Introduction

Welcome to our Annual Delivery Plan for 2024/25, the third and final year of our current Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) 2022 -28.

This is the final year of our current plan, and we are excited to build upon the progress we have made over the last two years. A key priority for this year is the development our new CRMP 2025-28. This plan will set our direction over the three-year period bit also direct how we continue to improve to meet our long-term ambition of being one of the best fire and rescue services in the country.

Have your say! We build each CRMP with the help of community consultation. In October this year we will open our consultation on the proposed CRMP 2025-28. This is your chance to help us set our ambitions and key work areas. Please keep an eye out across our social media channels for when our consultation opens!

With regards to the delivery of our Annual Delivery Plan for last year, our Annual Statement of Assurance will provide a comprehensive report of our progress and performance over the last year. It is published each year in July and available on our website. We will promote it when it becomes available via our social media channels.

The year ahead….

Keeping you safe

In 2023/24, we are incredibly proud to report we exceeded our annual delivery targets and that we delivered record numbers of Safe & Well Visits, which help people stay safe in their homes, and Fire Safety Audits and Business Safety Checks which help us keep businesses safe. Having delivered such fantastic results, our staff will be pushing on in 2024/25, with our targets having increased even further, in line with our CRMP ambitions.

Improving our buildings and equipment

We are working to renovate and improve various buildings and sites across our estate, including Service Delivery Centre (our training site), and all our on-call stations. This work is part of the process of improving the accessibility of our estate, ensuring that they cater for the needs for all our staff and visitors.

Responding to emergency incidents effectively and efficiently will always be one of our greatest priorities. As such, the service is upgrading its fleet including taking delivery of 17 new state of the art fire engines. We will also be receiving a new Command Support Unit a vehicle that is used as a command centre for large incidents and a new Rural Firefighting Unit. This vehicle will help us tackle the growing risk of wildfires and forestry fires.

In addition, the multi-year project to replace our Mobilising System is on track, supporting our Control Room staff and crews to mobilise effectively and efficiently when our communities need them most.

Recruitment

We also strive to recruit the best talent, that is representative of our communities. In 2023-4 we recruited 24 wholetime firefighter apprentices across two intakes. This year we are running our single biggest wholetime firefighter apprentice course of 20 people. This course will start in April and trainees will be posted to their stations from August.

Balancing our budget

We have a statutory duty to deliver a sustainable, balanced budget whilst putting the needs of our communities are the forefront of everything that we do – something we succeeded in doing last year. Each year we publish our Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP) in February. This plan shows you how we will spend our budget across the 12 months ahead. The MTFP is available on The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Fire Authority website.

Independent Scrutiny

Starting in March and over an eight-week period His Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspected our service. We will receive their final report this summer. We welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the outstanding work that our staff deliver daily, and aside from celebrating our successes, we are committed to making any improvements in any areas that HMICFRS highlight require further development.

Organisational Culture

We are proud of our organisational culture, but learning identified from events across the sector demonstrates the importance of not being complacent. We will continue our work to fully embed the fire service Core Code of Ethics, making it an intrinsic part of what we do, and how we do it.

Engaging with our communities is a priority for us, both incorporating their views and values in our decision making and building upon the reputation and trust we have developed with them. We are committed to continuing this in 2024/25, working with partners and Nottingham Trent University on this area.

More information about these, and the other actions we are taking in relation to each of our strategic goals, are contained within this plan. You can find more details about our long-term ambition and our strategic goals in our CRMP, which is also available on our website.