Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Resource Management - Case Study Example

Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Resource Management Course Details Insert Your Name Insert Your Number Tutor’s Name 20 May 2009 Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….3 2.0 Planning: Service Plan & IRMP………………….…………………………….3 3.0 Communication Infrastructure…………….……………………………………4 4.0 Equipment and Appliances……………………………….…………………….5 5.0 Human resource management………………….……………………………….5 6.0 Principles of management of physical resources……….………………………6 7.0 Procurement practices in the fire and rescue service….………………………..6 8.0 Human resources management in the fire and rescue service….………………7 9.0 Role of Firebuy limited in the fire and rescue service……….…………………8 10.0 Budget Spending…………………………………………….………………...9 11.0 Principle of operational assurance………………………….………………..10 12.0 Finance/Budgeting………………………………………….………………..10 13.0 Training……………….…………………………………….………………..11 14.0 Conclusion…………………………………………………..………………..11 15.0 Recommendations…………………………………..………………………..12 16.0 Bibliography…………………………………………..……………………...13 1.0 Introduction Fire and rescue departments are important in ensuring that the community is service and are shield against emergencies. Of the fire stations in UK is the Lincolnshire fire and rescue service (LFR). LFR was formed in 1974 and supports 38 fire stations that are located in Lincolnshire. A fire authority called Lincolnshire fire and rescue service manages it. Thus, the aim of this report is to analyze the way that resources are managed in Lincolnshire fire and rescue. Nevertheless, the paper concentrates on strategies that are in place to ensure secure community, personnel management, equipment and appliances management, procurement, financial and training capabilities. However, the success of the fire and rescue department is negatively affected by the long response time. 2.0 Planning: Service Plan and IRMP The underlying mission of Lincolnshire fire and rescue service is “making Lincolnshire a safer place to live, work and visit”. To achieve this goal, the fire and rescue service have put in place two strategies: service plan and Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP). The service plan sets how the mission statement can be achieved through highlighting the key priorities and objectives of a given period. The plan brings into consideration the previous aims and plans addressing the accomplishments of Lincolnshire fire and rescue service. Thus, clearly defining the priorities will provide a foundation in which the resources will be allocated effectively. Nevertheless, the service plan will ensure that there is a way that the performance of the following year will be measured. The development of the service plan is based on the Integrated Risk Management Planning (IRMP). The IRMP analysis and tries to predict risks that are in the community and try to develop strategies that will ensure that response and preventive measures to counter the risks are in place. 3.0 Communication Infrastructure Communication is an important factor in any fire and rescue service. Lincolnshire fire and rescue service has embraced the importance of communication in their day-to-day activities. Appropriate communication link ensures that the emergences are reported at the right time and in accurate manner (International Association of Fire Chiefs, 2004). This means that the infrastructure that is in place should ensure that the communities within the jurisdiction of the fire and rescue department could utilize it easily. Moreover, communication infrastructure should ensure that the fire fighters and their relevant departments should be able to communicate effectively. This includes responding to emergency, exchanging information within the fire and rescue offices and at the time when they are at the scene. Hence, it is important that the infrastructure that is in place utilizes the appropriate communication equipments and brings into consideration good communication skills to prevent ambiguous statements and conflict between the departments, staff and the community (Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, 2009). During these modern times, technology is changing at a faster rate, which requires that communication infrastructure should change according to the changes within their scenarios. Nevertheless, the communication resources that are utilized by the fire and rescue department should be allocated according to the requirements of each sector. Hence, Lincolnshire fire and rescue service should embrace the idea of modernizing their department in terms of communication infrastructure. 4.0 Equipment and Appliances Equipment and appliances aid the way and success that the duties are accomplished. Utilizing the appropriate equipment and appliances will increase the efficiency of the accomplished tasks (Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, 2009). Thus, Lincolnshire fire and rescue service utilization of these equipment and appliances ensure that they have accorded the most support at the time of occurrence of the incidents. Nevertheless, the equipments that are used should be applicable in the tasks that they accomplish. In most fire and rescue services, the commonly used equipment include PPE, breathing equipments, machineries e.g. fire engines and boats and other accessories such has hose reels and axes. Hence, allocation of these resources to the different fire stations will maximise its efficiency. Lincolnshire fire and rescue service understands the importance of equipment and appliances and have continually ensured that there are appropriate measures that guarantees the success of the equipments that are used and measures that ensure that the equipment and appliances are in optimal condition whenever required. Moreover, ensuring that the equipments are continuously upgraded and meets the requirement of the current world will ensure that successful accomplishment of prevention, responding and recovering from emergences is most championed (International Association of Fire Chiefs, 2004). 5.0 Human resource management The fire rescue service consists of managers who offer logistics and operational support for instance training; fire protection, operational risk management and contingency planning. The service has 900 employees in occupational health and safety, finance tasks, human resources, administration support, fleet management, property management and information technology and 200 full time fire fighters in the fire and rescue service personnel (Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, 2009). The service is headed by chief fire and rescue officer assisted by four directors whose manage community safety, organizational development, corporate resources finances and corporate risk management. They form the services corporate management board (Leicestershire fire and rescue services, 2008). 6.0 Principles of management of physical resources Human resource management (HRM) is vital mechanism that ensures fire and rescue service complies with statutory requirements within community of jurisdiction. The fire and rescue HRM complies with requirements spelt out by fire and rescue service act 2004 whose strategies in fire and rescue service call for provision of resilience incident response service, provision of proactive fire community safety and assurance of well-being, use of competent qualified staff and working within ethical governance and environmentally efficient and sustainable resource management practices. Principles of HRM ensure fire and rescue service plans for the employee needs at corporate level, fire mitigation activities are focused on key community risk hazards and ensure HRM plans and outcomes are predictable and effectively monitored subject to clear shared understanding of community cultural values and behaviours (West Yorkshire fire and rescue service, 2007). 7.0 Procurement practices in the fire and rescue service The procurement responsibilities for the fire and rescue service will be carried out by Firebuy Ltd that was established in 2006 to work towards envisioned national procurement strategy for the fire and rescue service in England, UK and Wales (ENTR-LMI, 2008). The procurement practices conform to ethical, environmentally friendly strategies by providing uniform standards across the UK, Wales and England. The procurement processes comply with procedural, legal and international obligations subject to adherence of UK laws on procurement, EU directives (international laws on procurement) and contract standing orders on procurement regulations (Mersey side fire and rescue service, 2009). 8.0 Human resources management in the fire and rescue service The HRM should develop culture strategies that values employees input and provides an environment where the employees can make decisions and take part in realization of the fire and rescue visions and mission statement. The employees should be able to understand their contractual terms or description of their roles and the requirements that the fire and rescue service expects to be accomplished. The HRM should adopt strategies that work towards bringing about a cultural change and should also address motivation of the employees by revising their terms of employment in order to be able to maintain the talented professional and reduce staff turnover. This should be achieved by providing training opportunities based on training need analysis, formulation of training and development initiatives and comply with requirements of equality and diversity legislation. There should be existence of measures to ensure HRM policies and practices conform to goals and objectives of the fire and rescue service (west Yorkshire fire and rescue service, 2007). 9.0 Role of Firebuy limited in the fire and rescue service Tuckler (2007) indicates that Firebuy Ltd is supposed to undertake fire products and equipment procurement by directly taking part in negotiating on behalf of fire and rescue service for better terms of costs of equipments and appliances. The company supports fire and rescue service initiatives of protecting life and health by achieving standardizations that meet fire and rescue service needs. Firebuy Ltd is supposed to liaise with fire rescue suppliers association, procurement personnel, and representatives of fire and rescue service to ensure the products meet standards of quality stated by the fire and rescue service. Firebuy Ltd is supposed to assist in fire, rescue service contract management, represent fire, and rescue service in improving their requirements subject to their roles of fire fighting (LGA.com, 2008). Firebuy Ltd is supposed to provide products to fire and rescue service that satisfy fire and rescue service operational; risks and help to promote national identity by providing high quality products (Firebuy Ltd, 2008). 10.0 Budget Spending Budget allocation in the fire and rescue service is affected by many factors like changes in population growth, growth of infrastructure that translates into need for more personnel in the rescue service and need to educate community on fire safety. The fire and rescue budgetary allocations are affected by variations in costs of acquiring fire hydrants and necessity to update rescue fire appliances in order to conform to increasing level of fire protection. The budget allocation for the fire and rescue service is affected by need to provide up-to-date training of the fire fighters both tactical and operational to meet increasing challenges of fire outbreaks like chemical threats, biological weapons and nuclear and equip them with adequate knowledge of managing explosions like vapour cloud gas-air or dust explosions (Peternell 2008) The budget allocation should factor likelihood of fire and rescue service overspending in expenditures that are associated with different fire response incidents. There are also considerations of meeting pensions for the fire fighters who are retiring from the service and variations of transport allowances subject to inflations rates and fuel prices control in the global markets (Wynne, 2009). The budget allocation is also affected by current tax base and possibilities of changes in the tax base subject to inflation, which should be accounted for (Johnson, 2008) The budget can be affected by need to acquire new fire fighting appliances like tow vehicles, aerial rescue aircrafts, fire training facilities and hiring of additional staff for management of mobile operations to address plight of deaf or persons who have audible problems to be using mobile text messages to communicate with the fire and rescue service. 11.0 Principle of operational assurance Morphew (2005) indicates that comprehensive performance assessment for operational assurance does not carry out operational assessment by places the onus for assurance on the responsible persons in the fire and rescue service just like regulatory reform order 2005 that places responsibility of fire safety on the responsible person for fire safety. The fire and rescue services should ensure functional strategies exists to underpin operational services like performance management backed up by performance management appraisal practices, availability of quality assurance processes within the framework of fire and rescue service and availability of measures to ensure community fire safety is guaranteed and implementation of integrated risk management plans in the fire and rescue service are put into practice as well as integrated personnel development systems for improving skills and knowledge of the employees. The fire and rescue service should demonstrate efforts towards pursuing processes of improving delivery of services, by focusing its visions on outcomes of incidents and reducing the outcome s by ensuring there exist mechanisms for proportionate response to emergency incidents (Shropshire fire and rescue service, 2006). 12.0 Finance/Budgeting Understanding the requirements of the Lincolnshire fire and rescue service is crucial in understating the amount of funds that can be utilized. The main objectives of the financial sector is to ensure that there is appropriate management of council finances, maximize the financial resources, champion value for money and to ensure that the Lincolnshire Pension Fund’s is managed effectively and efficiently. Thus, balancing the financial requirements of fire and rescue services and the available funds will ensure that the organization will be on a financial stable position. The funds that are used to manage the requirements of the Lincolnshire fire and rescue service originate from government grants, taxes, loans and NGO’s support. Hence, the table illustrates the budget allocation percentage (Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, 2008) Items Budget Estimates Percentage Expenditure Personnel 84% Supplies 4% Services 8% Equipment 2% Debt Services 2% Total Expenditure 100% Income/Revenue General Fund 81% Federal 4.6% EMS Enterprise Fund 14.4% Total Revenue 100% 13.0 Training Training is an important factor in the schedule of Lincolnshire fire and rescue service. The fire and rescue department has a commercial training facility, which doubles up as their training facility. The fire and rescue service appreciates the information concerning fire and rescue department since they know it is important in instances of emergency. Thus, the fire and rescue service have a specific site in which the staff can access updated information concerning the fire and rescue department. Some courses that are offered are breathing apparatus training, fire-fighter training and bespoke training. 14.0 Conclusion Fire and rescue services are an important ingredient in the society. Lincolnshire fire and rescue service has ensured that the services offered to communities within Lincolnshire are up to date. Thus, there is in place strategies to manage the resources and ensure that the minimal resources are maximized. Nevertheless, issues such as procurement, training, equipment and planning are usually championed since they are important components in any fire and rescue service. Moreover, qualified personnel ensure that utmost services are offered to the community. 15.0 Recommendations The success of the fire and rescue department so far has provided utmost service to the community. However, there are issues that they are supposed to address to ensure that the community can benefit further. The fire and rescue department should ensure that they have improved on their response time. The fire and rescue training services are offered through the internet to the personnel within the departments, thus it is important that they could be also offered practical refresher courses Equipments are important in accomplishment of tasks in Lincolnshire fire and rescue service, thus it is crucial for them to have updated equipments and to ensure that other equipments are upgraded. The fire and rescue department should offer community services to ensure that the community contributes to ensuring that mission of the fire and rescue service is achieved. Collaboration is an important aspect, which requires that the fire and rescue service should collaborate with other entities e.g. organizations to ensure that the have enough funding and ensure that the community is safer. 16.0 Bibliography ENTR-LMI (2008), Establishing public procurement networks in support of the lead market, July 2008. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from: Firebuy Ltd (2008), Lincolnshire fire and rescue service is first to take up Firebuy Ltd’s new uniform contract. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Hughes, P. & Ferrett, E. (2005). Introduction to Health and Safety at Work: the Handbook for the NEBOSH National general Certificate, 2nd Ed. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, Fire and Rescue Department. Retrieved 20 May 21, 2009 from: International Association of Fire Chiefs, (2004). Fundamentals of Fire Fighter Skills. London: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Johnson, D. (2008), policy and strategy committee: Essex fire authority-Essex county fire and rescue service: Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Leicestershire fire and rescue service (2008), management of the fire and rescue service. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from LGA.com (2008), 234-the national procurement strategy for the fire and rescue service 2008-2011. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Merseyside fire and rescue service (2009), How to do business with Merseyside fire and rescue service: A guide for suppliers and contractors, summer 2009. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Morphew, P. Fire and rescue service circular 21-2005, 14th June 2005 operational assurance. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Peternell, L.l. (2008), Village Board and finance committee. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Ridley, J. & Channing, J. (2003). Safety at Work, 6th Ed. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Shropshire fire and rescue service (2006), Fire and rescue service circular 20-2006. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Tuckler, C. (2007), Fire and rescue service circular 59/2007. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from West Yorkshire fire and rescue service (2007), Draft: West Yorkshire fire and rescue service-human resource and workforce development strategy 2008-2011. Retrieved on 15th may 22009 from West Yorkshire fire and rescue service (2006), West Yorkshire fire and rescue service operational procedure number 27. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Wynne, D. (2009), Fire and rescue service revenue budget monitoring 2009. Retrieved on 15th may 2009 from Read More