Our
Strategy
2024-2027
Our vision
Our mission statement
Introduction and Foreword
We are your fire and rescue service, and we are here when you need us. We are hugely proud of what we do and what we have done to get here.
This strategy document sets out what we are going to do next to keep improving. It builds on and replaces our previous three-year rolling strategy, which we called ‘Our Plan’ and published annually. This new approach is designed to be more clearly forward looking, and to show you not just what we aim to achieve, but how we will deliver it and how we will measure success.
Starting from our vision of Making the West Midlands Safer, Stronger and Healthier , we have set 17 strategic goals for the next three years, each with at least one Key Performance Indicator which will help us determine whether we are achieving that goal. We will report on our progress every year through an Annual Report, in which we will highlight our successes and explain where we need to do more.
We have organised our strategic goals into four areas, aligned to the way we organise our service. However, while these are a convenient way to arrange our goals, everyone in our service has a responsibility to deliver against them and contribute to our intended outcomes.
All our strategic goals and performance measures then come together to form a ‘balanced scorecard’ which will be a simple, visual representation of our strategy for the next three years, all in one place. We’ll keep this live on our website, where you’ll be able to track our progress, as well as access wider performance data.
How we are going to deliver against each of our strategic goals is explained in more detail in our service delivery plans, and there are links to each provided within the relevant sections of this document. These are more detailed plans covering a specific area of our business, such as our Inclusion Action Plan or our Efficiency and Productivity Plan. Each will also have its own goals and measures but will always be contributing to the delivery of the overall strategic goals of the service.
The strategic goals we have set ourselves, and this strategy as a whole, inform and are informed by our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP), which is in turn informed by your views and opinions as shared through our 2023 public consultation. The CRMP is an assessment of the foreseeable challenges and risks facing our communities and what needs to be done to meet them. We use this analysis to inform the strategic goals, as well as to determine the specific projects we will undertake to achieve those goals and address the risks.
You can read our CRMP document on our website LINK and explore the data and information that informs it. Also on our website, you can find out about the outcome of our consultation, and how that informed our planning.
Welcome to the WMFRA Strategy 2024-2027, our plan to make the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier.
As a public-funded emergency service we are here to serve you, and so our strategy has been designed for you and with your input.
It draws on your responses to our consultation undertaken in Summer 2023, where almost 6,000 of you told us your priorities, where we can do more, and the issues that matter to you most. You told us that you have high levels of trust in our service, and that you rated our services as excellent or good.
You also told us you wanted more community engagement, more safety advice, and a focus on new areas such as climate change. We have reflected these priorities within our strategic goals, alongside other commitments to ensure our services are effective and efficient.
This strategy sets out more clearly than ever what we will do to deliver against your priorities and our vision, and what you can expect from us. It gives you the information to understand how well we are delivering against our goals across every part of what we do.
We are rightly proud of what this service has achieved, from recognition of our “outstanding” approach to risk by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), to twice being crowned the Inclusive Employers’ UK’s Most Inclusive Employer.
This strategy provides the direction for the service to continue improving and building upon that success.
Former Chair of the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority
Former Chief Executive Officer
Explore our four areas of focus - how we plan to deliver our strategy for 2024-27
Community risk reduction
These services are grouped into the following categories:
Prevention
Protection
Response
Strategic goals and performance indicators
Performance indicator
The number of accidental fires in non-domestic premises
The number of false alarm calls due to faulty fire alarm equipment in dwellings and non-domestic premises
The number of deliberate fires in derelict buildings
Performance indicator
The number of Safe and Well points achieved by the service (with average point score as a sub-PI)
The number of accidental dwelling fires
Performance indicator
Risk-based attendance standard.
(Call handling time as sub-PI)
Performance indicator
The percentage of Safe and Well visits referred by our partners.
Performance indicator
Up to date and reviewed Business Continuity Plans.
People
We continue to be an employer of choice for our communities, through our commitment to building a diverse workforce reflective of the rich fabric of our society.
Inclusive and supportive culture
Development and wellbeing
Ensuring our staff are healthy and highly skilled allows them to provide the best possible services to each other and our communities.
Strategic goals and performance indicators
Performance indicator
Percentage Black and minority ethnic uniformed staff/all staff
Percentage female uniformed staff/all staff
Performance indicator
Percentage of Staff trust in the service.
Percentage of completed IPDRs
Performance indicator
Percentage of Staff reporting understanding of our core values.
Performance indicator
Total number of injuries/total number of RIDDOR injuries
The average number of working days/shifts lost due to sickness – uniformed/all staff.
Performance indicator
Percentage of Core CRA compliance
Staff will be asked to report their degree of trust in the organisation – reflecting how comfortable they are at work, their faith in service leadership and our various policies and processes.
An IPDR (Individual Performance and Development Review) should be undertaken at least annually with all staff, to help ensure their continuing development and provide evidence of core skills and competence.
We will also measure staff understanding of core values through regular staff surveys, with staff tested to ensure they can demonstrate knowledge of the values and how they apply to their work.
Competency Risk Assessment (CRA) is how the service determines that each member of staff has the required knowledge and skills to undertake their job, be they a firefighter, member of fire control, or one of our support staff.
Enabling Services
Collectively, Enabling Services provide additional expertise to achieve the service’s vision by partnering with our community-facing teams to help them be more effective in their roles.
Finance, procurement and sustainability
Communications and engagement
Digital, data and technology
Strategic goals and performance indicators
Performance indicator
Combined IT and Data Operations availability, performance, and reliability metric.
Performance indicator
Cyber Standards Compliance.
Performance indicator
Percentage public and staff trust in service communications.
Our Communications Trust Survey is a six-monthly survey carried out with our staff, partners and communities to assess the trust they have in our communications and engagement, including areas such as our safety campaigns and social media content.
Our Corporate Communications Strategy, which will soon be published, will provided more information on our approach to effective communications and engagement.
Value
Like all local authorities, we are subject to a Duty of Best Value to “make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which [our] functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.”
Efficiency
Productivity
We need to ensure that our crews and our support staff are making optimal use of their time and achieving the maximum benefit from the resources and money we invest in various activities such a prevention and training.
Sustainability
Strategic goals and performance indicators
Performance indicator
Achieving balanced budget.
Performance indicator
Delivery of in-year efficiency target.
Performance indicator
Overall Service Productivity.
Economic and Social Cost of Fire.
Performance indicator
Total service carbon footprint/output
Service gas and electric usage
CO2 equivalent is a measure designed to take account of all types of greenhouse gases but provides a consistent measure in terms of the environmental impact they have equivalent to a standard measure of CO2, the most common greenhouse gas.
Our Budget and Medium-Term Financial Plan are agreed and published every February and will provide further detail on how we will deliver our efficiency goal and achieve a balanced budget.
Will also be able to read more about how we will deliver on our commitment to achieving Net Zero within our Sustainability Strategy soon, when we publish it in full.
Find out more about how we manage risk and create 'Our Strategy'
The CRMP is an assessment of the foreseeable challenges and risks facing our communities and what needs to be done to meet them.
We use this analysis to inform the strategic goals, as well as to determine the specific projects we will undertake to achieve those goals and address the risks.
It helps us to understand risks across the areas we serve. We use it to create our Community Risk Management Plan and three-year rolling strategy.
Now, you, our communities, can explore some of this data yourself in our new 'Risk Explorer' tool!
All you need to do is enter your postcode, then you can explore and interact with the same data we use! You'll be able to see incidents to which we’ve responded near you, our response times, and even the different levels of risk for various emergency types. There’s also lots of handy demographic info, and you can turn different data on and off.