East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service welcomes the findings of a new report which recognises further progress in its performance.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) report published today 18 June 2025 found the Service is good at:
- Understanding fires and other risks
- Making best use of resources
- Future affordability
- Protecting the public through fire regulation
- Getting the right people with the right skills
- Managing performance and developing leaders
In particular it highlights how:
- The service has improved its approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and has an effective process in place to assess equality impact, and a comprehensive and accessible equality impact assessment register.
- The service works effectively with partners to reduce risk and promote community safety.
- The service understands the current financial challenges it faces and has made plans to meet them, whilst also considering potential future challenges and developing plans around how it might meet them.
Chief Fire Officer Mark Matthews said:
“We are delighted that the inspection team found our Service continues to improve. Our teams work extremely hard to not just maintain but to improve our service to our communities. We have been recognised for meeting response standards, tackling the problem of deliberate fires, enforcing fire safety regulations and ensuring our values are felt in every interaction with the public. All these have been areas of focus for us and therefore we are pleased that the inspectorate has confirmed strong performance and progress.”
The report also highlighted opportunities for further improvement, which the inspectors recognise we already have plans in place to progress. For example, our new IT system enables us to prioritise very high and high-risk occupants for home safety visits, and we are on track to meet our challenging home safety visit timescales.
We continue to introduce improvements on the back of recent public inquiries involving fires in tall buildings, including how we share information between the incident and our control room.
CFO Matthews added:
“Our communities remain at the heart of what we do and we are immensely proud to serve them and take this responsibility very seriously. Regardless of the financial challenges we face we will continue to deliver the very best Service we can, always seeking opportunities for improvement so that we meet the expectations of those we serve and make those critical differences in those times of need.”
Highlights from the report
What the report said: The service targets its prevention activity according to risk.
“The service uses a risk-based approach to clearly prioritise its prevention activity towards people most at risk from fire and other emergencies. It uses a broad range of information and data to target its prevention activity at vulnerable individuals and groups.
It carries out a wider range of interventions, which it adapts to the level of risk in its communities.”
What the report said: Staff are confident in identifying vulnerability and raising safeguarding concerns.
“The service has a comprehensive safeguarding policy. All staff complete an annual e-learning safeguarding package.”
What the report said: The service works effectively with others to reduce risk.
“The service works with a wide range of other organisations to prevent fires and other emergencies and improve community safety.”
What the report said: The service evaluates the work it carries out.
“The service has good evaluation tools in place to measure how effective its activity is and to make sure all sections of its communities get appropriate access to the prevention services that meet their needs.”
What the report said: The service is meeting its response standards
“Data…supplied shows that in the year ending 31 March 2024, the service met its targets and achieved a 10-minute on-station attendance 78.1 percent of the time, and a 15 minute on-call attendance 75.2 percent of the time.
Home Office data shows that in the year ending 31 March 2024, the service’s average response time to primary fires was 8 minutes and 50 seconds. This is faster than the average for significantly rural services, which is 10 minutes and 15 seconds, and faster than the England average, which is 9 minutes and 3 seconds.”
What the report said: The service targets high-risk buildings effectively
“The service’s risk-based inspection programme (RBIP) is focused on the service’s highest-risk buildings.”
“The service told us that this system allowed it to make sure the premises at the top of its RBIP were the highest-risk buildings. Using traditional risk factors can lead to premises such as care homes, which are generally well managed, being at the top of the list without necessarily being the highest risk.”
What the report said: The service is adapting to new legislation
“The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 introduced a range of duties for the managers of tall buildings. These include a requirement to give the fire and rescue service floor plans and inform them of any substantial faults to essential firefighting equipment, such as firefighting lifts.
Protection staff told us they had written to individuals responsible for tall buildings within the county to inform them of changes in legislation. We found the service has good arrangements in place to receive this information. For example, it has developed a building fire safety regulations section on its website. The website tells people responsible for high-rise buildings what the new law requires them to do and allows them to submit the required information online.”
What the report said: The service has a positive approach to enforcement
“The service consistently uses its full range of enforcement powers, and when appropriate, it prosecutes those who don’t comply with fire safety regulations. It has dedicated members of staff to support this work.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, the service issued 226 informal notifications, 71 enforcement notices, 47 prohibition notices and carried out 13 prosecutions. It completed 14 prosecutions in the five years from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2024.”
What the report said: The service effectively tackles fire-setting behaviour and support the prosecution of arsonists
“The service has a range of suitable and effective interventions to target and educate people with different needs who show signs of fire-setting behaviour. This includes the Firewise scheme that it runs to tackle fire-setting, hoax calls, fear of fire and other fire-related concerns in children and young people. The service accepts referrals for this scheme and works with several partners to provide it through youth engagement work.”
The report can be found here: Effectiveness, efficiency and people 2023–2025: East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service - His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
Summary
| Assessment area | Grade |
| Understanding fires and other risks | Good |
| Public safety through fire regulation | Good |
| Best use of resources | Good |
| Future affordability | Good |
| Right people, right skills | Good |
| Management performance and developing leaders | Good |
| Responding to fires and other emergencies | Adequate |
| Responding to major incidents | Adequate |
| Promoting values and culture | Adequate |
| Promoting fairness and diversity | Adequate |
| Preventing fires and other risks | Requires improvement |
NB A reduction in grade from previous reports, particularly from good to adequate, doesn’t necessarily mean there has been a reduction in performance, unless HMICFRS has detailed it in the report.