Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service's local risk plan was praised for its level of detail by councillors.

The service's Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) was discussed during a meeting of the county council's public health and community safety committee on Thursday, September 19.

The report, titled 'Our plan for a safer and more resilient Hertfordshire 2024-2028' details the key risks and challenges facing people and services in Herts.

It sets out how the service will use its resources to respond to those risks, coordinating its work to improve public safety and save lives.

Committee chairman Morris Bright said: "Colleagues, it may seem a rather dry report, which actually is kind of what you want with the fire and rescue service.. It's actually very important."

In a summary of the CRMP's background, it was stated: "It is a requirement for every UK Fire and Rescue Service to have an up to date understanding of local risk, and to produce a plan that outlines how it will respond and coordinate work to address risk, improve public safety, and save lives. The Fire Sector commonly refers to this planning process as a Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP).

"Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) has taken over two years to develop the CRMP 2024 – 2028, including developing a strategic risk assessment tool with council partners and specialists, and undertaking extensive partnership and community engagement to significantly advance the council's understanding of local risk.

"As well as the risks HFRS expect to manage such as fire, flood, rescues from heights, and major disasters, HFRS are also seeing new challenges facing communities and the service including electric vehicle fires, rising road traffic collisions, the impact of the cost of living on vulnerability and fire risk, the necessity to adapt services for a growing, aging, and diverse population, escalating incidents of adverse weather, declining applications to join the fire service, and aspects of fire service culture.

"HFRS has therefore carefully considered what needs to be prioritised, what additional measures the service needs to undertake, and how activities need to be refocused over the coming years to effectively reduce and mitigate risk.

"The CRMP Delivery plan sets out a detailed programme of activity which will enable the Service to make further progress in meeting the 24 commitments which have been made under five service priorities:

⦁ Protect – Prevent harm and protect communities from potential risks

⦁ Excel – Attract, retain and keep our staff safe, happy and healthy

⦁ Transform – Innovate and continuously enhance service to meet community needs

⦁ Engage – Foster trust and strengthen relationships to effectively communicate

⦁ Respond – Prepare and effectively react to support communities in time of crises

"The PETER mnemonic has been developed since the initial publication of the CRMP and supports HFRS's Delivery Approach. This format, neatly encapsulating the core element of the CRMP, helps our communities, partners and the HFRS workforce easily remember the five core commitments, as set out in the CRMP."

Liberal Democrat Cllr John Hale praised the report's "detailed delivery plan", adding he was "very pleased" with it.

Alex Woodman, Executive Director of Community Protection and Chief Fire Officer for Hertfordshire, told councillors: "One of the aims of this is about the better understanding of our workforce, of being able to understand the corporate vision and to shape that into delivery.

"We're at those phases of implementation so we're expecting that rollout across our workforce, we understand and acknowledge that some of this will take time to implement, because it is a shift in language, thinking and approach.

"There's an element of building that confidence in the workforce so that they understand and interpret the approach that we're taking. The cascade has come out through our leadership team and the challenge that we've put into our heads of service and our leaders is to make sure they are adopting the wider approach to collaboration, driving opportunities and really understanding and interpreting risk."