Inspection of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service North Service Delivery Area

10. We are satisfied with some aspects of the performance of the SFRS within the North SDA, concluding that there are areas of satisfactory and good performance as well as opportunity for improvement. We found a generally good understanding of risk within the SDA and that the public receive a good service from the prevention and protection teams in the North. This is balanced against instances where the sharing of risk critical information following HFSVs with fire station crews was not carried out to the levels that we would expect, which highlights preventing fires and other risks as an opportunity for improvement. The SDA prepares satisfactorily for fires and other emergencies and, when required, responds well to them. There was good evidence to support our assessment that good partnership work is undertaken across the SDA, and that external partners value the contribution of the Service in this respect. Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of staff was found to be satisfactory which positively builds upon our recent report into mental health services offered by the SFRS to its staff. In terms of people management, we found that much work is ongoing, notably to try to improve On Call recruitment, this however has to be offset by areas of challenge, such as a reduction in administrative capacity to support this work.

11. During our inspection of the North SDA we found that the staff were motivated and engaged with their local management as they sought to deliver an effective service for the communities that the SFRS serves. There were areas of frustration for some within the SDA, particularly for the On Call as they seek to increase the level of personnel resource that they can attract into service to help with the maintenance of appliance availability across the North. However, this should be balanced against the general levels of satisfaction that we found within the workforce. Following consideration of this, and the issue of gender balance within the workforce, we have concluded that People is an overall opportunity for improvement for the Service.

12. The Inspection team would like to offer our thanks to Stephen Wood, the North SDA DACO, and his staff, who positively engaged, supported and worked with us during this inspection. Likewise, we would also thank all internal and external partners for their contribution and feedback throughout this process.