The Fire Standards Board (FSB) launched its latest Fire Standard focusing on Prevention on the 30th of July . Prevention activities are key for educating communities to adopt safer behaviours, thereby improving the health, safety and wellbeing of communities. The Prevention standard aims to support fire and rescue services in delivering their prevention activities, including by ensuring that they are targeting the right people; delivering consistency in the approach taken across fire and rescue services; and ensuring that fire and rescue services are evaluating their Prevention activities.
Fire Minister Lord Greenhalgh said:
“I am delighted that another Fire Standard is being launched to provide clear expectations and support to our fire and rescue services. This Prevention Standard sets the bar so that fire and rescue services can keep communities all over England safe by taking a consistent, targeted approach to stop fires from happening in the first place.”
The Prevention Fire Standard is underpinned by the work of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Prevention Programme, whose work on the ‘Person-Centred Approach’ and other guidance and tools will be pivotal to supporting services in future.
The Prevention Fire Standard also sits alongside a wider national Prevention agenda. That agenda includes a number of well-established national safety campaigns, such as the ‘Home Safety Week’ and ‘Business Safety Week’ campaigns. These campaigns seek to increase awareness of measures that will enable safer homes and businesses. These campaigns, while hosted nationally by NFCC, are delivered by fire and rescue services across the country, along with their supporting partners, in order to raise public awareness and reduce the number of preventable deaths in their local communities.
The Fire Standards Board is an independently chaired body with members from the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Local Government Association, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the Home Office. The board is funded by the Home Office to oversee the identification, organisation, development, and maintenance of these professional standards for fire and rescue services in England. The Fire and Rescue National Framework, to which all fire and rescue authorities must have regard, requires the implementation of Fire Standards.
The Fire Standards board has previously published Fire Standards on:
- Emergency response driving,
- Operational preparedness,
- Operational competence,
- Operational learning, and
- Code of Ethics
- Community Risk Management Planning
For more information on these standards, please visit the Fire Standards Board Next Fire Standard goes live (firestandards.org)