Managing Resources - of the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service - Case Study Example

Insert Title: Name: Institution: Instructor: Module: 22nd May 2009 Fire and rescue service management (A case study of the West Yorkshire fire and rescue service). Table of contents Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Legislation …………………………………………………………………………………… 3 The principles of effective management financial and physical resources …………… 4 Resource Planning …………………………………………………………………………. 5 Resource identification and ordering ……………………………………………..……….5 Resource categorization …………………………………………………………..…….…..6 Use of agreements………………………………………………………………….……….. 6 Effective resource management ………………………………………………………..…. 7 Human resource management in the fire service…………………..……………….…… 8 Procurement processes in the fire & rescue service………………………..………….. 11 Crisis management plan………………………………………………………...…………. 11 Operational assurance evaluation………………………………………………………… 13 Recommendations ……………………………………………………………………….....13 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………...14 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………….15 Introduction The west Yorkshire fire and rescue service is a fire service company in the UK which aims at providing excellence as a fire and rescue service. The service works with other partners to reduce death, injury and economic loss as well as contributing to the well being of the community. West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service are committed in providing a modernised fire and rescue service throughout West Yorkshire. The fire and rescue service has employed 1,700 uniformed staff, 340 fire and rescue staff and 60 mobilising and communications staff who work in various roles from firefighters to support staff (Coombs 2006). The company promotes safety, provides for the fighting of fires and protects people and property from fire. The company also rescues people from road accidents and deals with specific emergencies like terrorist attacks. The Services strategic priorities involve the delivery of professional and flexible emergency response service. The Service will strategically provide a competent, skilled, safe and a diverse work force. Legislation The company’s legislation is based on the west Yorkshire fire and rescue authority. The authority consists of councillors’ who have been appointed from the five metropolitan districts, which include the Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. The authority provides clear political leadership, effective financial management, a thorough supervision of the programmes to be worked on ahead as well as dedicating itself to a continued service improvement. This supervision ensures that the authority is effectively running the fire and rescue service. The fire service meets the requirements of the standards committee, which works to promote and maintain the expected high standards of its members. The committee also helps its members in following the authority’s code of conduct. The day-to-day operational delivery responsibility in the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service is undertaken by the chief fire officer in the management board (Ericson 2006). The principles of effective management financial and physical resources According to Smith (2002), resource management, “is the process of coordinating and overseeing the application of tools, processes, and systems to provide timely and appropriate resources to the event managers in the event of an incident.” There are different principles that apply to the resource management process in the fire service. All the personnel, teams, facilities, equipment and supplies in the fire service must be well coordinated in the event of an incident. This will ensure that a quick response to the incident is achieved as well as control of injuries and deaths due arising from the incident are controlled. The authority has the responsibility of arranging the proper administration of its financial affairs. The director of finance is responsible for preparing the authorities statement of accounts according to the required practices as set out in the CIPFA code of practice Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom. The director of finance prepares the statement of accounts based on selected accounting policies. It is from these accounting policies where judgments and estimates are done with reasonable prudence (Ulmer 2006). There must be compliance with the code of practice. The west Yorkshire fire authority has the responsibility to ensure that the business of the fire service is carried out according to the law and standards. The authority is also responsible for ensuring that public money is safeguarded. It also ensures that public money is well accounted for and used well, cost-effectively and efficiently. Under the local government Act (1985), the authority has the responsibility for devising ways that will continuously improve the exercise of functions in the fire service. The authority should ensure that there is a sound system of internal control. This will facilitate the efficient implementation of the Authority's functions with the measures for managing risk. Resource Planning The fire service organisation prepares its workers before an incident by developing plans for managing and employing resources in different potential emergency circumstances. The fire service use s the mechanism of the local emergency planning committee that helps the organisation in planning the wider County response to hazardous materials incidents. The fire service is able to identify the resources available in the private and public sector as well as developing plans for responding to areas that use store hazardous chemicals. It is important for all key players in the emergency response to participate in the planning process (Barker 2008, p. 23). Resource identification and ordering Mitroff et al (2000) denotes that, “in order to identify and order resources, resource managers in the fire service use standardised processes and methodologies in identifying, ordering, mobilising, dispatching, tracking and demobilising resources that are required to support the event management activities.” Resource managers can be requested by the incident commanders to perform the tasks or perform the tasks in relation to the developed protocols in the planning process. Resource categorisation The fire service relies on different types of equipments that would enable the performance of essential tasks for the achievement of the organisations aims. The fire service acquires equipment that has the capability of performing to certain standards. The performance of this equipment must have the ability to be incorporated with equipment from other jurisdictions. In the fire service, resources are categorised into size, capability, capacity, skill and other characteristics according to performance criteria. Use of agreements It is evident that agreements before the incident should be made by the fire service. Agreements among all the parties who provide and request resources are made to ensure that effective and efficient resource management throughout the event operations is attained. West Yorkshire fire service establishes formal pre event agreements between the government and non governmental partners who might request or provide resources in the event of emergencies (Drury et al 2008, p.309). The fire service makes pre-event agreements with the local jurisdiction and a commercial supplier of critical resources. The purpose of making mutual aid agreements for supply facilitates the provision of resources, facilities and services by one jurisdiction during the incident. Effective resource management It is the responsibility of the resource managers to effectively and systematically perform the key resource management tasks. Resource managers should use appropriate acquisition procedures for obtaining resources that support operational requirements. In order to be prepared the west Yorkshire fire service management develops standard tools and related processes that support the acquisition activities. The fire service uses information management systems to collect, update and process data. Information management systems enable the management to track organisation resources and display the readiness status. It also enhances the flow of information as well as providing real time data in a changing environment (Barker 2008, p. 37). The west Yorkshire fire and rescue service works to reduce death, injury and property loss due to fire and other emergencies and is maintained by the chief fire officer. The deputy chief fire officer has the responsibility of attending to the frontline fire stations around the country as well as the central Mobilising and Communications Centre. The deputy CFO prepares emergency plans and ensures that all fore-seeable operational risks are addressed by the Service (Borodzicz 2005). He is also responsible for ensuring that all stations have their resources and equipments competently, securely and successfully working. The office of the deputy CFO manages essential local government departments that require inter-agency association such as the development of the new regional control centre. The director of the corporate resources acts as the monitoring officer, as well as a clerk to the authority. The director of corporate resources is entrusted with the corporate management supervisory responsibilities of corporate support, property management, administrative support, information technology, vehicle management, information management as well as procurement and supplies management. There is the director of Fire Safety and Community Relations who delivers all fire safety services involving cases of legislative and enforcement matters as well as community fire safety programme. The director of human resources develops and delivers all personnel development, discipline and management issues. This officer is responsible for training and development; the employment services team, the equality and recruitment department and the occupational health and safety unit. The chief finance office is responsible for administering the financial affairs of the fire authority to meet the requirements of the local government Act 1985 (Bramwell 2008, p.318). Human resource management in the fire service The human resource management in the west Yorkshire fire and rescue service ensures that people’s obligations are met as well as transforming community services. The fire rescue service is aimed at modernising its human resource management by carrying out various projects. As advocated by Barker (2008, p.27), the fire service “delivers a professional and resilient emergency response service.” It is aimed at delivering a pro-active fire community safety and well being programme by providing a competent, skilled and diverse workforce. The human resource management in the fire service is also aimed at providing an efficient ethical governance and sustainable environmental management. The strategies will improve effectiveness in the workforce by ensuring that workers resources and activities are focused on the main performance indicator areas. Resource managers will be able to monitor plans and outcomes more effectively and suggest developments. The human resource management in the fire service also recognises that improvements should be made to meet the changing environment. The fire service provides a flexible approach to human resource management to develop employees. Hence continuous improvement is vital in the fire service to stay effective in the environment. The west Yorkshire fire and rescue service provides its services to a resident population of 2,125,000 and an emergency response across 202,924 hectares (Dezenhall 2007). Community safety has been difficult to achieve in the area due to increasing populations. There are new risks that need to be addressed in the west Yorkshire communities. The success of west Yorkshire fire and rescue service is based on the effectiveness and focused leadership. The organisation is aiming at developing a leadership that supports the delivery of future integrated management risk management. WYFRS works in partnership with other organisations and politicians to meet the emerging need of leaders in the organisation. According to Ulmer (2006), the fire service is committed to fully develop leadership capacity through the use of a chain of management development tools that can be applied to fire and rescue staff. The fire service is committed in ensuring personal development reviews are done on annual basis. This will ensure that areas of development are identified and proper adjustments are put in place. Equality and diversity within the fire service is also encouraged. The fire service has a corporate equality and diversity strategy as action plans for ensuring equality and diversity in the fire service. The fire service ensures that the recruitment of well trained and professional employees is exercised in a consistent and transparent way. This is important for the Service to meet its strategic objective of providing a competent, skilled, safe and diverse workforce. The fire service also ensures that it provides the appropriate training and skills to the available staff through career development and succession planning. This ensures that employees meet their duties to the community and the Service develops effective staff to fulfil important roles within the organization in the future. WYFRS recruits and retains the required number, quality and diversity of employees. This ensures that the fire service is successful in delivering the central business to the different communities. Recruitments are carried out in a fair and equitable manner where employees are selected on merit and according to the modern legislation and good practice. Employees will be recruited after passing the national Firefighter Selection Tests to the operational posts. There are positive action initiatives in the WYFRS that allows the recruitment of black and minority ethnic employees and women in the operational and non-operational roles (Smith 2002). The strategies set will ensure that WYFRS is the employer of choice by providing career development paths that meet the desires of prospective and present employees. Reviews on the fire service employment policies and practices will be done on an on going basis. Employees in the fire service will be encouraged to contribute in the formation of employment policy. Information from the human resource department will cover issues of recruitment needs in the fire service. WYFRS values retention of skilled and motivated employees as well as recruiting talented and professional staff. Procurement processes in the fire & rescue service Procurement is concerned with the acquisition of equipment. Equipment used by the Fire Service is bought from FireBuy Ltd. FireBuy is a large company which was set up to ensure that Fire services can collaborate together for the purpose of purchasing good quality PPE and equipment. The company provides fire equipment at the lowest possible prices since the Fire Services have increased their order sizes. The Fire Services have better specifications and tendering hence fire equipments are provided to them at the lowest prices. Crisis management plan Crisis management is a process of dealing with unpredictable incidents that are harmful to an organisation, the community and the environment. Crisis management in WYFRS enables the fire service to respond to immediate risks. In the crisis management plan, all people required to perform various duties should be aware of the policies and procedures in the plan. The fire service has a risk reduction plan whereby the strategy is aimed at having home safety checks and fitting smoke detectors. In the country wide strategy, the operational crews in the fire service are required to visit 42,500 households yearly. The Community Fire Safety Risk Reduction Teams are expected to carry out more 13,500 visits yearly. There is also a Specific IRMP based strategy that will lead to modification of operational resources. The risk reduction crews and the fire crews will supplement the fire station’s efforts in delivering Community Fire Safety services. The Authority is committed to reduce the number of deliberate and nuisance fires by the use of the home Fire Safety Check workload (Bramwell 2008, p. 312). The fire rescue service has a Fire Safety Risk Based Re-Inspection Programme. The programme is aimed at incorporating all phases of inspection workload completely contributes to an integrated risk management approach. The inspections will carried out appropriately on the basis of risk. There is also a road safety strategy that is aimed at reducing the trauma that comes as a result of incidents. The fire service will work with other partners in the reduction of road incidents in West Yorkshire. There is a public service agreement that is aimed at improving road safety. WYFRS is also targeting to work and partner by having inter agency relationships. This will help in developing and creating new relationships at the local regional as well as the national levels. It will also ensure the best utilisation of fire rescue service resources. The relationships created will play part in raising awareness of the role of fire rescue service in matters concerning road safety. Borodzicz (2005) argues that, the fire service also aims to use multi agency services to supervise workers in the field. This will improve effectiveness in their job by developing their ability to use experiences to review their practice and take action. Through supervision, managers encourage employees to reflect on their practice for the purpose of supporting and challenging it. This will enable employees to become more aware in terms of the way they approach ideas and evidence. Employees will understand more their responsibilities in assessing and identifying needs. Operational assurance evaluation There should be an effective operating internal control in the fire service that is capable of managing risk. The authority is responsible for reviewing the effectiveness of the internal control system at least once a year. The use of internal auditors will give details on the effectiveness of the internal control system. Internal auditors, other review agencies and inspectorates develop and maintain the internal control environment in the organisation. Senior managers have the responsibility of managing the performance of the fire authority effectively. This will ensure that the fire service complies with the operational and financial targets set by the authority (Coombs 2006). Recommendations It is advisable for the fire service to improve its performance in delivering their service. The Service should express the value for money by saving a lot without compromising safety. The money saved can be used for the services that have been lagging behind. The Service should continue working together with the local strategic partners to improve its partnership. Local and national partners still need to be recognized as playing an important role in the support for working in partnership. The fire service need to address the real challenges by ensuring that greater choice is matched with greater fairness. The management should manage the limitations of choice by producing more responsive services. Conclusion In order to stay on course, the authority has the responsibility of arranging the proper administration of its financial affairs. Having new management plans sometimes necessitates more resources and the director of finance should prepare statement of accounts according to the required practices as set out in the CIPFA code of practice Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom. This will ensure that public finances are effectively and economically used. The west Yorkshire fire authority has the responsibility to ensure that the business of the fire service is carried out according to the law and appropriate standards. The authority is also responsible for ensuring that public money is safeguarded. It also ensures that public money is well accounted for and used well, cost-effectively and efficiently. Crisis management in WYFRS enables the fire service to respond to immediate risks. In the crisis management plan, all employees are required to perform various duties and should be aware of the policies and procedures in the plan. The fire service has a risk reduction plan whereby the strategy is aimed at having more home safety checks and fitting smoke detectors in high-life risk domestic properties. Bibliography Barton, L 2007, ‘Crisis leadership now: A real-world guide to preparing for threats, disaster, sabotage, and scandal’, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.  Barker, M 2008, ‘The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection’, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, pp.15–42. Borodzicz, EP 2005, ‘Risk, Crisis and Security Management’, West Sussex, England: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.  Bramwell, L 2008, ‘Hotshots: The Origins and Work Culture of America's Elite Wildland Firefighters’, New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 83, pp.291–322. Coombs, WT 2006, ‘Code Red in the Boardroom: Crisis Management as Organisational DNA’, Westport, CT: Praeger.  Dezenhall, E & Weber, J 2007, ‘Damage control: Why everything you know about crisis management is wrong’.  Drury, S A & Grissom, PJ 2008, ‘Fire History and Fire Management Implications in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, Interior Alaska’, Forest Ecology and Management Vol.256, pp. 304–312. Erickson, PA 2006, ‘Emergency Response Planning for Corporate and Municipal Managers’, Burlington, MA: Elsevier, Inc.   Mitroff, I & Gus, A 2000, ‘Managing Crises Before They Happen: What Every Executive Needs to Know About Crisis Management’, New York: AMACOM.  Smith, L & Dan Millar, P 2002, ‘Crisis Management and Communication; How to Gain and Maintain Control’ San Francisco, CA: International Association of Business Communicators.  Ulmer, RR, Sellnow, TL & Seeger, MW 2006, ‘Effective crisis communication: Moving from crisis to opportunity’, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 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