Chief Inspector's Update 2021-2024

1. In 2013 the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) was created by the amalgamation of eight legacy Services. Governance of the Fire and Rescue Service passed from local authority control to that of a Board of non-executives appointed by Scottish Ministers. At the same time, and in line with the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, the inspection and scrutiny role of HMFSI was reinvigorated. Prior to this date the routine inspection role had been removed and, for a period of time, the Inspectorate’s role had moved to being more of an advisory one rather than that of providing scrutiny.

2. On its creation, the SFRS established a three Service Delivery Area (SDA) model, and this structure has now been in place for over ten years. Within each SDA, Local Senior Officers (LSO) were established. These LSO areas were aligned to local authority areas.

3. An HMFSI inspection regime was established in 2013 which inspected the service delivery of the SFRS in discrete units which corresponded with local authority boundaries across Scotland. There are 32 local authorities in Scotland. Some LSO areas, such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, sat within a single local authority area. Some LSO areas incorporated a number of local authority areas. In terms of the SFRS, this local structure and accountability was largely influenced by the legislation that created the SFRS. Since its creation, the Service has amalgamated some of these LSO areas on the basis of evolving need, experience and efficiency.

4. HMFSI’s inspection at a local authority level was influenced by:

• the importance that was perceived at the time in respect of continuing local accountability by the authorities that previously governed the Fire and Rescue Services, and
• the Fire and Rescue Framework²

HMFSI referred to these type of inspections as ‘Local Area Inspections’ (LAI).

5. Between 2013 and 2020, HMFSI carried out 16 Local Area Inspections. The outcome of these inspections each comprises a report which was issued to the Service and made available on the internet. These reports can be accessed at www.hmfsi.scot.

6. The global pandemic and subsequent restrictions created a short time-barrier when physical inspection work was interrupted. That aside though, over the nine year period since the introduction of the Local Area Inspection process, only 16 local authority areas were inspected with a further 16 awaiting inspection.

7. During this period HMFSI also undertook thematic inspections of the SFRS and between April 2013 and April 2021 had issued reports on 18 thematic inspections. These included subjects such as ‘Preparedness of the SFRS for a serious flooding event’, ‘Managing Automatic Fire Signals’, and ‘Risk-based operational decision making in the SFRS’. All these thematic inspection reports are available on our website.