Warwickshire councillors asked council to consider presentation of data on fire-related deaths and injuries

Warwickshire County Council’s resources and fire and rescue overview and scrutiny committee, which is a panel of councillors that oversees and makes recommendations on work in these areas, held a meeting on Tuesday June 26.

At the meeting, the committee looked at the performance in 2023-24, including the figures on how many people were killed or hurt in fires in the county.

It is part of data that gets presented on Warwickshire Fire and Rescue’s outcomes and while numbered targets have been withdrawn since last year, the report still says performance is “static” and “not on track”.

The report shows there were three fire-related deaths in 2023 to 2024, down from four the previous year when a target of none was in place.

Fire-related injuries went up to 34 this time. There were 29 in the previous year when a target of 26 was put in place.

The ‘red’ status and the wording of the progress on performance was raised as a concern by councillors at the meeting.

Councillor Sarah Boad (Lib Dem, Leamington North) highlighted the difficulties with chief fire officer Ben Brook.

She said: “We don’t set any targets around those elements because we don’t want to set a number against injuries and deaths as if we want them to happen.

“Our target is always zero but that does not seem realistic so we don’t set a target in those areas.

“We absolutely do monitor it and review, we do a significant fire review after every single fire-related death or injury and review all of our road traffic collisions as well."

Councillor Tim Sinclair (Con, Stratford North) took it a step further.

He said: “We have discussed in this committee before that perhaps we shouldn’t put a RAG (red, amber, green) status against that sort of measure because they are inevitably going to be red.

"Maybe they should be grey, neutral so to speak, but that’s for someone else to consider.”

Committee chair Councillor Adrian Warwick (Con, Fosse) said: “A good point has been made there and I know there is a lot going on in Fire and Rescue at the moment, but we have spoken about these two targets around injuries and fire deaths before.

“I have never been at all comfortable with them appearing as targets. I am just wondering whether we can find a better way of reporting this moving forward.

“I know we have to look at performance, I know we have to consider how things are improving, but I do think we should look at it.”

It was agreed by the panel that council staff should consider the concerns and what may be done to address them with Cllr Warwick adding: “If we (councillors) need to put some work into this, I think it is worth doing.”