Looking forward

Future Planning

We are focused on ensuring our long-term sustainability, using research and analysis to influence our long-term planning and to suggest how we may need to adapt our organisation in the face of future threats and changes. For example, Devon and Somerset’s ageing population may pose future challenges for not only the nature of incidents we attend, but also our ongoing recruitment throughout the two counties, so we may need to share our resources collaboratively with other emergency services in our area. 

Emerging technologies will play a part in how we function in the future. By innovating how we gather information and communicating about the work we do, our organisation and communities will be better informed about known risks and how we will manage them. We will continue to encourage community involvement in shaping our future Service. 

In an uncertain economic future, we must ensure we budget carefully and invest wisely in our infrastructure, balancing the need to be efficient without adversely affecting the services we provide. 
 

Environmental responsibility

We are conscious of our moral duty and commit to be a carbon neutral organisation by 2030. We are investing across four areas.

• Our people – further increasing the use of flexible working and communications technology to reduce the time and money spent travelling.
• Our buildings – being more sustainable, reducing waste, monitoring our energy and water consumption.
• Our journeys – introducing alternative-fuelled vehicles into our fleet.
• Our services – research and develop innovative firefighting techniques to lessen the environmental impact of operational and training activities. 

Our immediate aims include the reduction of emissions and waste by better monitoring our use of resources. We will also work with water utilities and the Environment Agency to understand the impacts of firefighting upon water supplies and drainage. 
 

Learning organisation

We must ensure the work we do has outcomes which provide benefits to communities and to society. By being a learning-focused organisation, we seek to understand the impacts of our activities and how to adapt them where necessary. 

We contribute to and learn from collective experience, including that of other fire and rescue services, to assure we are best prepared as an organisation for the demands we face. For example, we have adapted some of the ways in which we assess organisational risks and have improved how we maintain the policies and procedures which guide our work. 

We ensure that we uphold high standards and that we continue to improve and evolve our organisation.  

Our learning comes from not only the work we do, but also the people and communities we support. We continually engage with communities to improve our knowledge and understanding of risks and the people most vulnerable to them, so that we can provide fire protection and prevention advice and respond to emergencies most effectively.