Agenda item

Cllr Fawcett, Cabinet Member for Resources, and Cllr Levy, Cabinet Member for Finance, Property and Transformation, Ian Dyson, Director of Financial and Commercial Services, Rob MacDougall, Chief Fire Officer and Director of Community Safety, Kathy Wilcox, Head of Corporate Finance, and Verity Royle, Planning and Reporting Manager have been invited to present a report on the Business Management and Monitoring Report, with a particular focus on the Fire and Rescue Service.

 

The Committee is asked to consider the report and raise any questions, and to AGREE any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet arising therefrom.

 

Cllr Fawcett, Cabinet Member for Resources, and Cllr Levy, Cabinet Member for Finance, Property and Transformation, Ian Dyson, Director of Financial and Commercial Services, Rob MacDougall, Chief Fire Officer and Director of Community Safety, Kathy Wilcox, Head of Corporate Finance, and Verity Royle, Planning and Reporting Manager attended the committee to present the Business Management and Monitoring Report with a focus on the Fire and Rescue Service.

 

The Head of Corporate Finance introduced the report which brought together finance, performance and risk updates for Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue and Community Safety as part of the Committee’s rolling updates.

 

The service reported a small overspend of £0.5m against a budget of £32.6m for 2025/26, driven by a £0.6m overspend in Fire and Rescue, partly offset by a £0.1m underspend in Trading Standards. Reserves of £3.4m were held at year end, largely earmarked for vehicles and equipment.

 

Performance across all measures was reported as strong, with indicators rated green and continued delivery against key priorities, including community safety, health and tackling inequality. Capital expenditure of £1.3m on fleet and equipment was also noted, funded primarily from service reserves.

 

Speaking to the financial aspects of the report, members sought more information on the Carterton Community Safety Centre. Robin MacDougall, Chief Fire Officer and Director of Community Safety, explained that the service was operating from a temporary fire station. A site had been secured through a Section 106 agreement for a new permanent fire station, with plans developed and some capital funding identified. However, insufficient funding was in place to begin the project, and the service was exploring options to secure the additional capital required. This remained challenging and had to be balanced against maintaining the current fire crew response. The service was keeping the project under review, including ways to reduce build costs and increase available capital funding.

 

Members also sought explanation of the firefighters’ New Dimension grant. The Chief Fire Officer explained that a national resilience function had been established across UK fire and rescue services, covering capabilities such as urban search and rescue, hazardous chemical incidents and major flooding. Oxfordshire hosted two units: a high-volume pumping unit at Banbury and a detection, identification and monitoring team at Bicester serving the Thames Valley. It was confirmed that the funding did not support Kennington fire station but was adequate for the work undertaken.

 

For context, the Chief Fire Officer gave a presentation on performance and proposed changes to the service’s delivery model. The Fire and Rescue Service cover model was intended to better align resources with demand, which was concentrated during the day and early evening. Fire engine availability did not currently align with the busiest periods, and response times had been increasing nationally and locally, making change necessary.

 

He reminded the Committee of the breadth of activity undertaken by the service, noting that during 2025/26 it had attended more than 6,000 incidents. These included nearly 1,500 fires, 140 flooding incidents, 83 animal rescues, more than 118 incidents assisting other agencies, almost 350 road traffic collisions and over 50 hazardous chemical incidents. Although there was no statutory duty to respond to flooding, the Council had taken the decision nearly two decades ago to provide that service and fund it accordingly.

 

There remained a mismatch between demand and on-call fire engine availability, with daytime and early evening demand almost two and a half times higher than at night. The service required 15 fire engines for adequate countywide cover, with additional measures when availability fell below that level. Daytime availability often came close to this threshold, and bank holidays and school holidays created particular pressure, recently requiring significant overtime to maintain cover.

 

Changes proposed through the Fire and Rescue cover model were considered essential to create a more sustainable service and improve response times. Although overall performance remained strong in several areas, current response times were below target. The service aimed to reach 80% of incidents within 11 minutes and 95% within 14 minutes, but current performance was 70% and 84% respectively. Average response time was 9 minutes and 15 seconds and had steadily increased over four years. Oxfordshire was also performing below comparable rural services, which was a concern.

 

In relation to the consultation, recommendations had been made not to close the three fire stations originally identified. Further work was instead being brought forward on the final design of shift pattern changes, intended to move more resources into daytime periods to meet demand and improve response times. Staff working groups involving the service and the Fire Brigades Union had begun that day, aiming to agree a new shift pattern over the coming months. The timescales suggested proposals coming to Cabinet in autumn 2026 and implementation in 2027.

 

On the overall adequacy of funding, the Chief Fire Officer said the cover model aimed to move away from a traditional approach heavily reliant on on-call provision and frequent operational intervention. The current model created daily challenges, with officers continually addressing the symptoms of an arrangement that was no longer effective enough. The proposed changes were intended to use resources differently, creating a more sustainable model, reducing reactive adjustments, lowering overtime costs and releasing financial capacity for further improvement.

 

The Chief Fire Officer also reiterated his view that fire and rescue services would benefit from greater funding, noting that additional investment would provide more flexibility and support further improvements while maintaining resilience. However, he emphasised that there was always a balance to be struck between efficiency and resilience, as removing too much capacity from the system could reduce the service’s ability to respond to pressures.

 

Members asked about budget planning for the forthcoming year and whether savings targets had been set for the directorate or Fire and Rescue Service. Officers explained that the directorate was involved in wider budget discussions and, like other services, was considering efficiencies. However, the Fire and Rescue Service faced particular circumstances because local government reorganisation (LGR) could require it to move out of the County Council in future, as had happened in Northamptonshire and Cumbria.

 

The Director of Financial and Commercial Services confirmed that, while all directors were contributing to work on savings options, no specific savings target had been set for the Fire and Rescue Service. He said that work was under way to assess the likely financial envelope for the service if it were to leave the County Council on 1 April 2028, including the costs, potential burdens and opportunities that might arise, and that this would inform more detailed planning in due course.

 

Members asked whether the service benchmarked Oxfordshire’s incident profile against comparable fire and rescue services and whether local trends reflected wider patterns, particularly house fires, lithium-ion battery fires and fires involving e-bikes or vapes. The Chief Fire Officer confirmed that benchmarking was undertaken nationally and against similar services, including Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire. Dwelling fires had reduced, and Oxfordshire’s rate, measured against population, remained very low compared with other areas.

 

The service was seeing increased challenges associated with lithium-ion battery fires, particularly at recycling and waste sites, and recent incidents had been linked to inappropriate disposal. There were growing concerns around scooter fires, often associated with products not meeting required safety standards or being charged unsafely. Work to raise public awareness of these risks was being undertaken both locally and nationally.

 

There were no unusual trends in Oxfordshire compared with similar counties. However, he noted that benchmarking on response times needed to take account of local geography and funding, as Oxfordshire’s rural nature created different operational challenges from more densely populated metropolitan areas.

 

Based on the fact BMMR performance data did not suggest a need for a new operating model, whilst other data did, the adequacy of the BMMR measures was queried by members.

 

The Chief Fire Officer explained that the service monitored a broader range of performance indicators than those included in the BMMR to assess overall performance and identify changes needed for improvement. There was a balance between providing sufficient Fire and Rescue information and maintaining a manageable set of measures within the wider corporate performance framework. More detailed information was reported to the Cabinet Member, while the published measures reflected the aspects most relevant to the public, particularly response times and prevention work.

 

The Cabinet Member for Community Safety acknowledged the point and agreed it would be helpful to reflect more clearly that the published figures resulted from considerable operational work to move resources around the system to maintain cover. Without these interventions, performance would have been significantly worse, and such action had cost implications, including increased overtime. These issues formed part of constructive discussions with staff and the Fire Brigades Union on improving the operating model.

 

Members asked whether response times were monitored in more granular detail than simply the countywide average, including by district, urban and rural areas, type of appliance and type of incident, and also enquired how far the service took account of heritage assets in planning and response arrangements.

 

The Chief Fire Officer confirmed that the service monitored response times in greater detail, including by on-call and whole-time appliances, district and incident type, such as dwelling fires and road traffic collisions. These differences were reflected in the annual report, which showed, for example, quicker response times in Oxford due to greater whole-time staff availability. While crews would take account of an incident’s nature when responding, the service did not formally categorise incidents in the same way as the police and did not hold data showing intentionally different response speeds by incident type.

 

In response to a question on heritage assets, the Chief Fire Officer recognised that heritage risk was significant and was included within the Community Risk Management Plan. This involved assessing risks to important buildings, ensuring fire protection and prevention measures were in place, and making sure crews were familiar with those sites. A strategic risk group with the University had been established to ensure a shared understanding of the highest-risk heritage buildings and that training and planning reflected this.

 

Members asked whether closure of Rewley Road and Kidlington Fire Station remained under consideration.

 

The Chief Fire Officer explained that, as part of the consultation, the service had considered whether a new fire station could be developed that would enable closure of Rewley Road and Kennington. This remained one of the options under review and that potential sites for a new station were still being explored. Another option was to redevelop the existing Rewley Road site as a smaller station.

The service was continuing to assess whether a larger site outside central Oxford might provide a better long-term solution. While acknowledging that this could have implications for response times into the city, he emphasised that major incidents in Oxford would require a wider weight of response, and that effective risk information, specialist training and an understanding of the city’s specific risks would remain central to the service’s approach.

 

Following questions about the granularity of information and future plans, the Chief Fire Officer confirmed that work on the next Community Risk Management Plan had already been undertaken, although discussions were ongoing about its format and timescale in light of LGR. He explained that, whether through a shorter interim plan or an adapted version of the current arrangements, there would continue to be a comprehensive plan in place to direct the service’s work.

 

For major heritage assets such as Blenheim Palace, the service had specific plans in place covering a range of fire scenarios, supported by regular training exercises. These included arrangements for water supply and salvage, as well as for protecting heritage items alongside the preservation of life and property.

 

Members asked about the challenges arising from LGR. The Chief Fire Officer explained that Government devolution proposals indicated that, where a mayoral authority existed, fire and rescue services would sit alongside policing under the mayoral structure, rather than being disaggregated across unitary councils. If LGR in Oxfordshire resulted in two or three unitary authorities, the Fire and Rescue Service would continue to operate across the wider geography as a standalone service. Surrey provided a relevant example, as it was preparing for its County Council fire and rescue service to become a separate combined authority serving new unitary areas. In places without a mayoral authority, this type of combined authority model was already well established, with Royal Berkshire cited as an example.

 

In response to questions about two-unitary or three-unitary models, particularly if a new council geography crossed existing fire authority boundaries, he acknowledged potential governance and transition complexity. Officers were discussing options with neighbouring fire and rescue services, including Royal Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, and with Government officials. No final clarity had been provided on the governance model, including whether future strategic authority arrangements might encompass fire and rescue responsibilities. However, the service was working through planning scenarios and was confident that workable arrangements could be developed once the final local government structure was known.

 

Members asked about the ongoing discussions with the Fire Brigades Union and the risk of potential industrial action, as well as the financial position facing the directorate in the context of wider budget pressures.

The Chief Fire Officer said the risks associated with significant transformational change affecting terms and conditions had been recognised from the outset and reflected in risk registers. However, Fire Brigades Union representatives and the workforce had engaged constructively, understood the service’s challenges and were working with management to identify solutions that would avoid industrial action. The joint working groups were intended to find an approach that met the new operating model’s needs while taking account of staff views and concerns.

 

The Committee AGREED to make recommendations to Cabinet around:

 

-        More routine reporting on the Fire and Rescue Service

-        Further attention to heritage buildings within response modelling

-        Better information on firefighter recruitment

-        Greater transparency on LGR costs

-        Earlier scrutiny input into the next Community Risk Management Plan