Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Outcomes of consultation on 'Creating a safer future – together' and council tax options for 2024/25

There was a reluctance among respondents to answer questions in this section, as for all the five questions (age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and physical or mental health conditions) over half of respondents chose not to answer. 

This was reinforced by the comments, which focussed on why such questions were relevant to a consultation asking people’s opinions on a CRMP. As with other comments, this provides useful information and insight to help improve future consultation design by explaining the valid reasons why we ask people these sorts of questions. 

Targeted community focus groups were conducted to mitigate against the lower levels of response to the EDI questions and underrepresentation of particular demographic factors. These focus groups sought to hear the views from members of the following groups: Sixth form students, small to medium sized businesses, individuals with disabilities, Black and Asian communities, Afghan and Eastern European communities, Hindu and Sikh communities. 

In terms of addressing this, EDI information is important because it allows us to meet our Public Sector Equality Duty as set out in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. As part of this we actively seek to remove barriers in order to improve access to our services, of which consultation on our future direction is a key part. In order to assist us in this, we look to understand the protected characteristics of our customers and those who take the time to engage with us. 

Having this information then allows us to understand areas where we can focus our efforts to engage with underrepresented groups in order to ensure that we being as inclusive as possible and truly representative of all the communities that we serve across Kent and Medway.