National review of community risk methodology across UK Fire and Rescue Service

In the broader context of risk, both in assessing and evaluating the risk, responses indicated that costs of realised risk, or mitigated risk is not currently supported by government or sector documentation. For example, appropriate metrics for calculating the economic cost of fire, the economic cost of RTCs and other risks are currently out dated (for example the New Economy Model is populated by the Economic Cost of Fire Report dated 2008). A key finding of this report is the clear priority to commission new research to establish the economic and social cost of risks which sit within the statutory and non-statutory duties of the Fire and Rescue Services across the United Kingdom. This urgent and essential requirement will not only inform reliable and adequate assessment of risk to support the risk management planning, but it will also immeasurably increase the accuracy of evaluation work of prevention activities.

In the previous two sections we explore the use and credibility of data and evidence to inform risk identification, those who are at risk, and developing activities to prevent, mitigate and respond to hazards.

It is also important to understand the methodologies around how data and evidence are used to inform decision-making; that is, how FRSs arrive at the conclusions about where the risk priorities are, and which activities will be used to address those. Understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of current methodological process in combination with data and evidence used will enable NFCC to identify how to improve risk management, and to identify current good practice in the service.

To evaluate the processes underlying identification of risk and activities, the initial process was to determine whether FRSs methodologies align with NFCC strategy, and whether responses are best classified as ‘risk’ or ‘risk and demand’. We used FRSs’ self-perceptions on whether their responses are based on risk or demand as well as academic perceptions of provision. As practitioners have a working understanding of NFCC strategy, and the extent to which risk management plans are aimed towards risk or demand, the practitioner partners within the research team were invited to evaluate this section. Figure 20 shows the comparison of FRSs’ self-perceptions and both academic and practitioner evaluations of risk and demand in the submissions.