NIFRS: An Organisational Assessment and Review of Departmental Oversight

Fire and rescue services in Northern Ireland are provided by the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS), an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety (the Department). With an annual budget of approximately £80 million, NIFRS accounts for less than two per cent of the overall Departmental budget of approximately £4.3 billion. Today Kieran Donnelly, Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) issued a report which focuses on an Organisational Assessment of NIFRS and a review of the Department’s oversight of NIFRS.

Why prepare this report

The C&AG’s decision to prepare this report was informed by an assessment of the risks facing NIFRS including:

  • the control issues noted by the C&AG in his qualification of the audit opinion on the NIFRS 2008-09 financial statements when he expressed concern that the systems of corporate governance in NIFRS were unable to prevent irregular expenditure on salary awards to non-uniformed Directors;
  • following the 2008-09 audit qualification the Department initiated an independent review1 of NIFRS, examining all aspects of the NIFRS/Departmental relationship. The report included 85 recommendations for change, highlighting a number of key areas which needed to be addressed including strengthening corporate governance arrangements; and
  • the major transition in the NIFRS Board and senior staff during 2010 (the independent report’s recommendations included changes to the NIFRS Board structure).

In addition, the report examined if the fire and rescue modernisation agenda was being progressed by NIFRS to the same extent as other services in GB.

Organisational assessment

The C&AG asked the Audit Commission to lead an Organisational Assessment of the NIFRS to review its performance and, where possible, benchmark this against the 46 Fire and Rescue Services in England. The Audit Commission has specialist expertise and experience of inspections and assessments of Fire and Rescue Services in England. The approach used in England by the Audit Commission’s fire inspection team was applied to NIFRS and the review has been included in full within the report at Appendix 1.

The Audit Commission’s key finding was that it assessed NIFRS as performing adequately overall. Had the Audit Commission been scoring NIFRS, as it would have done in a review of an English Fire and Rescue Services, NIFRS would have received a score of level 2 - an organisation that meets minimum requirements, and performs adequately. The Audit Commission noted;

  • NIFRS provides an effective emergency response;
  • NIFRS engages with local communities to help keep people safe in their homes and reduce the risk of fire. Over the past five years the number of accidental dwelling fires has reduced by 2.7 per cent and fewer people in Northern Ireland have died or suffered injuries from fires in the home. However, the Audit Commission noted that more people, per head of population, die as a result of fires and more are injured in fires in Northern Ireland than in England;
  • working with local communities, especially with young people, NIFRS is reducing historically high levels of arson, hoax call and attacks on firefighters. The number of arson cases in Northern Ireland has fallen by over a third in the last five years but remains substantially higher than levels elsewhere in the UK; and
  • when examining the question “Does NIFRS have the leadership, capacity and capability it needs to deliver future improvements?” the Audit Commission’s view was that the prospects for future improvement were poor. This stemmed from
    • the major transition in the NIFRS Board and senior staff during 2010 which meant that the Audit Commission had no basis to project the delivery of future prospects for improvements; and
    • since 2007 not enough had moved forward in key areas when compared to progress being made by Fire and Rescue Services in England.

The Audit Commission also noted that NIFRS had the benefit of dedicated, loyal, hard-working staff who are proud to work for the Service and deeply committed to delivering a good service to their communities.

With the pressure on finances mounting for all public services, NIFRS will need to continue to identify how it can be more efficient and reduce costs, including staff overtime for example, through its Resource Management Review Project. The Audit Commission report echoes the independent report commissioned by the Department in several areas and in the opinion of the C&AG both documents provide a framework for NIFRS to move forward in the current, challenging economic climate.

Departmental oversight

The report notes that the Department has significantly strengthened its oversight of the NIFRS and recommends that

  • the Department needs to further enhance the way it challenges how NIFRS uses it money and other resources. The C&AG recommends the Department makes use of an expert to provide strategic advice and guidance on the structure, organisation and performance of NIFRS;
  • the Department and the NIFRS Board should monitor and review NIFRS performance more systematically against other UK & Republic of Ireland Fire and Rescue Services to support improvement and optimise the potential benefits of benchmarking; and
  • the Department should further develop Key Performance Indicators for NIFRS that ensure transparent comparisons with other Fire and Rescue Services and which challenge NIFRS.