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

Incident data

There are a large number of FRSs using historical incident data to inform their risk modelling. This is good practice as it uses local data, which are more relevant to the individual FRS, we recommend that it could be vastly more useful if incident data were a) quality assured and standardised, and b) incorporated into a national database. This would mean that risk modelling and predictions could be based from national data and filtered to locally relevant sources. It would also ensure a relevant, continuously updated resource that would provide data for historical trend analysis as well as a foundation for evaluation work.

We suggest that the IRS be explored for ways in which to encourage systematic and replicable reporting of data, which could be more effectively and reliably used to inform community risk assessment and management.

National database

In the short term, a national fire database should be developed to enable FRSs to effectively evaluate activities / controls from evaluations, to develop prevention, protection, and response activities, and to inform economic cost of fire research. Such a database should incorporate standardised IRS data.

This data would sit alongside the existing datasets that are used to inform RMPs; at present, FRSs contract external organisations to provide data at the service level, duplicating service level contracts and missing the opportunity for collective bargaining and influence on the data provider. Where a number of FRSs use the same datasets (e.g. Experian Commercial, Mosaic, Acorn, etc.) across the UK, there should be training and education to inform what data can / could be used and where and how this could be useful. This would start continuing development across the sector and would ease the burden of current practice which requires manual triangulation to inform risk by creating evidence-based predictions of risk.

Increasing sector wide data maturity and data ecology

The use of data has been discussed throughout this report and we advocate taking a longer-term view on the development of the sector as a whole over the next five years. We acknowledge that the fire sector is currently data poor compared with other emergency services. The data ecology (the iterative process of data; generation, flow, integration, use, and feedback cycles) has been reducing over the past ten years with FSEC and associated data sets no longer being maintained. This has resulted in the UK FRS as a whole becoming data immature. Although a blunt phrase, this simply refers to the processes in the data ecology as outlined above. As the inspectorate and other sector wide initiatives drives the generation and creation of more data, the sector will become increasingly data rich, in turn this will allow it to become more data informed, allowing commissioning of further necessary data to fill gaps, in turn this provides more informed and evidence-based decisions to be made. Ultimately this will allow the data ecology of the UK FRS to reach a level of data maturity. In other words, to become self-generating and self-sustaining with quality datasets which can inform decision-making in a reliable (i.e. over time) and valid (i.e. specific to task) manner. Consequently, this will increase the sophistication of the analysis and evaluation available to FRSs, which will increase the potential to accurately and elaborately identify priority areas of community risk in UK FRSs.

Data credibility

Research and development should also consider the credibility of the data sources used in the submissions, and explore alternatives where credibility is lacking. Instead of relying on data that is currently available, the R&D team should identify which data could usefully inform FRSs risk modelling, and work with partner organisations to procure credible data that meet the needs of the FRS. While research company’s data are almost ubiquitous across the submissions, it is acknowledged that some of these may lack the rigid quality assurance that is required in order to confidently assess levels of risk. Research should therefore explore the credibility of external sources to assess their suitability for use within risk management plans. In summary these suggestions are to facilitate:

• Training modelling (risk not just demand) and analyses, development of a toolkit
• Understanding of what good practice should be in a toolkit – reliability, validity, and effective predictions using a combination of descriptive statistics and inferential analyses
• Development of strategies from modelling – modelling should consider current and future risk, so that prevention activities can be undertaken

We invite the NFCC to encourage individual FRSs to develop an understanding of data credibility and use evidence both to develop methodologies and to make decisions about risk priorities. These should include sharing the detail of their methodologies and stages of analysis include the sources of data, specific information that is used from datasets, and the process which sits behind its use to evaluate risk. In other words, to share knowledge between services more pro-actively to encourage collective sector development.

Academic literature

Risk evidence

The NFCC R&D could commission independent research to explore similarities and differences in socio-demographic make-up and geographical representation of the communities served by different FRSs. Then assess how best these similarities and differences are reflected in different community risk priorities; understanding areas of similarity and distinctiveness will afford better sharing of good practice and learning between FRSs. This is particularly important when horizon scanning. It was notable in most of the returns that there is little available to support FRSs when they are planning and forecasting for future risk and demand. Commissioning partners to identify sources and applications to support FRSs in this activity would be a significant advantage given the pace of change in the demands facing all public sector bodies in the UK.