is spent employing the personnel who provide the fire and rescue services to the public. £3.5m is spent on supplies and services.
This includes operational equipment, protective clothing, training equipment, consumables and ICT licence costs, etc. The running costs of the 24 fire stations, training centre and Headquarters are £2.5m and the running and maintenance fire appliances, specialist vehicles and cars costs £1.7m.
The 2020/21 Annual Council Tax charge for an average (Band D) house is £81.36 (this equates to 22p a day). This provides £25.9m of income to the Fire Authority – 59% of the total income. Other income comes from Business Rates and government grants.
As part of budget management, the Fire Authority produces a Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) covering a four-year period. The MTFS is updated annually to reflect emerging local, regional and national issues.
This assists the Service in making informed assumptions about issues such as future pay, inflation, government funding and Council Tax levels and future risks. The MTFS forms the basis for setting the annual budget for the Service.
The latest budget proposals for 2021/22 can be found here.
Contact Details
Please feel free to contact lea-anne.abbiss@notts-fire.gov.uk should you require any further information or if you would like to arrange a meeting with the Chief Fire Officer.
Useful websites