The ‘significant progress’ made to bring West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service up to scratch has prompted a panel of advisers to declare their services no longer needed.
The Independent Advisory Panel, chaired by Kent fire chief Ann Millington, was set up to support improvements being put in place after a highly critical report last year uncovered failings throughout the service.
At a meeting of the full council, Duncan Crow, cabinet member for fire and rescue, read part of a letter from Ms Millington.
In it, she praised chief fire officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton and her team, saying they had done ‘an excellent job in establishing the foundations needed to grow the transformation of the service’.
But no-one is pretending that this is the end of the improvement journey — it has only been 18 months since the initial inspection and there is still a lot of work to be done.
Mr Crow said:
“We will not become complacent. We have plenty to do and it’s important that our improvements are embedded and sustained.”
He added:
“Our people are proud to serve and we as a county council were and are determined to turn this around.”
One of the many jobs on the ‘to do’ list involves the performance of the Surrey/West Sussex 999 combined control room, which went live last December.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) was quick to raise safety concerns about the merger, questioning whether staff could handle the sheer volume of calls, and the situation is due to be scrutinised by a Task and Finish Group in January.
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