NFRS 2025 19 - Ford Water Crossing

You asked for

Dear Information Governance Team, Fire Services

I am submitting this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to obtain details about your Fire Fighter workforce safety policies, particularly in relation to dealing with flooded roads and Ford Water Crossing

As Rufford Ford for example has now been closed due to safety concerns, I would like to request information regarding:

1. Workforce Policies on Water Crossings:
   1. Does Field Staff have an official policy or guidelines regarding the use of water crossings (RAMS) for your employees?
   2. If so, please provide copies of relevant policy documents, training materials, or risk assessments related to employees crossing fords or working in areas with water hazards.
2. Risk Assessments for crossing water in a vehicle.
   1. Were any formal risk assessments conducted specifically for water crossings.
   2. If available, please provide copies of such risk assessments, including those assessing potential hazards for field-based staff.
3. Workforce Training & Safety Measures:
   1. Are your employees, including maintenance or emergency response teams, given specific training on assessing the safety of water crossings?
   2. If so, please provide details on what training is provided and any internal policies regarding vehicle use in flooded or hazardous conditions.
   3. Were any concerns raised about staff or contractors potentially being at risk while using the crossings.

If any of the requested information is exempt under the FOIA, please provide an explanation as to why and indicate if any redacted versions can be shared.

Our Response

1. Workforce Policies on Water Crossings:
   1. Does Field Staff have an official policy or guidelines regarding the use of water crossings (RAMS) for your employees?
      Answer: - No Information Held, no official policy or guidelines.
   2. If so, please provide copies of relevant policy documents, training materials, or risk assessments related to employees crossing fords or working in areas with water hazards.
      Answer: - Attached risk assessments, some of the information is deemed exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
2. Risk Assessments for crossing water in a vehicle.
   1. Were any formal risk assessments conducted specifically for water crossings.
      Answer: - No Information Held, assessments conducted for water training only.
   2. If available, please provide copies of such risk assessments, including those assessing potential hazards for field-based staff.
      Answer: - Attached risk assessments same as question 1(b).
3. Workforce Training & Safety Measures:
   1. Are your employees, including maintenance or emergency response teams, given specific training on assessing the safety of water crossings?
      Answer: - Yes
   2. If so, please provide details on what training is provided and any internal policies regarding vehicle use in flooded or hazardous conditions.
      Answer: - We align to rescue3 and NFRS is an accredited centre, and therefore all of our courses align to their syllabus, which can be found on their website: https://www.rescue3europe.com/ All crews are trained to MOD2 and then we specialised crew who are trained in MOD3 and 4 – swift water technician and boat operators. We also have officers who are trained in Water Incident Management (MOD5). We currently do not provide practical training for vehicles in water to all crews only our specialist rescue units, but we do offer theory-based training and eLearning. In our initial MOD 2 courses (5-day course), we provide shallow water techniques to all crews which are 21.1-21.5 of the rescue3 syllabus, and we cover SFR 8 – Vehicles in water theory on day 3 of the course, which is a full presentation.
   3. Were any concerns raised about staff or contractors potentially being at risk while using the crossings.
      Answer: - No Information Held.

Section 40: - Personal Information

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if—

1. it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1), and (b) the first, second or third condition below is satisfied. (3A) The first condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act— (a) would contravene any of the data protection principles, or (b) would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were disregarded. (3B) The second condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene Article 21 of the GDPR (general processing: right to object to processing). (4A) The third condition is that— (a) on a request under Article 15(1) of the GDPR (general processing: right of access by the data subject) for access to personal data, the information would be withheld in reliance on provision made by or under section 15, 16 or 26 of, or Schedule 2, 3 or 4 to, the Data Protection Act 2018, or
2. (b) on a request under section 45(1)(b) of that Act (law enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject), the information would be withheld in reliance on subsection (4) of that section.

Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is categorised as an Absolute and Class Based type exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried out nor must Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service articulate the harm in disclosure.