Fire service innovation


to be effectively engaged. Responses to changes in risk assessments or service provision often receive low levels of feedback or comments. The challenge for FRSs and the wider public sector may be achieving engagement. Only through an engaged group of people can transparency and openness be achieved, and the permission be given to engage credibly and legitimately in a wider range of activities.


Learning on the job Just as the pace of change becomes faster, requiring relentless curiosity, it also means that there is not enough time to perfect approaches to everything an FRS does. Organisations have responded to this by iterating their services and ways of working so that they get incremental improvements with increasing regularity. Really successful organisations have also


learned to experiment at the same time. That means iterating their offer ‘in real time’ and seeing what their users make of it. Focusing on the feedback and responses from those users then allows the organisation to learn how to further improve. So, we could conclude that FRSs need to understand how to experiment in real time, and how to capture and share the learning that arises.


There appears to be an increasing gap


between the behaviours of the organisations who are leading the way in the 21st century, and those who risk being left behind. The heritage of the FRSs is important and not all aspects of their conduct can be easily reinterpreted. However, as the demands on the service are changing, and the means of meeting them are changing too, we think the behaviours outlined above have a larger role in the future of the FRSs than might at first be apparent. And, whilst on the one hand we can see in these characteristics some resonance within FRSs, we also think that other local public service providers might be further along the journey towards more consistently demonstrating them. We can see that the digital age provides


powerful enablers for the improvement and reinvention of public services, for enabling local communities and for reshaping the role of FRSs. We can also see that culture and behaviours are much more important than any technology solution


Ben Brook is assistant chief fire officer at Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service; and Andy Theedom and Hugo Warner are director and senior manager at PwC Consulting. For more information, view page 5


FOCUS


www.frmjournal.com APRIL 2020


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