On 2nd April 2003 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) issued Fire Service Circular 7/2003, which provided guidance to Fire Authorities in Integrated Risk Management Planning (IRMP).

Integrated Risk Management (IRM) has replaced the previous Standards of Fire Cover, which were based on generic principles linked to speed and weight of response to fires in buildings. It has allowed a holistic view of risk to be taken, including the effectiveness of preventative measures.

The use of IRM allows Fire Authorities to make more effective and economical use of existing resources to meet local demands and places full emphasis on protection of 'life' rather than buildings. It also allows Fire Authorities to explicitly provide their resources to deal with a much wider range of incidents than fires.

We are now in our fifth year of IRM. Policy changes implemented in East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service since 2004 have allowed the Service to deploy resources more efficiently and effectively and as a result many improvements have been made.

We have also had the opportunity to review and evaluate many areas of our service provision and are now in a position to propose further improvements that have become apparent from those reviews.