Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Efficiency Statement 2019/20

With savings of £8.5m planned over the next four years, Value for Money (VfM) is a key part of our work to make KFRS as efficient as possible. VfM can take a variety of forms ranging from: spending less; streamlining processes; working collaboratively with partners; procuring more effectively; or in some cases spending marginally more
to provide significantly better services to our customers. This drive for VfM runs across the whole of the Service, from the front-line delivery to our customers through to our back-office support functions.

 

Processes

We regularly examine the processes we apply in our day-to-day work to determine whether they are carried out in the most efficient manner. Processes are streamlined wherever it is effective to do so, to give a better outcome for our customers.

 

Infrastructure investment: Buildings, IT and Fleet

Investment in infrastructure is a key part of our approach to VfM. Despite the challenging financial climate, we have been determined to ensure that our front line emergency response is not compromised by old and out-of-date equipment, vehicles and buildings. Consequently, beginning in a phased approach from 2016, a total of 29 new fire appliances have been added to the Service’s fleet. In addition, we are currently out to contract for nine new fire appliances, which will be delivered in 2019/20. These represent a real investment for the future and will ensure that our front-line fleet of fire appliances remains up-to-date and as efficient as possible.

We are also investing in our fleet of support vehicles. We have recently taken delivery of six new mobile workshop vehicles for our technicians and we will be replacing many of our old light fleet vehicles. However, we are also in the process of installing CCTV in our frontline appliances and responses vehicles alongside telematics in the majority of our vehicles. This has resulted in a number of benefits to the service, not least a saving of £60k on our vehicle insurance premiums and enables a more effective claims process but it is also providing us with better
management information about our fleet.

When it comes to our facilities, 2016/17 saw the completion of two new fire stations: one at Rochester and the other at Medway. Our newest fire station, at Ramsgate, was officially opened on 5 February 2019. Not only are our new fire stations located in areas where they ensure the best possible fire cover, but the buildings themselves contain the latest materials and technologies, minimising running costs and environmental impact whilst providing well-equipped and comfortable spaces in which to work. We have invested in solar panels at a number of our buildings and
also installed smart meters, both of which are helping not only to reduce our carbon footprint but also to deliver financial savings. We have already made some improvements to our fire stations, but we plan to do more over the next few years.

Investing in up-to-date technology is also a priority for us. Effective and timely communication is an important part of the service we provide, so we are planning to upgrade a variety of IT equipment over the medium term, such as the mobile data terminals on our fire engines and fireground radios. We will also be updating some of our networks and IT management systems.

To ensure that our infrastructure remains as effective and efficient as possible, it is
important that we continue to invest in this area. The MTFP explains our plans for
the medium term in more detail.

 

Procurement

It was recognised that procurement was an area where the adoption of a more efficient approach could offer a number of savings and improve overall VfM. Consequently, following a formal restructure of our procurement section, a new approach to commercial procurement was implemented in late 2017. This restructure has resulted in us adopting ‘category management principles’ in procurement, which have enabled us to recruit category management specialists for our major areas of spend. This has allowed us to establish a better platform to engage with the market place and to progress more collaborative procurement with our partners, which will lead to better value for money at more competitive prices.

Working together also allows us to share best practice and expertise and to consider opportunities for joint procurement.

One important example is the collaborative framework for firefighters’ Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that we have been working on. This collaborative approach is more efficient and offers greater savings opportunities compared to the old approach. This is because instead of individual fire services purchasing PPE on an ad hoc basis, the participants have adopted a set of nationally-agreed standardised specifications for PPE, which are then accessed through an agreed framework. Currently 22 fire services are signed up to the New Collaborative PPE
Project. This co-ordinated approach allows us to meet the Government’s requirement to save money whilst continuing to provide the best equipment possible.

We are leading on two other national projects: the National Firefighting Specific Training Framework and the National Specialist PPE Framework. The former will deliver a route to market for all FRSs to procure their training service requirement to align with National Operational Guidance (NOG) training outcomes. The latter will deliver protective equipment for multiple operational environments and, to underscore the depth of the collaboration, will be open to all emergency services. Moreover, our role in this work also illustrates the leading position KFRS plays in
driving the VfM agenda at the national level.

 

Partnership working

Partnership working has reached a point where it is now a key feature of how the Service operates. Its importance cannot be overstated as it allows us to maximise the benefits and assistance we provide to the public.

This is evident in our front line emergency response, where we operate a shared 999 control room with Kent Police. This level of co-operation allows us to plan for and respond to emergencies more effectively and efficiently, whilst also providing savings through no longer needing to operate a separate fire control room. 

Another example of a critically important area of front-line collaborative activity is the support that we provide to the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) by responding to life-threatening medical emergencies when our crews or officers are available to do so. Such is the value of this work that in 2017/18 we attended 4,805 emergency medical response incidents, which equates to 24% of all the incidents that we attended.

Our community safety teams are collaborating with the NHS to provide a robust means of evaluating our programme of Safe and Well Visits. Developed with input from the NHS, as well as access to a securely managed NHS data set, our Safe and Well Visits allow us to visit those at greatest risk of fires and other accidents (such as falls) in the home, and put in place measures to reduce the likelihood of those incidents occurring.

Partnership working has made the Service more efficient as it has allowed us to achieve a level of scope and scale that would have been impossible had we been working alone. We will continue to work with our partners and, where appropriate, seek new partners, since we know that by working in partnership we are able to deliver better services to the community and improve efficiency. We have worked hard to develop strong and lasting working relationships with Kent Police, SECAmb, other fire and rescue services, local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, and
many other agencies. These are partnerships that are delivering real improvements to our customers throughout Kent and Medway.

Another important aspect of partnership working is premises sharing. To ensure we develop better inter-agency working and to help save public money, we have proactively opened up our premises for use by other agencies, particularly SECAmb and Kent Police. We have made best use of our space to facilitate the creation of two multi-agency teams – the Kent Resilience Team and the Kent Community Safety Team – both of which we host.

 

Flexible rostering

The roll-out of flexible rostering has allowed us to crew fire stations as efficiently as possible to ensure continued coverage in the face of a reducing establishment due to firefighters retiring. However, to ensure that we continue to provide the best service possible, in 2017 and 2018 we recruited two cohorts of new wholetime firefighters. The 21 firefighters who comprise the first cohort and the 24 who make up the second, are our first new wholetime recruits for 10 years. They are also supported by 15 Service Support and Control Room apprentices. Taken together, this means that we have entered the period covered by the current Corporate and Customer Plan with new equipment, new buildings and new firefighters, thus ensuring that we are able to continue to provide the best response possible to ensure the safety of the people of Kent.

 

Carbon footprint

In KFRS we place great importance on our environmental responsibilities. As a result, we carefully monitor several key measures of environmental efficiency: electricity; gas; heating oil; water, including waste water; and vehicle mileage. These are used to allow us to calculate our carbon footprint.

In 2017/18 the Authority produced 2,558 tons of CO2. Overall 2017/18 was 39.7% better than the baseline year (2008/09), when we set ourselves the deliberately ambitious challenge to reduce our carbon footprint by up to 35% within eight years. Compared to 2016/17, there was a slight drop in electricity usage but a large drop in CO2 production. This is due to the electricity conversion factor provided by DEFRA declining for a third year in a row as the country moves towards cleaner electricity production. We’re proud to say that since 2008/09 we’ve reduced our carbon footprint by almost two fifths.

 

Operational sickness rate

It is vital that our operational staff are fit and healthy. To ensure wellbeing and workforce efficiency, we measure the sickness rate of our staff. This is calculated as a percentage of the contracted and worked hours lost to sickness. Organisational sickness rates have stayed at the expected levels through 2018-19 with the anticipated peaks and troughs in the individual monthly rates. For the first six months of the 2018-19 financial year, the operational sickness rate was 3.6% and the support staff rate was 1.8%.