Deceit continues as the public protest

Two weeks on and sadly no response from Sara Randall-Johnson, the Chair of Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Authority. My thought that she might be concerned about the misleading consultation document she had put her name to seems to have been misplaced. I hope it doesn’t mean she knew it was deliberately misleading.

The public give their views loud and clear

Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service continue to try and persuade people that these are not cuts, but it is quite clear that people aren't falling for it.

It seems that some fire & rescue service staff have felt uncomfortable at some public consultation meetings. They really should not be surprised that people who have been told their lives will be put at greater risk are angry and appear hostile. It may be unfair to criticise those sent to persuade the public that they should accept cuts to their service, after all, some of them may not realise they have been sent out with distorted data and misleading claims. If that is why they are uncomfortable then they need to take it up with their employers.

Uncomfortable will be waiting longer to be rescued from a 
burning building or a wrecked car when help has to travel further

Apparently, having received a petition at Porlock containing over 3,500 signatures opposing the station's closure, someone left it behind. Now I agree that full consultation responses are better, but if the Fire & Rescue Authority is sincere they must accept the petition. Petitions to official bodies have been recognised as a valid way for the public to express their view for many hundreds of years. It is wrong of D&SF&RS to now imply that petitions are not worthwhile.

Make your views known to the Fire & Rescue Authority

and your MP

I strongly recommend that people complete the consultation questionnaire and lobby Fire Authority Members. Despite what some D&SF&RS officers would have you believe, this is a result of Government cutting funds for Fire & Rescue Authorities, so please also write to your MP. The new Prime Minister has pledged to repair the damage austerity has caused to the Police, so it is wrong that austerity is still being allowed to destroy our fire & rescue service.

Who can you believe?

"Resources in the wrong place"

This is the inept D&SF&RS plan to get them in the 'right place'

This is their worst case proposal, which could be adopted. Roving fire engines may appear to improve things, but we don't know if they will be full sized fire engines with a full crew, or vans with a couple of firefighters, so there is no way to know. The odds of them being in the right place at the right time are also very poor.

Preparing for extra fatalities?

My attention has been drawn to one of the images used by the D&SF&RS propaganda unit. The question raised was, “is the firefighter depicted carrying a body bag with one of the extra bodies that will result from these cuts?”

I can see why someone thought it looked like a body bag, but I am sure the propaganda unit would not be that foolish. However, I have been informed it depicts a firefighter carrying a ‘Cleveland Load’ bag, which contains hose packed in a way that is easier to use in high rise buildings. A good idea you might think, except that all the bags they bought have never been used. In another example of inept planning, they can’t fit them on their fire engines without removing other vital equipment, so they are sitting in storage!

Money wasted on TWO Chief Fire Officers

A look at last year's accounts shows that D&SF&RS spent £353,855 on TWO Chief Fire Officers! Lee Howell, who now tells us they have to save money, was paid even though he was away for the whole of 2018/19. They also paid his Deputy at the full Chief Fire Officer rate to do Lee Howell's job. Lee Howell seems to have little interest in Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service or local residents. After a round of damaging cuts six years ago he went part time, so he could act as Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser and Inspector for Wales. 

In November 2017 he left to take charge of a Home Office funded data analytics initiative. It was only supposed to be for one year, but he failed to complete it in the time and stayed on, only returning in April this year. Now the Home Office was supposed to pay £140,000 towards the cost of his employment for 2018/19, but that does not appear in the accounts. 

It beggars belief that the Fire & Rescue Authority effectively subsidised the Home Office, who were only offering to cover two thirds of the CFO's cost. You also have to wonder if the Data Analytics initiative will see data analysed properly, or manipulated in the way it has been for this consultation!

Chief Fire Officer wants you to do his job for him

It now seems that Mr Howell doesn't want people to tell him his proposals are wrong, he wants them to do his job and come up with alternatives.

The reason the service is in this mess Mr Howell is because you have failed to impress on the Home Office how damaging their funding cuts are. Now some suggest that you haven't done this as you have been working for them. I hope that is not the case, so if you have campaigned on behalf of Devon & Somerset's residents and firefighters, please publish your correspondence to the Fire Minister and to local Members of Parliament, together with their replies.

Residents in Devon & Somerset deserve honest answers

Now junior staff are used for propaganda

Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service is always redacting the names of junior staff in documents requested under freedom of information legislation. They say this is to protect their personal data. Yet it now seems they are quite happy to use their images and voices, which are pretty personal to most people, to spin dangerous cuts in their latest video on social media.

I suppose it is the uproar, as the public begin to realise that D&SF&RS management is misleading them with this consultation, that has prompted this latest shabby attempt to spin the cuts as improvements. They must think the public will be misled by a few faces from further down the service's career structure in to thinking that staff support these cuts. 

The reality is that the vast majority of Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service staff oppose these cuts. 

What induced them to take part in a propaganda video, which is effectively stabbing some of their colleagues in the back, I don't know. Especially as the proposals will also see hundreds of thousands of residents in Devon & Somerset face an increased risk to their lives. It does not matter if they were pressurised or did so voluntarily, it was very unfair of the service to put them in that position. 

So let us look at the claims in the video: 

Consultation document misleading, over 600,000 people face increased life risk

My email to Sara Randall Johnson, Chair of Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Authority, sent yesterday:

Dear Fire Authority Chair,

 

Whilst I am sure you were unaware, the consultation document you have put your name to is deliberately misleading. Sadly, it appears this has been done to deceive the residents of Devon & Somerset and I would urge you to withdraw the document.

 

My experience of FSEC modelling made me doubt the claims made by ACFO Pete Bond in his BBC interview on 2nd July, so I submitted questions to the Safer Together Programme Team. Their answers, and another D&SF&RS document (attached), confirm my suspicions that the presentation of the risk modelling outcomes are deliberately misleading.

 

The reduced risk claim is frankly fraudulent, as it is based on a comparison for the future, which assumes all the service's fire engines are available, with the current situation, which assumes several fire engines are not available. The excuse given is that crewing and contract changes will ensure all appliances will be available in future. That is outrageous speculation and it is highly unlikely that will ever be achieved. 

So, the only honest and responsible method is to compare current theoretical full availability with future theoretical full availability. That comparison shows, although not very clearly in the public consultation document, an extra death every other year on option 5 (25 extra in dwellings and 22 extra in RTCs in 100 years). A figure that will be higher, as not all deaths have been included in the results. Fire deaths not in dwellings, which in some years have exceeded those in dwellings, and deaths at non-fire incidents, other than road traffic collisions, have not been included. The figure shown for RTCs is also highly suspicious, as the service saves many more lives at RTCs than it does at dwelling fires. Delayed responses will therefore impact more on RTC fatalities than on dwelling fire fatalities. FSEC modelling in other fire & rescue services show that for every extra death in a dwelling fire there can be 15 extra deaths in non-fire incidents, as a direct result of longer response times. 

Although the reply I received states that the modelling for RTCs was based on attendance times for the first two fire engines, the figures in the consultation document suggest that is not the case. In option 5, fourteen second fire engines are taken out of use during the day, yet it is claimed that will make no difference to RTC fatalities (same result as for option 4). This suggests that the figures used in the consultation document are for first fire engine only, so once again deliberately misleading. It is also concerning that modelling figures have not been provided for property damage, which is also certain to increase if the proposals go ahead. 

 

The figures for option 6 are also dubious and wholly unreliable. I am told that the roving fire engines were “in certain locations for the purpose of the modelling”. Whilst there may be odd occasions when a roving fire engine happens to be near enough to an incident to provide an improved response time, the random nature of emergencies means there is a much higher probability that it will not. Evidence of this unreliability can be found in the Analytical Comparison of Community Impacts from Service Delivery Operating Model document, dated June 2019. This is stated to be “the evidence base to assess the impact of changes to our Service Delivery Operating Model”. This shows the outcomes for options 5 and 6 as the same, which means there is no improvement on response times for roving fire engines.

 

Whilst the Analytical Comparison document seems generally more accurate than the consultation document, there are still some concerning conclusions in it. For example, on page 45, the increased response time shown for Porlock and Woolacombe, if they are closed, is just two to five minutes. Yet the nearest fire engines are Minehead and Ilfracombe respectively, both six miles away. Even Lewis Hamilton could not achieve that on those roads in even light traffic. Similarly, the map on page 46 shows day crewing at Barnstaple only increasing first pump response time by one to two minutes. The reality is that at night, with On Call Firefighters responding from home, it would be an increase of around four minutes. These outputs suggest the results have been manipulated to appear less severe. 

However, what the Analytical Comparison document does reveal is that over 600,000 residents will face an increased risk to their lives if the full proposals are carried out (262,486 households x 2.3 average occupancy = 603,718 people). That detail should not be kept secret, the public deserve to know before responding to the consultation. It is also very disturbing that the station risk profiles for every fire station have suddenly been removed from the D&SF&RS website. Removing recent (2018/19) performance information during a consultation is not being responsible and accountable.

 

I would add that I requested copies of the actual modelling data used, but this has not been supplied.

 

I can't believe that you would be happy about the public and Fire Authority Members being misled in this way. Please have the document withdrawn and postpone the consultation until a revised document can be published showing full, accurate and honest details of the impact of these cuts. Given the seriousness of this matter I have copied this email to Fire Authority Members and other concerned parties. 

Yours sincerely

Residents should be concerned about Fire & Rescue Service cuts consultation

Consultation launched by Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service

The consultation is now open on their website, but beware of their claims and statements.

The Dark Art of Spin

Some examples of how Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service is trying to spin cuts as improvements, with some added responses.

Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service still living up to their new name

Well sorry Peter Bond, I don't think anyone believes that closing 8 fire stations, cutting 16 fire engines, 
cutting between 200 and 250 firefighter posts, mothballing 8 or 14 fire engines during the day, 
and reallocating just one fire engine will make anything better.

Vital information missing from Chief Fire Officer's report

The Chief Fire Officer's report to the Fire Authority mentions the Fire Services Emergency Cover Toolkit, which is used to model the effects of any resource changes, but he has not included the all important results. Used properly, the modelling can be used to compare the effects of each option with current figures for deaths and property damage, so that the consequences of change are fully understood. Figures can be produced to show increases or decreases for the service as a whole and for each station area.

Other Chief Fire Officers have tried to bury, or make difficult to understand, the extra death and increased property damage results from this modelling, but Lee Howell seems to be the first to try and keep them secret. It is not acceptable to hide them from the public and from Fire Authority Members.

The report also misleads by not giving the full figures for each station’s workload, which means the full extent of the consequences is hidden. Figures for incidents attended in other station areas, attendance at incidents as relief crew, standbys at other stations and co-responder calls should be included in all the tables. 

Much is made in the report of prevention activity, but no mention is made of how much prevention and community safety activity will be lost as a result of the cuts at affected stations. Attendance at community events, visits to schools etc., are valuable prevention and safety opportunities. That loss needs to be set against any gain that may, or may not, result from some of the changes. A significant increase in prevention activity may be hoped for, but the report is lacking in detail of how that will be achieved and at what cost.

Strange Logic 

Some of the claimed figures in the report seem illogical. For example, in option 1, they claim closing 8 fire stations and removing over 90 firefighter posts will save money. I understand that, but how will that also increase Fire Safety Checks by over 3,000? Saying “Potential increase” in Fire Safety Checks is not good enough, some detail and costings must be provided to support the figures. 

The concept of prevention and protection activity making everyone safer is an attractive one, but doing so by reducing response resources, and thereby increasing response times, is foolhardy. There is no evidence that increasing prevention and protection activity will save lives, but plenty of evidence that longer response times increase the number of deaths and the cost of property damage. We hope prevention will save lives, but it is not measurable. 

Wishing and hoping prevention will save lives is not 

justification for removing fire crews that do save lives.

Roving can only work with an accurate crystal ball

Option 6 would see six additional 'roving' fire engines during the day, although details of how they will be used are sketchy. They talk about moving them to areas where, for example, "we typically have a number of accidents at particular times of the day on particular roads". They even admitted on Facebook that they don't have a crystal ball, but arrogantly claim, "robust analysis is the next best thing". It is not. No amount of analysis will tell them where and when the next emergency will be. It only tells them about incidents they have attended in the past. Fires and accidents can occur anywhere and at anytime, so there will be many more occasions when 'roving' fire engines are not nearby, than occasions when they will be.

The number of calls deception

The Chief Fire Officer claims that less calls justifies these cuts, but fails to mention that demand has never been used to determine the number of fire engines required. If fire service resources had been increased as calls increased then, even allowing for recent reductions, the service would have far more resources than it does now. 

Proper resource allocation is based on having a spread of resources to ensure a speedy and effective response to every emergency call, a speedy and effective response to assistance calls for larger incidents, and to ensure a high volume of calls in an area can be attended simultaneously. Severe weather events often result in numerous calls at the same time and climate change is increasing the scale and frequency of such events. 

Demand is only a factor in determining if a fire engine needs to be crewed by On Call Firefighters, for lower demand, or by Wholetime Firefighters for higher demand.

Every fire station is attending more emergency calls than when Chief Fire Officers, Councillors and the Home Office first approved the establishment of the current stations in 1948. Since then, despite emergency calls increasing significantly, before dropping back to levels well above those in 1948, the number of front-line fire engines in Devon & Somerset has never been increased. They have only ever been reduced.

There are around 3 fires in people's homes and over 50 other fires and emergencies every day in Devon and Somerset. There is no way of knowing where the next one will be, so resources must be maintained across the area.

Each 'X' on this map represents a fire engine permanently removed, or not available during the day, under option 5 of Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service's latest scheme.

It is also concerning that in the report, in interviews and on social media, unsubstantiated claims and statements are being made by Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service. Spin and speculation should have no place in an organisation that professes to be honest, open and accountable. 

Incredibly, when I pointed out that they were misusing the term 'risk', they admitted my definition was right. So why do they keep talking about 'low risk' when all they really mean is that an area or station has less incidents than other areas. The risk of anyone losing their life in a fire or crash, or losing their home or business, is the same wherever they are. 

What Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service is really saying is, "if there are lots of emergencies in your area, then we will attend quickly, but if there are not, then we won't. To ensure we take longer to get to areas with less emergencies, we will remove your nearest fire station or fire engines from that station". 

About as responsible as a motorist saying, "I wear my seat belt on that road because there were ten serious crashes on it last year, but I don't wear it on this road because there were only two".   

This lengthy report is packed with statistics, some helpful some not, but it is missing crucial information.

The Fire Authority must not keep that information secret, it must be released before the consultation.

Office for National Statistics ignores true value of our fire & rescue services

Yesterday's report, “Activities, spending and productivity in the Fire and Rescue Services since 2009”, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), clearly shows how distorted thinking is undermining our fire & rescue services.

They claim to be independent of politics, but the claim looks somewhat suspect when the report suggests that cuts have improved productivity. They also claim to be the “recognised national statistical institute of the UK”. Well perhaps they are competent when it comes to business statistics, but when it comes to the fire & rescue service they clearly don’t have a clue.

They apply a simplistic business test of looking at inputs (cost of provision) and outputs (quantity produced), which they perceive for fire & rescue to be operational and prevention activity. They then crudely claim, because activity cuts are not as bad as staff cuts, that productivity has improved.

Home Office figures

The fundamental schoolboy error in this approach is that fire & rescue is not a business, but a form of insurance that both reduces mishaps and disasters, and minimises their effects when they do occur. If they properly assessed outputs, they would assess the financial benefit of lives not being lost and property not being destroyed as a result of FRS activity. Sadly, something this national statistical institute appears incapable of doing.

Now it may be difficult, but proper research could identify the value of lives and property saved at incidents by the FRS. Identifying the value of lives and property saved by prevention activity, i.e. losses avoided because incidents were avoided, may be more challenging, but a “recognised national statistical institute” ought to be able to estimate this. Yet they have not even tried to do so.

The real value of the service is what is saved and prevented, not how many incidents or inspections are carried out. I have no doubt that if these fundamental outputs were properly calculated, then the service would be shown to be very productive and very good value.

Of course, that would also show that cuts to the service are counterproductive, with the cost of the consequences being much greater than the actual saving on service provision. The ONS may consider themselves to be non-political, but their inept assessment is helping austerity politicians to falsely claim damaging cuts as productivity improvements.

If the ONS want their statistics on fire & rescue to be taken seriously, then they need to properly value the full benefit that fire and rescue services contribute to public safety and the economy.     

Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service blunders on

It seems that Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service’s leadership is incapable of learning from their mistakes, or of complying with the law. They are clearly desperate to cover up their failings and poor decision making by any means possible.

This week a ruling confirmed that they failed to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, and last week there was another move in the continuing cover up regarding the loss of the Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter.

No risk assessments for Really Inadequate Vehicle policy

The Information Commissioner has now ruled that Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service breached sections 10 and 17 of the Freedom of Information Act, in relation to a request for information about their decision to provide some communities with less capable fire engines.

The Commissioner has ordered D&SF&RS to provide missing and redacted information within 35 days and, if they fail to do so, the matter could be referred to the High Court to be dealt with as a contempt of court.

Included in the information they have been trying to keep secret are the risk assessments that should have been completed before they replaced well equipped fire engines with vehicles that are far less effective.

D&SF&RS regularly claim that resources are being matched to risk, but they refuse to provide copies of their risk assessments. In particular, how they assessed the risk of replacing well equipped fire engines with vehicles that are far less effective.

So, either they have not carried out proper risk assessments, 

or there are serious risks they don’t want the public or firefighters to know about.

Royal Clarence Hotel

The Information Commissioner has yet to rule on D&SF&RS’s failure to provide information that would allow scrutiny of their actions at the Cathedral Yard fire.  The information was requested last September. Now, presumably to try and placate the Commissioner, they have belatedly released a version of the Fire Control Incident Log. Unfortunately, as so much of the detail useful for scrutiny has been redacted, it tells us very little.

Information they want to keep secret includes: 

• Details of which fire engines were sent, when they were sent, how long they took to arrive, when they left the incident, and how many firefighters were on them.
• Significant detail in messages between the control room and the incident that give details of the extent of the fire and what action the crews were taking.
• Some assistance messages redacted completely and detail missing in others.
• The names of officers taking decisions and in overall command of the incident at different times.

The public and firefighters have legitimate concerns

BBC Inside Out South West

To justify keeping this information secret they are misusing an exemption in the legislation that is intended to protect information related to law enforcement. It is quite ludicrous to claim that, for example, information on what time the fire engine from Dawlish was sent to the incident “would, or would be likely to, prejudice” .. “the exercise by any public authority of its functions for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of an accident.” 

It would be laughable, if this were not such a serious matter.

Clearly aware how weak their justification is, they have produced an additional document in which they try to suggest that this information would help “those with malicious intent” and is necessary to “protect the Service and wider society from potential crime”. Once again utterly ludicrous. Hiding this information is not in the public interest, but the Chief Fire Officer must think it is in his interest.

Having worked with security sensitive information and discussed policies with the police, security services and the Cabinet Office, I fully understand the need to be cautious about information that might be useful to terrorists. 

However, information on how the service managed, or mismanaged, 

a fire nearly three years ago is of no use to terrorists whatsoever.

Mr Nobody did it

Those who are parents will be familiar with children’s denials when they have done something wrong. It seems D&SF&RS are following that example by removing names from documents, so that we have no idea who was responsible for anything.

They did eventually disclose the name of the most senior person responsible for two of the vehicle related documents, but not for all of them. So, for no legitimate reason, the names of some project managers and of those who reviewed or approved the reports are kept secret.

Astonishingly they claim this was because they “believed that there may be inappropriate contact and naming of these individuals in the media, due to the way in which its responses had been used in the past. Disclosure of the information about these third parties could clearly have very detrimental consequences.”

They don’t explain what “detrimental consequences” or “inappropriate contact” they are referring to, or provide any evidence to support their claim about past use of their responses, or even why they describe their own employees as "third parties". Critics of the changes have not contacted any individual employee - appropriately, or inappropriately. 

It all points to the real reason being that they don’t like 

anyone asking awkward questions or criticising their decisions

D&SF&RS need to understand that if they require their managers to make inaccurate and misleading claims in interviews, press releases and on social media, in an effort to justify dangerous cuts to the service, those claims have to be challenged. Do they really expect us to believe that fire service managers, who have risked life and limb, are going to dissolve in to tears when someone challenges what they said, or asks difficult questions?

D&SF&RS put them in that position, not those campaigning to stop dangerous changes. 

In the case of the Royal Clarence Hotel log, all the names have been removed from the released Fire Control log. So, apparently, we are not to be told who was in overall charge of the incident at any stage. 

You have to wonder, if they did such a good job, why they don’t want their names associated with the incident.

The exemptions in the legislation were never intended to allow people, who are paid by taxpayers to protect the public, to hide their activities under a cloak of anonymity. D&SF&RS claims to be open, honest and accountable, yet these actions demonstrate it is not. Compounding the secrecy and cover up by trying to deceive the Information Commissioner with spurious claims is equally irresponsible.

Until the fire authority ensures this information is put fully in the public domain,

the service will sadly remain the Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service.

An Honest Fire & Rescue Service or a

The cover up continues

Those concerned with the failures at the Cathedral Yard fire in Exeter on 28 October 2016, which resulted in the loss of the historic Royal Clarence Hotel, have been trying to get answers. A Freedom of Information request for copies of incident logs and other recorded information was submitted last September by respected fire safety consultant Alan Cox. Instead of providing copies of the documents within the required 20 working days, the request was met with delays and excuses.

One disturbing excuse in November was, “the main subject experts are no longer employees.” You don’t need former employees to copy reports or to redact exempt material from documents and records. They went on to say, “one of them is coming in next week to assist”. Assist with what, removing details from the reports, adding detail that should have been recorded at the time, or altering the reports to cover up failures? Such actions would not only be inappropriate, they would be illegal.

Finally, at the beginning of this month, one document has now been provided. Not, however, scans of the original Fire Ground Event & Decision Log that was completed during the incident, but a typed transcript. When questioned, the sender is only able to say that she "understands" it to be "a direct copy”. Following the earlier reference to a former employee coming in to assist, concerns are heightened that, instead of an exact copy, this is just a sanitised version.

Despite Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service’s claim to be open, responsible and accountable, they have redacted all the names in the log. It is not acceptable to shield publicly employed managers from public scrutiny by misusing exemptions that are designed to protect people from unreasonable intrusion in to their private lives. That was never the intention of the Data Protection Act, or the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act.  

We are only talking about the names of these publicly employed officials, not their age, home address, or other genuinely personal data. These names would be made public if there was a court case, inquest or public inquiry, so why not now? Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service happily publish the names of personnel in press releases and on their website for positive stories, so why are they hiding these names? There is no justification, and this secrecy only reinforces concerns that, instead of learning from their failings, they want to cover them up.

Fire Ground Event & Decision Log

So, what does the only document provided so far tell us? It tells us that plans for the Royal Clarence Hotel were being sent to the incident at 08:24, which is more than 3 hours after the first fire engine arrived. That raises several questions, including why were plans for this historic building, with a significant life risk, not available on fire engines and why had they not been requested much earlier? It also suggests that someone still had concerns about the fire affecting the hotel, even though reports indicate that, at the same time, the hotel was not being properly checked for fire spread and that resources were being released from the incident.

Even more concerning, at 09:45, the record of the inter-agency meeting says that the fire was “now contained” and that the risk assessment had “taken into account fire spread at roof level”. Crucially, there was no mention of fire spreading to the Royal Clarence Hotel in the list of risks still being considered. 

Astonishingly, at 09:40, it records just 2 breathing apparatus sets, one aerial appliance and one firefighting jet in use. Photos then show that, shortly after, the aerial appliance was no longer in action. It is also unclear, if this is an exact copy of the original, how the 09:40 log entry was recorded after the 09:45 entry.

Despite the apparent confidence that the fire was contained and would not spread, less than 20 minutes later, large volumes of smoke are rising from the roof of the Royal Clarence Hotel. It is also more than five hours after firefighters were first called to the incident. Resources that had been released are called back and additional resources have to be requested. Firefighters universally regard having to ask for additional resources, after they have been sent away, as a cardinal sin indicating poor decision making and assessment. Exactly what resources had been released from the incident too early is not shown in this log, which is why it is important for the control room log to be produced. 

International Fire Protection magazine

The missing documents

It is quite clear that the control room log is one of the documents that they don’t want to be made public. Eight months after these documents were requested, they are now making the excuse that the Monitoring Officer needs to consider if they are exempt under section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act. This is undoubtedly a last-ditch attempt to keep this information from public scrutiny, as that section is primarily intended to protect information about sensitive Government negotiations. For other public bodies it is only about disclosure that might prejudice “the effective conduct of public affairs.”

Key to legitimate use of this exemption is the public interest test. It is painfully obvious that understanding why there was such a catastrophic failure at this incident, despite the magnificent work of so many firefighters, is very much in the public interest. Not least to ensure such failures do not occur in the future. Section 36 is not there to frustrate scrutiny, or to serve the personal interest of individuals.

If section 36 is used to withhold information, then it will effectively be an admission that 

Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service has something to hide

It is rather like a drink driver refusing to be tested. They know they are over the limit, the police know they are over the limit, the courts know they are over the limit, but they just want to hide exactly how much over the limit they are.

The fake review of the Cathedral Yard fire

In January, Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service announced a review of the Cathedral Yard fire by the National Fire Chiefs Council, which they claimed would provide “an independent view from people who understand operational tactics”. However, the review by West Midlands Fire & Rescue Service has been told by Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service to only review the methods used to compile the original report. A much criticised report that had recommendations for others, but none for Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service.

By mentioning operational tactics, it appears they hoped to give the impression that it was a full review of the incident. However, as Assistant Chief Fire Officer Peter Bond confirmed in correspondence with the Fire Brigades Union, “It is not a review of the actual incident or any operational tactics.” He also says that the review was requested "following allegations that were made in the media", but the limitations they have imposed prevent any review of tactics and actions that are at the heart of those allegations.

Mr Bond also refused to allow the FBU to be involved with the process, other than to accompany any FBU member who wanted support when interviewed. Another indication that they did not want a full and open investigation. Surprising and worrying when Mr Bond is supposed to be the Director of Service Improvement.

The FBU raised several concerns after the fire, but none of these were included in the whitewash report. Other professionals and the victims of the fire share those concerns. I understand that the review team carried out interviews with selected personnel at the end of March, but a review report has yet to appear. It will be interesting to see if West Midlands Chief Fire Officer Phil Loach decides to support a fellow Chief Fire Officer's whitewash, or if he will make it clear that he is unable to properly address the many genuine concerns about the handling of this fire.

This is not about finding people to punish for any failings, it is about understanding what went wrong, why it went wrong, and taking action to stop similar failures in the future. 

If the Fire & Rescue Authority genuinely cares about public safety it will make the requested documents public

and ensure that a full and truly independent investigation is carried out.

Claiming these values is meaningless
when your actions demonstrate the opposite

Your firefighters and the public deserve better