Priority four

The Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire requires all standalone fire and rescue 
authorities (FRAs) to produce an Efficiency and Productivity Plan (https://www.dsfire.gov.uk/2024-2025-productivity-and-efficiency-plan) for 2024/25, in line with 
guidance issued by the Home Office in December 2023.

Efficiency and sustainability

Our communities are facing a major challenge with climate change, and there is a political emphasis on decreasing greenhouse emissions and aiming for net zero by 2050. A sustainable programme has been created to aid ongoing efforts to reduce our environmental impact, with a goal of achieving carbon net zero by 2030. Our Environmental Strategy will outline the initiatives we will implement to support this.
To enable us to achieve our targets we are continuing to:

• build on investments in 2023. The electric vehicle charging infrastructure is being expanded, with electric pool cars becoming more accessible to the wider organisation, this has been combined with a reduction in the total number of light vehicles. Where it is not appropriate to use electric vehicles operationally, we seek to procure vehicles that meet the latest emission standards
• target our activities. A heating decarbonisation survey of our 13 highest energy use sites was commissioned and we have been successful in securing £325k of grant funding to implement energy efficiency reductions in two wholetime stations and have applied for further grant funding opportunities.

Our carbon footprint and other metrics (https://www.dsfire.gov.uk/about-us/greenhouse-gas-emissions), including our greenhouse gas emissions, are 
published annually. We have however seen an overall increase in our emissions for 2024 due to the way we report our emissions, which now includes additional indirect emissions.

We have continued with the replacement programme of older light fittings with LEDs with a view that the whole estate will have new lighting in the next five to seven years.

We have completed the construction of three new on-call stations, with improvements against minimum environmental standards, with the inclusion of solar panels, air source heat pumps, and improved thermal performance and control. We continue to progress the review and 
rationalisation of the property portfolio in conjunction with Service Delivery with two stations currently being reviewed for possible co-location.

We have commenced a significant project looking at the training infrastructure across the estate, in particular the main live fire training facility at the Academy near Exeter Airport, which will bring about significant environmental improvements from the current training practices of hot fire training. An improved training facility with built-in resilience will also enable the Academy to maintain and deliver the mandatory operational training with minimum downtime for repairs and replacements.

Finance

The Authority has an excellent history of achieving savings targets, with over £23.1m saved over the years from 2011 - 2012 to 2023 - 2024. During 2023 - 2024, the Service achieved an 
underspent by £4.9m, the majority coming from:

• holding open vacancies within the wholetime service (firefighting) to ensure we are not over-established, following a review of shift-patterns, which is being undertaken. This saved £1.5m.
• a quieter year, activity-wise saved £1.0m in on-call staffing costs
• the professional support staff budget was underspent by £1.3m due to delays in recruiting and difficulties attracting the right staff in a competitive market.

These savings have been reinvested into the Service to increase efficiency and have enabled us to invest in modern fire engines and station rebuilding, without the need to borrow funds.

Our net budget for 2024-2025 of £92.6 million is funded from a combination of council tax, 
government grants, and a share of the local business rates. Around 69% of our funding comes from council tax for 2024-2025. Our band D precept amount is £99.68.

Funding 2024-2025

• Revenue support grant £11.7m
• Council tax £64.3m
• National non-domestic rates £16.6m

Spending 2024-2025

• Employee expenses £85.2m
• Supplies and services £8.5m
• Premises related costs £5.2m
• Capital ifinancing costs £4.5m
• Transport related costs £2.9m
• Payments to other authorities £1.1m
• Establishment costs £0.9m

Our band D council tax charge is slightly higher than the average charged by English fire and rescue authorities. Our two counties are very rural in places which require a suitable and 
sufficient operating model to ensure we can match the risk.

There are also financial reserves which help pay for specific projects, including capital schemes. These are built up from utilising any previous year’s budget underspends. Over 60% of our reserves are set aside to fund the capital programme, reducing the requirement to fund using borrowing. The balance will be used to fund initiatives such as the change and improvement programme as agreed by the Fire Authority.

Technology

Over the past 18 months, the Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) department has been formed, including a new head of department. Building on our commitment to continuous improvement and excellence, the newly formed DDaT department play a crucial role in supporting innovation and modernisation.

We have made investments in creating a scalable cloud-appropriate digital platform, allowing the Service to fulfil the growing demand for data visualisation related to our analysis and business intelligence. It will enable us to quickly use information to support our decision-making and get insight into any future risks that could affect our communities by using cloud technology.