News

Keeping communities safe – our five-year plan

The cover image of our CRMP document - features four photos of fire service activity and text in blue which reads 'Community Risk Management Plan'
 

Gavin Ellis, Deputy Fire Chief Officer

In this video, Gavin talks about the launch of our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) for 2022-27. 

 

Transcript for the video

Grey

Hello, my name is Gavin Ellis and I'm the Deputy Chief Fire Officer for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service. On the first of April we'll be launching our new Community Risk Management Plan which spans from a five-year period of 2022 through to 2027.

Last year we undertook a period of consultation and engagement in our communities, and we asked them what they felt was the highest risk within our local areas. We use this information and data to support our existing information to build our current plan. As well as the identification of risk we've also identified how as a fire and rescue service we plan to mitigate against those risks so that we can keep you, your friends, and your families safe from harm.

We also recognise that over the five-year period things may change. So, we'll be undertaking an annual review of our data. This will allow us to look back on the previous 12 months to look at everything we've achieved in keeping you safe, but also to identify any new and emerging risks and how we should shape our organisation through our capacity and capability planning to continue to provide safety to our communities.
All of our plans are underpinned by our four priorities. The first one is that we deliver our prevention and protection activities. That ranges from undertaking home fire safety visits where we fit smoke detectors, and provide safety advice within the home. Through to undertaking risk inspections in our commercial premises.

A second priority is to match our resources to risk so that we have an effective operational response. So, that when you need us, we'll be there.

Our third priority is to drive an inclusive safe, and happy workplace so that we can attract the best people into our organisation. Provide training, and deliver a competent workforce into our communities.

Our fourth priority is to drive efficiency in everything that we do by doing this we'll be able to continue delivering our key operational response and prevention protection activities into our communities.

Thank you very much for listening for further information around the community risk management plan, and other safety information please see our website.

The plan, which was approved by the Fire Authority last month, outlines the risks in our communities and how we intend to manage them over the next five years to keep people safe. 

When writing the plan, we looked at our data and listened to what our staff, partners, and those who live and work in Devon and Somerset told us. As your fire and rescue service we are here to keep you safe, so thank you to everyone who provided feedback. 

Some of the feedback we received was about a specific location such as a narrow bridge or a particular landmark. While this may not be for the strategic plan, it will help us when developing the local risk management plans that we talk about in the CRMP.

Over the next five years, we will continue to build upon the work already delivered under our previous plans. Here are some examples of our work under those plans.

  • We increased the number of home fire safety visits using new working arrangements and training highly skilled staff to reduce the risk of fire to households.
  • We implemented new firefighting technology and provided specific training to ensure our firefighters are prepared to deal with flooding, hazardous materials, and counter-terrorism incidents.
  • We introduced a new service delivery operation model to better match our resources to risk.
  • We reviewed our vehicle fleet – we have bought 35 new vehicles including 15 front-line fire engines and 20 specialist vehicles, including five to improve our ability to get to locations off-road.
  • We collaborated with partners to improve national and local emergency response. Including providing firefighters to drive ambulances during the Covid-19 pandemic.

You can read or download a copy of the plan on our Community Risk Management Plan webpage. 

If you need the information in a different format, please call 01392 872200 or email comments@dsfire.gov.uk 

We will monitor how we are doing through an annual review of this plan, and we will share the progress reports on our website.