Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Plan 2011 to 2014

Our vision and values

We want to be the best fire and rescue service in the country and make life safer for everyone by reducing risks in our local communities.

Our values are important as they help us to become an excellent organisation and to lead by example. All of our staff help us to achieve our priorities and objectives. The service they provide is highly professional and helps to make your life safer.

To improve our service we want to make sure that our staff reflect the wide range of needs of the people in our local communities. We are always ready to respond to others in an understanding, sympathetic, professional and respectful way. We are committed to making sure everyone in our community is treated fairly.

We continue to take into account the effect our activities have on the environment. We aim to do all we can to reduce our carbon footprint (the negative effect we have on the environment). We want to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere as we carry out our day-to-day activities. This includes reducing the damage fires do to the environment.

This plan explains our priorities which we set in 2009 to 2010 and sets out what we plan to do for the next three years – we call these our ‘objectives’.

Looking ahead to 2015

We have tried to imagine that it is now 2015. This is how we feel things will look.

Hampshire is safer. There are fewer fire related incidents because our work to prevent and protect against fires is working well. Our response times to life threatening emergencies have improved.
We have much better contact with the public. We really understand the wide range of groups in our local communities – and the risks people face. This means we are very good at knowing how and when to use our resources to have the best effect.
The way we work with partner organisations to reduce risks and improve safety has gone from strength to strength. Our partners continue to want to work with us, because we continue to make things happen.
The amount available to spend on the public sector is still very tight. We have made considerable savings and improved our cost-effectiveness over the last five years. However, because we expect to have to deliver more with less funding, we have continued to consider this in our plans for the future. Despite these challenges, we continue to benefit from excellent working relationships between the fire authority, managers and staff.
Across the whole of the service we have fewer staff, but this will never put the public or our staff in danger. We are working more efficiently because we have flexible work arrangements with our staff. Our retained (on-call) firefighters are vital to the way we deliver value-for-money services.
We have the same number of fire stations, but the types of emergency response vehicles in some of them have changed. There are more specially designed vehicles to deal with small scale incidents.
We have in place a new control room so we can better manage our emergency resources. We share this with other fire and rescue services.
We are more environmentally friendly. We use less energy than we did five years ago, because we are all doing our bit to reduce the effect we have on the environment. We have strong plans for dealing with the risks and emergencies caused by climate change.
All our staff are fitter and healthier. There are fewer work-related injuries. Staff are better trained and skilled to carry out their roles and responsibilities, which are getting more and more varied.
Because of the changes and improvements we have made, we are seen as the best-performing fire and rescue service in the country. The public are happier with our performance than ever before. We have our staff to thank for this.