East Sussex Fire Authority has welcomed the findings of the latest independent Audit Commission report into the performance of East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service. The Audit Commission assesses each of the fire and rescue services in England and has confirmed that East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service performed well in the 2008 assessments.

The overall assessment covers three elements all of which scored 'Improving Well'. It covered the Service Assessment (how well the Service delivers it's fire and rescue services to local communities); the Direction of Travel (progress made by the Service in the last year); and Use of Resources (how finances are managed and how cost effective the Service is to local council taxpayers).

Councillor Michael Murphy, Chairman of the Fire Authority, said:

"To score 'Improving Well' in all categories is testament to the continued efforts of all our staff to improve services to local communities.

These results reflect accurately the improvement the Service has made and we are all very pleased. It is excellent news of jobs well done."

Councillor Michael Murphy continued;

"But there is still much to do. In the first nine months of 2008/09, we have completed 6,300 home safety visits and fitted 9,100 smoke alarms in people's homes.

However, we have still had to attend over 1,300 fires in local people's homes and other properties. 648 of these were in people's homes.

Any fire in a home is one too many so we must continue to work with our partners, local communities and carers to make everyone in our local area safer.

This doesn't just mean fires, but helping to improve road safety, home safety and ensuring we can provide advice and guidance to businesses on their safety risks and keeping their employees safe."