Culture Action Plan Closure Summary Report

The HMICFRS 2025-27 Framework provides insight into how His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) assess that fire and rescue services are progressing in relation to values and culture. 

HMICFRS is currently midway through its round 3 inspections of English Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs). As a result, it is not possible at the point of publishing this report to confirm and benchmark the inspection judgements in respect of values and culture for all English FRSs. However, for those FRSs that have been inspected to date, there are a range of judgements, with approximately 27% rated as good, 37% as adequate, and the remainder requiring improvement, with a small number as inadequate. 

While there is clearly further progress needed, there are also some promising signs of improvement. Examples include London Fire Brigade who were placed on HMICFRS enhanced monitoring in 2023 as a result of an inadequate inspection judgement for culture. However, as a result of a significant focus on culture improvement across the organisation, in 2024 they were removed from enhanced monitoring, with HMICFRS acknowledging the positive work being taken forward. Similarly, Buckinghamshire FRS were taken off enhanced monitoring in 2025 as a result of improvements in many areas, including equality, diversity and inclusion. 

There is now an opportunity to capture and learn from the good practice identified, and share more widely across FRS, both through the NFCC positive practice portal, through the work of the NFCC Implementation team and through other means. 

In May 2024, HMICFRS published its State of Fire and Rescue: The Annual Assessment of Fire and Rescue Services in England 2023 . This indicated that NFCC programmes and products designed to improve leadership, behaviour and safeguarding practices have helped fire and rescue services make improvements against the HMICFRS spotlight report recommendations. HMICFRS reference NFCC guidance and work within their reports – for example, within their most recent report Standards of behaviour: The handling of misconduct in fire and rescue services. 

“We have also seen the beginnings of improvements within this round of inspections. FRSs have raised awareness among their staff of the expected standards of behaviour, and have created strategies and action plans, including implementing the Core Code of Ethics. When combined with strong leadership, these changes are having a positive impact.”

– HMICFRS  

Data is available from the government which shows the level of diversity within English fire and rescue services in the fire statistics data tables. Data from these tables shows that in 2023, 8.7% of firefighters were women. In terms of ethnicity, from those who shared their data, 5.3% of firefighters stated they were from a minority ethnic background. In 2024, the statistics for firefighters had increased to 9.3% for women and 5.4% from an ethnic minority background.   

The picture of data in relation to other protected characteristics such as sexual orientation and disability is not complete as many employees currently choose not to share this information with their employer. Organisations that have 250 or more employees are currently required to undertake gender pay gap reporting, and there are plans for legislative change to mandate ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting. This demonstrates the importance of fire and rescue services understanding and tracking the demographics of their workforce. NFCC products such as the Culture Dashboard Methodology will be an important tool for services to use in designing and improving their own dashboards. 

NFCC’s leadership development programmes, such as the Supervisory Leadership Development Programme (SLDP) and Middle Leadership Programme (MLP), support progression within the industry. Moreover, the Coaching and Mentoring portal enables fire and rescue services to embed a culture of coaching and mentoring that supports the progression of their staff. One way that NFCC has contributed towards an improvement in diversity within leadership positions is through Direct Entry. The recruitment data From the first cohort of Direct Entry, saw 21% of candidates were female, 19% were from a minority ethnic background and 5% indicated they had a disability. Whilst Direct Entry may be a small example of change within the industry, it has been a catalyst for other work and plans around inclusive promotion and recruitment, which may improve diversity. 

Monitoring workforce diversity within FRSs and assessing the impact of initiatives to improve it requires a long-term approach. This will be embedded in the next People, Culture and Leadership (PCL) Plan, ensuring sustained focus and evaluation. NFCC will continue to advance work on organisational culture, with a particular emphasis on EDI data, continued support for FRS in the implementation of the Culture Dashboard Methodology, and the piloting of a National Employee and Culture Survey to strengthen insight and accountability.  

Work towards this high-level measure of success is in its early stages as NFCC continues to support FRSs in accessing and implementing the Culture Dashboard Methodology to meet their specific needs. Supporting services to share good practice is something that will be carried into the new PCL Plan. To enable sharing of good practice, NFCC is in the process of collecting positive practice case studies from fire and rescue services about how they are using culture dashboards. At NFCC’s Culture and Inclusion conference in July 2024, attended by representatives from 50 UK fire and rescue services, there was a presentation on the newly published Culture Dashboard Methodology. Polls of fire and rescue services during PCL Hub focus groups held between October and December 2024 helped NFCC better understand whether people were aware of and using the Culture Dashboard Methodology. Whilst around 75% of services were represented at the focus groups, they may have responded on an individual rather than organisational basis. The polls indicated that ten different services were aware of it and four had actively used it. In early April 2025 NFCC is holding a Strategic Masterclass where we will gather more data on people’s understanding and usage of the Culture Dashboard Methodology

This high-level measure of success was achieved. All UK FRS have an independent confidential reporting line in place which enables staff to report their concerns. 

NFCC has a range of products and programmes to support the development of leadership in fire and rescue services. Following an initial strong uptake of the Supervisory Leadership Development Programme (SLDP) in its first year, yearly uptake has continued but there has been a steady a decline in the total amount of users. There are currently 265 learners for SLDP. Future work is planned to understand and address this decline. The Middle Leadership Programme (MLP), launched in April 2024, has seen a strong uptake of 394 individual learners from fire and rescue services. Single Point of Contact (SPOC) sessions were held in October 2024 and January 2025 to assist services in supporting their enrolled learners. The Coaching and Mentoring Portal has seen a modest increase in the number of coaches, a more pronounced increase in registered mentors and more than double an increase in members who are accessing the portal.  

To support services in implementing safeguarding changes, the Joint guidance on DBS Checks eligibility for FRA roles was produced – a framework for all fire and rescue services in England and Wales to understand what eligibility checks should be considered for their employees, alongside sector specific webinars. These webinars were hosted in partnership with the DBS central team for leaders who hold corporate risk and responsibility related to Safeguarding and Human Resources, with 32 FRSs attending the sessions. 

Every fire and rescue service is required to complete relevant local audits for safeguarding boards, for adults and children alike. The NFCC Safeguarding Self-Assessment Toolkit is designed to enable FRSs to provide assurance to Local Authority Safeguarding Adult and Children’s Boards, particularly where a Fire and Rescue Service is a member of several Local Authority Safeguarding Boards. Following the launch of the NFCC Safeguarding Self-Assessment Toolkit in 2018, the toolkit was supported and underpinned by the Safeguarding Fire Standard in 2022. A review of the toolkit was conducted in 2023 with safeguarding practitioners with the following results: 71% (37 FRSs) response return; 86% confirmed to have completed the self-assessment for their FRS, of which 78% found it a useful tool in helping to plan their Safeguarding strategy. Survey respondents remarked that the toolkit had helped inform internal conversations, allowed them to identify potential gaps and development areas in safeguarding practice and had helped them to remove duplication in reporting to partners. As this data was collected from fire and rescue services in 2023, NFCC intends to repeat this survey as part of the next plan to understand whether this figure has increased and how it is benefitting services in undertaking safeguarding responsibilities.

The NFCC Implementation Team has worked closely with fire and rescue services to support them embedding five relevant Fire Standards: Code of Ethics, Leading and Developing People, Leading the Service, Safeguarding, Communication and Engagement, and Data Management. Engagement initiatives have been varied and include delivering 73 multi-service Fire Standards workshops to an audience of over 800 FRS participants. Further tailored support has been provided through group and service workshops, delivered in person and online. Positive case studies have been received from five services and there are early indications that some have experienced a measured improvement in their response to communities and sector collaboration

To support the adoption and implementation of the Core Code of Ethics (CCoE), the NFCC Implementation Team has predominately used the Code of Ethics Fire Standard. Since July 2023, they have delivered three specific workshops to 50 participants from 12 FRSs. In addition, the team has delivered three regional thematic workshops which included the CCoE. Data collected by the Implementation Team and the PCL Hub demonstrate that at least 44 FRS are adopting or have already adopted the CCoE. Due to an increased understanding from FRS about how to adopt and implement the CCoE, HMICFRS’s latest round of inspections have seen the beginning of improvements in values and behaviours. 

In July 2023, NFCC was key in achieving legislative change to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. The amendments allow FRSs to access higher levels of Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) checks more efficiently and grant them eligibility for a standard DBS check for employees and volunteers. To support this change, a suite of guidance was produced by the Safeguarding Team including Joint Guidance: DBS Checks eligibility for FRA roles, NFCC Guidance: Positive Disclosure Risk Assessment, Managing Allegations, and more recently revised Safeguarding for Children, Adults and Young People. The Safeguarding Team, in partnership with DBS, hosted regional webinars which were attended by 48 FRSs in England, Wales, Isle of Man and Channel Islands, leading to the production of an FAQ document to further support FRSs in understanding appropriate levels of DBS checks for their employees. Additional engagement sessions and the delivery CPD Safer recruitment training, attended by 34 English FRSs and all three Welsh FRS supported services in understanding and implementing these changes.  

The statement was published as an accompanying document to the Culture Action Plan. It was developed through a working group and via subsequent consultation both with NFCC members and NFCC colleagues. The statement sets out an approach to zero-tolerance but less overtly than was originally intended, due to feedback that a statement named ‘zero-tolerance’ may polarise approaches to poor behaviour rather than allow for a variety of responses. A year after the publication of the statement, PCL colleagues conducted a review with the HR Forum who engaged in a varied discussion about the use of the term zero-tolerance.   

NFCC produced guidance on Independent Reporting Lines (IRL) in March 2023 following the Culture and Inclusion Conference. IRLs provide independent channels for staff to confidently raise issues such as complaints and whistleblowing allegations where they may be reluctant to come forward through an FRS internal procedure. As of January 2025, all FRS have an IRL in place. NFCC anticipates gathering measures of success and learning by engaging with high–level anonymised IRL data in conjunction with providers and FRSs. 

In March 2023, HMICFRS published the Values and culture in fire and rescue services spotlight report. NFCC was named in seven recommendations (2, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16 and 26). Recommendation 2 was in relation to IRLs which is detailed above and has been completed. Recommendations 8, 11 and 13 relate to amending the Safeguarding Fire Standard in line with the legislative changes in DBS checks for FRS (mentioned above). Confirmation of the completion of these recommendations was received by the Fire Standards Board from HMICFRS. Of the three remaining recommendations, NFCC is not progressing work towards Recommendation 15, which relates to a process for handling misconduct allegations against Chief Fire Officers, as the leadership of the response to any such allegations sits outside of the remit of NFCC. The intent of Recommendation 16, which relates to an FRS not employing a person who has been dismissed from another FRS, has been addressed by NFCC through updates to NFCC’s Recruitment Hub and briefings to Chief Fire Officers. Recommendation 26, which relates to improving training and support offered to managers and leaders, has been addressed by NFCC through close work with partners, including the Home Office, to support continuous improvement in leadership and professionalism. 

Whilst NFCC was not specifically named in Recommendation 7, it is part of a group of partner organisations involved in establishing the change outlined in the recommendation. Partner organisations continue the discovery work for this recommendation. Therefore, this work continues beyond the life of the plan, more detail can be found in the appendix document. While NFCC was not specifically named in Recommendations 1, 4, 5, 12, 14, 17 and 18, the NFCC Safeguarding Board continues to track these to better understand where there are existing products or new developments to support FRSs in achieving these recommendations. 

On 1 August 2024 HMICFRS published its report on Standards of behaviour: The handling of misconduct in fire and rescue services. The report made 15 new recommendations to improve the way that misconduct is handled. NFCC was named in Recommendation 15 of the report in relation to establishing a system for sharing learning from more serious cases of misconduct with FRS staff. A PCL Hub review of the recommendations led to the creation of a visual representation which categorised the 15 recommendations into four distinct categories of Process, Training, Support and Review. This cycle of recommendations was presented at the October 2024 HR Forum meeting, which was also attended by colleagues from HMICFRS, to gather feedback on its concept and to understand how the sector had begun to approach recommendations. Existing PCL products have been mapped across to the categories to see where NFCC can already support FRSs in meeting recommendations. During the PCL Hub engagement focus groups, the HMICFRS misconduct thematic has been used as a lens to ask FRS what their strategic priorities will be over the next three years and how the PCL Hub can support, which will feed into the new PCL Plan. The Fire Standards Team are undertaking a gap analysis of the recommendations against the existing Fire Standards which will be presented to the Fire Standards Board in April 2025. 

NFCC provides a range of professional leadership development tools and programmes for FRSs. This ranges from a Supervisory Leadership Development Programme (SLDP), Middle Leadership Development (MLP) through to an Executive Leadership Programme (ELP). FRSs have continued to engage with and utilise SLDP since its launch in 2022. MLP launched in March 2024 and has also been popular with FRSs. The ELP has continued to see engagement from many FRSs and is currently being reviewed and updated with a provider expected to be in place by the end of Summer 2025 and the programme beginning again from Autumn 2025. The programmes are supported by a Leadership Framework and Core Learning Pathway which enable FRSs to support their leaders to understand expected leadership behaviours at each stage of their development and the corresponding qualifications and skills required. Work towards scoping options and guidance for running a High Potential Programme is underway.  

The Interactive Career Pathway (ICP) is a new tool on the NFCC website that will enable prospective and existing fire and rescue service staff at all levels to identify routes of progression and professional development. It has been developed to highlight the benefits of working in the sector and will enable people to navigate to existing PCL products to support their development. As part of the consultation process, various questionnaires and workshops took place throughout the project cycle to gather information on user needs, design priorities, and learning styles along with surveying the public’s understanding of careers in the fire service. Before the finalisation of the product, two workshops were held in late February to showcase and test the new pathway. It is anticipated that this product will be delivered within its original timescale of March 2025, with publication in early April 2025. Through the consultation process we recognised the need to move away from a from text-heavy content to a visually driven format, emphasising design elements that enhance user engagement and facilitate intuitive navigation. This transition, which uses web design components for presenting content, aims to create a more seamless user journey with effective signposting. 

NFCC has produced many Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) toolkits for FRSs. Whilst some toolkits were available prior to the publication of the Culture Action Plan, four new toolkits have been produced since July 2023:  

• Menopause Toolkit,  

• Religion and Belief Toolkit,  

• Disability Toolkit, 

• Challenging Inappropriate Behaviour Toolkit 

Two more toolkits are currently going through a consultation process on Race Equality and Addressing Sexual Harassment and are scheduled for publication in Spring 2025. In addition to toolkits, NFCC has continued to deliver a series of Listen & Learn sessions to develop knowledge and raise awareness on a range of EDI and wellbeing topics. Between June 2023-February 2025, 15 sessions have been delivered, attended by 2,432 participants with a further 3,000 accessing the recorded sessions. Feedback indicates that attendees have applied the knowledge gained from the sessions and value the flexibility of an informative resource they can revisit at their convenience. NFCC has also delivered a suite of strategic masterclasses aimed at senior leaders and managers. Since July 2023, three strategic masterclasses have been delivered and at the most recent masterclass on addressing sexual harassment, 45 fire and rescue services were represented. To support FRSs in undertaking Equality Impact Assessments (EQiA), NFCC facilitated EQiA training sessions using an external provider. 38 sessions have taken place with 201 delegates from 41 FRSs engaging with the training.  

The concept of a College of Fire was first introduced in the Home Office’s white paper, Reforming our Fire and Rescue Service (May 2022), and later reinforced in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 recommendations (September 2024). The Home Office is leading the scoping process, with NFCC as a key stakeholder. NFCC has provided input to help shape the vision for the College of Fire, ensuring that the needs and interests of fire and rescue services remain a priority. Additionally, NFCC advises the Fire Standards Board, another key stakeholder in this initiative. While no formal timelines have been set, NFCC continues to actively monitor progress, offering advice and feedback to support the development of the College of Fire. 

NFCC produced a Data Management Framework and in 2023 produced the EDI Sector Report, to support the development of nationally consistent culture and EDI data sets. The framework was written by subject-matter experts from across the sector and is aimed at everyone working in an FRS, not just those in data-related roles. The EDI Sector Report provides a baseline overview of English FRS data in relation to protected characteristic information. Together, both products mark the starting point of work we will continue in the new PCL plan, focussing on developing and deepening our understanding of, and support for, the diverse demography of the FRS. This deliverable is closely linked to key deliverable 14, Culture Performance Dashboard below. NFCC has been involved in detailed discussions with Government, including at the recently established Ministerial Advisory Board. The Board has now established a Task and Finish Group for Culture and Inclusion. Within this group there will be opportunity for further discussion about cross-sector performance related data to monitor progress on matters of culture, inclusion and misconduct.  

In July 2024, at NFCC’s Culture & Inclusion conference there was discussion amongst delegates about the need for a national survey and national data sets. This feedback from delegates was incorporated into the evaluation of the conference. Exploratory work has been supported through discussions with the Inclusive Fire Service Group (IFSG). Work is underway to scope a national survey with a plan to pilot this in the financial year of 2025-26, to gauge staff experiences and feelings towards culture on an ongoing basis. Learning from other public bodies like the NHS and other blue light services, is helping to inform this approach.

The Culture Dashboard Methodology was published in July 2024 and launched at NFCC’s Culture and Inclusion Conference. This guidance provides a framework to help FRS work through the creation, or further development, of their own dashboard. The guidance is not meant to be definitive, as strategies and objectives related to culture will vary across FRSs. NFCC is in discussions with the Home Office about national measures of culture performance either as part of national data collection and reporting or through a national culture survey. Polls held in focus groups between October and December 2024 indicated that ten different services were aware of the Culture Dashboard Methodology and four had actively used it. In early April 2025, NFCC is holding a Strategic Masterclass where we will gather more data on people’s understanding and usage of the Culture Dashboard Methodology.  

The Positive Practice Portal was launched in May 2023 and was originally designed to act as a repository to share case studies and examples of positive practice captured by HMICFRS. Initially a practice was identified and classified by HMICFRS as innovative if it was new but not evaluated and positive if the service had demonstrated an evaluation process to the HMICFRS, which other services may then want to adopt. Subsequently, FRSs have included their own examples directly to the portal, which have been self-determined and not driven by HMICFRS. There have been 107 entries submitted to the Positive Practice Portal, 50 of the entries related to people, culture and leadership and of those 50, FRS have indicated that 33 also relate to ethics. The availability of this data has enabled FRSs to share learning with one another and additional consideration is being given to how the learning is evaluated to quality assure that the case studies and positive practice being shared is exemplary. NFCC is looking to support FRSs to develop their organisational learning approaches which should increase the lessons that can be shared across the sector. 

NFCC commenced the inaugural Direct Entry pilot cohort in January 2024. The nationally coordinated recruitment process took place in 2023. A cohort of six aspiring middle leaders, all with limited or no previous experience in the fire and rescue sector, were appointed, and are now developing their knowledge, skills, experience and sector leadership abilities to excel in Station Manager roles. The three-year Direct Entry Scheme equips participants to address evolving challenges in fire and rescue services through a combination of practical experiences, theoretical learning, and interactive training. Feedback from both services and participants has been gathered to assess the initiative’s success and guide future efforts in broadening access to fire sector careers, particularly among diverse and underrepresented groups. Currently, seven fire and rescue services are considering involvement in a second cohort. Direct Entry has been a catalyst for considering other ways to support leadership development within the sector which is being explored through working groups.  

There are many examples listed across the other deliverables where the NFCC Implementation team has played a pivotal role in supporting FRSs to achieve the Fire Standards, alongside becoming familiar with and adopting a wide range of PCL products which have been created to provide guidance and support. Notable examples of deliverables include:  

1) Embedding Fire Standards;  

2) Core Code of Ethics;  

5) Independent Reporting Lines;  

7) Supporting HMICFRS;  

8) Professional Leadership Development;  

10) Education and behavioural programmes;  

14) Culture performance dashboard;  

15) Positive Practice Portal;  

20) Health and Wellbeing Framework;  

21) Coaching and Mentoring; and  

22) NFCC products and services.  

Since July 2023, the Implementation team has had over 2000 engagements with services, of which over 460 relate to Fire Standards (including 240 workshops), and 470 engagements relate specifically to People, Culture and Leadership.

In 2022, NFCC initiated an Organisational Learning Project which ran from July 2022 – April 2024. This project was intended to undertake feasibility and discovery work and to design, develop and roll-out interim Organisational Learning (OL) arrangements for NFCC and FRSs. NFCC’s Organisational Learning team has produced a new learning tool which includes questions that are designed to focus on the processes in which the learning event occurred and what local organisational improvements an FRS has made following any learning. FRSs are currently being signed up to the new tool through regional meetings which includes asking them to nominate users of the tool with their service. To date, 11 fire and rescue services have been onboarded with the new tool. NFCC is now working with several co-ordinating committees to ensure that they have an Organisational Learning Lead to provide expertise to NFCC and make recommendations around learning to their committee. Another aspect to NFCC’s approach to Organisational Learning has been the establishment of a cross-blue light services group to share learning and experiences in relation to work on culture, inclusion and misconduct. The group was established under the Royal Foundation Emergency Responders’ work related to mental health and wellbeing.

NFCC’s Academic Collaboration, Evaluation and Research (ACER) Group plays a vital role in advancing academic work related to fire and rescue services. In November 2024, ACER approved a three-stage commissioning process to:  

1. Identify the knowledge needs of UK fire and rescue services.  
2. Invite academic proposals to address these needs.  
3. Support funding applications through appropriate channels.  

ACER has also established Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) to guide academic research and support funding applications. One key question focuses on culture: “What is the best way to make available the evidence base on equality, inclusion, and good practice to achieve an inclusive culture available to UK fire and rescue services?” By publishing this ARI, ACER aims to encourage more research into the culture within fire and rescue services.  

Additionally, NFCC is considering broader aspects of managing competence, including fitness. This initiative, prioritised for 2025-26, will be supported by the Health & Wellbeing Board under the People, Culture, and Leadership Coordinating Committee. The On-Call Research project has completed its first phase, collecting qualitative and quantitative data from the sector, the Home Office, and HMICFRS. With 1,609 responses to an on-call questionnaire, data analysis is underway, and an Independent National Study of On-Call is scheduled for release in June 2025. 

The Health and Wellbeing Strategic Framework, published in July 2024, has been produced to support everyone across the fire and rescue community to take the necessary steps to develop, deliver and enhance the health and wellbeing of people in the fire and rescue community. NFCC worked closely with Nottingham Trent University to complete a series of evidence reviews and surveys which identified health and wellbeing gaps and informed the development of the Framework. Five principles underpin the framework which adopts a whole-person and system-wide lens to health and wellbeing:  

1. supporting your own health and wellbeing;  
2. taking a holistic career approach;  
3. applying our prevention approaches and skills to ourselves;  
4. creating shared language across the sector;  
5. making the framework part of everything we do.  

The framework focuses on psychological, physical and social health and wellbeing. Since its publication, the Framework has been promoted and used as a source of information and strategic guidance for FRSs. Further work is planned as part of the new PCL plan to develop practical tools and resources to support FRSs with their health and wellbeing priorities. A strategic masterclass on the Health & Wellbeing Framework is scheduled to run in Spring 2025. 

The Coaching and Mentoring Portal is an online space which brings together fire sector mentors and qualified coaches, alongside a comprehensive range of national external tools which everyone in the sector can benefit from. The Portal promotes a sector-wide approach to developing a coaching and mentoring culture that can support employee development. There are employees registered from all 50 FRSs, with 737 individual members signed up to access a coach or mentor, of which there are 42 coaches and 73 mentors who are available to request. As of January 2025, there are 41 live coaching relationships and 38 live mentor relationships. Uptake of the available resources on the portal is around 35% of users and so increasing awareness of their availability is likely to give greater benefits to coachee and mentee development. Coachees and mentees are asked to complete a survey about their coaching/mentoring experience. To date 92% stated that they felt their coach supported them in achieving their objectives and 75% said their mentors supported them in achieving their goals.  

NFCC’s Implementation team lead much of the work to ensure that services understand the support, guidance, tools, training and development programmes available to them from NFCC.  Since NFCC’s first Culture Conference in March 2023, the Implementation team has undertaken 2,300 engagements which include 570 directly related to People, Culture and Leadership. Engagement includes tailored workshops which have reached all FRSs and over 300 people.  

The Autumn 2024 PCL Hub focus groups and survey gathered evidence about the extent to which FRS are aware of PCL products and whether they have used them. This information is being used to inform the next stages of work for the PCL Hub. Work towards national fire service recruitment campaign will be reviewed and considered as part of the new PCL plan. 

This key deliverable was added to the Culture Action Plan in July 2024 to reflect feedback from NFCC’s Independent Challenge and Support Panel, conversations with national staff networks and evidence from independent reviews that emphasised the importance of listening to lived experience. Two pieces of work have been delivered since then.  The forum held its first meeting in October 2024 and has met on two further occasions with subsequent meetings planned every two months in 2025. The forum will be formally evaluated in November 2025.  

NFCC has developed guidance for FRSs on how they can support victims to access support and report incidents to their local police force. This guidance was produced in conjunction with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the national charity, Victim Support.

The guidance is in two parts: 1. Guidance to Fire and Rescue Services in reporting crimes to the Police; and 2. Guidance to aid Fire and Rescue Services to support victims.

Further consultation will take place on these two documents in Spring 2025 prior to publication. Both documents will sit alongside the existing NFCC Managing Allegations Guidance.