Research Report Full report - sfjuk.com · Jon Parry, Professor Eddie Kane, ... Health, Licensing,...

1

Research Report

Full report

Research into Emergency Services Collaboration Jon Parry, Professor Eddie Kane, Dr Denise Martin, Dr Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay

1. Introduction

Background

In September 2014 the cross-sector Emergency

Services Collaboration Working Group was

established with funding from the Home Office,

the Department of Health and the Department of

Communities and Local Government.

The working group consists of representatives

from the Association of Chief Police Officers,

Chief Fire Officers Association, Association of

Ambulance Chief Executives, Association of

Police and Crime Commissioners, the College of

Policing and the Local Government Association.

The aim of establishing a national Emergency

Services Collaboration Group is to ensure a

coordinated, collaborative approach to efficient

and effective Emergency Service provision.

The groups remit is to:

provide strategic leadership, guidance and

an overview of collaborations across

England and Wales

act as champion for innovation and best

practice

drive forward the statement of commitment

to collaboration made in February 2014 by

the Chief Fire Officers Association,

Association of Ambulance Chief Executives

and Association of Chief Police Officer

Scope of research

In November 2014 the Emergency Services

Collaboration Working Group, through the Home

Office, commissioned research to evaluate

existing and emerging emergency services

collaboration in order to establish an evidence

base for greater cooperation across the

emergency services. This research focused on six

emergency services collaboration projects across

England and Wales, covering efficient services,

effective services and emerging best practice.

In evaluating these projects, the research sought

to address the following questions:

To what extent are projects operating as

outlined in their project plans and business

cases?

How has collaboration been achieved?

To what extent do these collaboration

projects support wider public service

change?

How do collaboration projects ensure

longevity and become sustainable?

What lessons have been identified? What

evidence is there of successful outcomes

(including financial) of these projects?

Which indicators should be used to monitor

collaboration activity in the future?

What evidence is there of wider sharing of

the lessons and of them being learnt?

The field work for the research was conducted

between December 2014 and February 2015. The

views expressed by research participants are their

personal perceptions and thoughts. These do not

reflect government policy and may not always

reflect the overall view of individual services.

Where quotes are used to illustrate views, they

have been anonymised.

2

Research into Emergency Services Collaboration

Report structure

The report contains the following sections:

Section 2 - Framing the research

Section 3 - Methodology

Section 4 - Collaboration: enablers

and barriers

Section 5 - England & Wales

surveys

Section 6 - Public perception

Section 7 - Economic/Data

analysis

Section 8 - Conclusions and

recommendations

1. In addition, case studies of all six project areas

appear throughout the report.

2.

3. 2. Framing the Research

In order to contextualise the primary research,

secondary analysis of both policy documents

and academic literature was undertaken in the

form of rapid evidence assessment and a

literature review. The following provides a

summary of the findings from both.

Review of policy1

According to much of the policy literature,

resilience, efficiency and reducing bureaucracy

are key principles that have underpinned

collaboration. Since the introduction of austerity

measures for public services, thinking around

co-operation between emergency services has

intensified. As stated by the Emergency

Services Working Group “with an increasing

demand for some of our services, coupled with

the current and expected restrictions on funding,

collaboration provides opportunities to truly

innovate and save money,”2 What was once

considered exceptional performance required in

the event of a major incident is now becoming part

of the expected response to budget cuts. The

Knight Report, whilst placing most of its emphasis

on the need for rationalisation of structures within

the Fire Service, admitted that “national level

changes to enable greater collaboration with other

blue-light services, including through shared

governance, co-working and co-location, would

unlock further savings.” 3

In more recent documents collaboration has also

been viewed not just as potentially realising

savings but also as a duty and obligation. This was

evident in policy and legislation across all the blue-

light services. Statutory responsibility to

collaborate and achieve interoperability is

enshrined in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004

where services are required, at a local level, to:

Co-operate with other local responders to

enhance co-ordination and efficiency

Share information with other local

responders to enhance coordination

Assess the risk of emergencies occurring

and use this to inform contingency planning

Put in place emergency plans

Similar or enhanced duties are placed on the

services at a national level. The exercise of these

duties is supported by the NPIA's Guidance on

Multi-Agency Interoperability of 2009, and, again in

the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability

Programme’s (JESIP) Joint Doctrine

Interoperability Framework of 2013, and realised

strategically through the work of the local

resilience forum4.

There are common areas identified as being

suitable for collaboration. The DCLG report Future

Control Room Services Scheme - DCLG - National

picture of fire and rescue authority improvement

1 This includes reference to government policy and independent reports

2 Emergency Service Collaboration the Current Picture, 2014 p3.

3 Facing the Future, Sir Ken Knight, May 2013

4 Local resilience forums (LRFs) are multi-agency partnerships made up of representatives from local public services, including

the emergency services, local authorities, the NHS, the Environment Agency and others. These agencies are known as Category 1 Responders, as defined by the Civil Contingencies Act. https://www.gov.uk/local-resilience-forums-contact-details.

3


plans (October 2014 update) acknowledges that

there are gains to be made by sharing control

rooms. An earlier publication from the Local

Government Group Going the Extra Mile (March

2011) offers a review of efficiency models within

fire and rescue services, ranging from the fairly

obvious, such as shared procurement, to the

highly innovative, including a new directorate in

Cornwall County Council which brings together

the fire and rescue service, the Crime and

Disorder Reduction Team, Environmental

Health, Licensing, Port Health, Coroner's

Services and Trading Standards.

One of the complexities identified for services in

achieving effective collaboration was the

multifaceted lines of responsibility locally and

nationally.5 This has particularly been the case

for police and fire authorities.6 However, there is

also a suggestion that these barriers can be

overcome. HMIC suggest that there are some

good examples of collaborative working

between the police with various external bodies

(including the private sector) where a shared

vision, strong leadership and a sense of

compromise can help to alleviate differing

structures.7 In both fire and ambulance reports,

the key focus has been on co-responding. The

Department for Communities and Local

Government commissioned report from ORH

published in 2008 found that although there

were 99 co-responding stations in 18 fire and

rescue services in England, it was varied across

fire and rescue authorities and was

concentrated across a few counties. 8 The

report highlighted the possible benefits for both

fire and ambulance services and patients from

further development on co-responding. The

difference in governance focus between the two

services underlines their different operational

expectations and points to potential areas of

conflict within the co-responder model:

"For fire & rescue services, the governance focus

is on controlling the workload falling on fire-fighters

and the associated costs. For ambulance services,

the governance focus is more on clinical

competence and performance, including response

performance" 9

In the context of the All Party Parliamentary Group

on Homeland Security, Tobias Ellwood MP and

Mark Phillips, reporting on ‘blue light’ efficiency,

propose that eliminating overlaps between fire and

rescue services and Ambulance Trusts would be

the first steps towards merging services.10

Other reports and policy have identified

collaboration as fragmented and slow to progress.

HMIC has expressed concern about the ad hoc

way collaboration is being implemented. In a 2012

report HMIC noted that “extensive collaboration is

not materialising in the majority of forces, and only

a few are achieving substantial savings”. 11

Justification for this has often been the

incompatibility of organisational structures and

culture. However, while recognised in

documentation these barriers are not seen as

insurmountable.

There has been some financial support to

strengthen emergency services collaboration. This

is evidenced by government funding, for example

the DCLG Transformation Challenge Fund and

Fire and Rescue Transformation Fund which

invested £30 million in resources and £45 million in

capital in 2015-16 to assist in the development of

collaborative projects. Similarly the Police

Innovation Fund has awarded £9.2 million to 12

projects in 10 force areas.12

5 Ellwood, T and Phillips, M (2013) Improving Efficiency, Interoperability and Resilience of our Blue Light Services, Occasional

Report APPG HS (Session 2013-14). 6 HMIC (2014) Policing Austerity, Meeting the Challenge, London, HMIC.

7 Ibid.

8 Current Practice and Prospects for FRS Co-responding, Fire Research Series 14/2008

9 ibid

10 Op cit.

11 Op cit.

12 Emergency Service Collaboration the Current Picture, 2014 p6.

4


Whilst support has been forthcoming, more

current documents talk about formalising

collaboration even further across all public

services and not just on major incidents or

emergency situations. The Service

Transformation Challenge Panel’s recent review

of public services, ‘Bolder, Braver and Better:

why we need local deals to save public

services’ 13made a number of key

recommendations, some at a higher strategic

level. These included the encouragement of

collaboration by relevant regulators and bodies

across public sectors, the rationalisation of a

number of transformation funds, the enterprising

use of assets (buildings etc.), better information

sharing and adapting to local needs. These

policy documents allude to the fact that

government structures and higher levels of

funding and governance will also have to be

more flexible. They will need to be adaptable to

the changing environment in order to ensure

innovation in collaborative and partnership

working. They will also need to enable local

areas to deliver public service improvements

that meet the increasingly complex demands

and needs of service users.

There are a number of international examples of

interoperability amongst core security and

emergency service bodies. For example, the

Home Team Academy (HTA) in Singapore was

established in 2006. The HTA is a branch of the

Ministry of Home Affairs and has a number of

core functions including corporate services and

joint training. Joint training involves participants

from a number of sectors and includes

contemporary security studies, counter terrorism

training, crisis management and emergency

preparedness training, joint operations training

and leadership development.

The corporate services arm is concerned with

delivering efficient and effective services such as

procurement, human resources and information

technology14. The Safety Regions Act paved the

way for emergency service collaboration in the

Netherlands (originally set out in 2004).15

Subsequent acts outline the need to have regional

bodies working collectively across police, fire, and

medical services to deal in particular with crisis and

disaster management. As with other examples the

underpinning values are about joint working to

enable better and more effective responses which

help provide better services to the public.

Literature Review

Most of the academic literature tends to focus on

major incidents, small case studies or responding

to major incidents. Relevant findings in academic

literature support the concerns found in policy

reports. In particular, the differences related to

organisational culture found between communities

of practice can create numerous barriers to

effective co-working - though these can be

expected to decrease as practical exposure to

different communities becomes the norm16. The

problem of organisational culture seems to be

universal. Research from New South Wales

identified similar barriers to effective collaboration,

reflecting the findings of the policy literature (FRS

14/2008). Importantly, although there were

perceived improvements in joined-up working, a

number of hurdles remained.17 These included the

perennial concerns of competing organisational

requirements, concerns regarding resources and

professional identity. This research suggests that it

is important to build inter-organisational trust,

rather than organising funding and management in

a way that fuels competition, and underlines the

value of treating people with fairness and respect

13

Service Transformation Challenge Panel (2014) Bolder, Braver and Better: Why we need local deals to save public services. 14

http://www.mha.gov.sg/#, accessed 18/03/2015 15

Ministry of Justice and Security (2013) Safety Region Act, Netherlands. 16

Charman, S. (2014) Blue light communities: cultural interoperability and shared learning between ambulance staff and police officers in emergency response, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 24:1, 102-119) 17

Herrington (2012) Inter-agency Cooperation and Joined-up Working in Police Responses to Persons with a Mental Illness: Lessons from New South Wales, Policing, Volume 6, Number 4, pp. 388–397).

http://www.mha.gov.sg/

5


as a good way of achieving stakeholder support

for operational change.

These cultural differences spill over into the use

of technology, so that, even when IT or

communications systems are redesigned to

remove communication and data-sharing

barriers such problems can persist. Sanders

finds that: “The varying social world ideologies

within emergency response... have influenced

access to emergency technologies and their

stored information and in turn, have created an

ideological disconnect between how these

technologies were designed to function, and

their in-situ application".18 Emergency

interoperability, therefore, is as much a social

process as a technological one.

Where researchers consider initiatives to

enhance collaboration within a single service,

cultural differences would be expected to play a

smaller role and can certainly be overcome. In

relation to innovation in three police force areas,

Allen and Karanasios, highlight that this process

can be managed carefully with a staged

approach to change.19 They emphasise that

barriers to innovation can be replicated across

forces. In addition, they state that learning and

sharing lessons about how collaboration is

achieved, is critical to success. As to how far the

experience of working together in the event of

civil contingencies can facilitate a more general

move towards day-to-day collaboration,

research suggests that there is a contribution to

be made if it is handled with due concern for

organisational differences. 20 Rogers’ argues

that, ‘sharing of best practice is of vital

importance, even more so amongst

organizations that have been historically

entrenched in the specific needs of

service delivery for local areas with distinct needs,

and have perhaps even been forced into

institutional cultures of competition for resources in

what has until the last decade been underfunded,

but is now laden with intrusive efforts to reform.’ 21

Such an environment may pose widespread

challenges in building willingness to change and to

coordinate expertise across diverse agencies like

fire, police, and ambulance.

18

Sander, C.B (2014) Need to know vs. need to share: information technology and the intersecting work of police, fire and paramedics, Information, Communication & Society, 17:4, 463-475 19

Allen, D., and Karanasios, S. (2011). Critical factors and patterns in the innovation process. Policing (Oxford): a journal of policy and practice, 5(1), 87-97. 20

Rogers, P (2011) Resilience and civil contingencies: tensions in northeast and northwest UK (2000–2008), Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 6:2, 91-107).

21

Ibid.

6


3. Methodology

Social phenomena such as collaborative projects

are extremely complex and require diverse tools

and different kinds of techniques in order to

understand them more completely. In order to

ensure that the research was comprehensive, a

mixed-method approach was applied to

effectively assess existing and developing

emergency service collaborations.

The approach combined qualitative and

quantitative data collection from primary and

secondary sources. This included interviews,

focus groups, surveys, and reviews of

performance reports, academic literature and

policy documents. The practical possibilities of

mixing inquiry methodologies contributed to, and

reflected, the complexity and diversity of the

challenges involved in inter and intra service

collaboration.22

Case study selection

The case study areas were selected from a list of

national projects contained within an overview of

collaboration produced by the Emergency

Services Collaboration Working Group.23 The

following criteria was used to determine the

selections:

The sample covered all three areas of

project focus – efficient services, effective

services, emerging best practice

The geographical coverage encompassed

rural and urban areas, national areas,

projects within single local authorities and

projects across local authorities

All three emergency services were covered

– ambulance, fire and police – as well as

local authority partners24

Methods

The field work for the research was conducted

between December 2014 and February 2015.

Interviews with emergency services staff

51 in-depth, semi-structured interviews (face-to-

face and telephone) were held with senior staff

responsible for developing, managing and

monitoring emergency services collaboration

projects across the six areas.

These include Chief Fire Officers, Chief Constables,

Police and Crime Commissioners, Chief Executives

of Ambulance Trusts, Local Authority Chief

Executives and elected members.

The interview topics covered:25

Motivation behind collaboration

Features of collaboration projects

Impact on service delivery

Barriers/Enablers

Measuring success

Lessons learnt

Sustainability

Focus groups

To explore more general issues around Emergency

Services Collaboration and to capture the views of

operational staff, three focus groups were held in

Manchester, Lincolnshire and Surrey/Sussex.

The focus group themes were designed to further

develop the interview themes from a front-

line/operational perspective.

22

Inter collaboration occurs between services (e.g. between police, fire and ambulance) and intra collaboration occurs within

services (e.g. between Hampshire Police and Thames Valley Police) 23

Emergency Services Collaboration, The Current Picture (An overview of collaboration in England and Wales) http://publicservicetransformation.org/images/Emergency_Services_Collaboration_2014.pdf (accessed on 16/3/2014) 24

This included Fire Authority Chairs, Chief Executives and councillors with an interest in the police and ambulance services 25

The full interview/focus group questions and themes can be found in the Appendices

7


Table 1 – Emergency Services Collaborative projects (evaluation areas)

Area of research

Collaboration Services Involved Nature of collaboration (s)

Efficient services

Shared back office

Hampshire Police, Fire and Rescue and Hampshire County Council

In early 2014 Hampshire County Council, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and Hampshire Constabulary set up the legal partnership of ‘H3’ in order to share corporate resources. This partnership works to deliver support functions for the police, fire and county council. These functions include transactional services, procurement, occupational health, property services, HR and facilities management. The aim of H3 is to increase and improve the quality of back-office functions and increase resilience and capacity. Other services are able to join the H3 platform and Oxford County Council is in the final stages of joining.

Organisational integration

Northants Police and Fire & Rescue

Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service has integrated all its back office functions into the County Council’s Shared Services function that itself is part of a multi-Local Authority Shared Services arrangement. In turn the police have all their back office functions embedded in a separate Shared Services arrangement with other neighbouring forces.

Effective services

Co-responding

Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue and East Midlands Ambulance Service

Since the late 1990’s, Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service has responded to medical emergencies in partnership with East Midlands Ambulance Service. The current project, in partnership with LIVES, has built on this scheme and enabled the mobilisation of co-responders to medical incidents in an ambulance vehicle. A paramedic will also respond to the incident in a fast response car. This means that the co-responders will have the capability of transporting a patient to hospital whilst the paramedic delivers care rather than having to wait at the scene until an EMAS ambulance arrives. This scheme aims to provide faster response times and thus improved chances of patient survival.

8


Area of research

Collaboration Services Involved

Nature of collaboration (s)

Effective services

Interoperability

South Wales and Gwent

The Joint Public Service Centre is a merger of the two fire control teams of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service and Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service. This newly formed team will relocate to the South Wales Police’s emergency control room at South Wales Police headquarters in Bridgend. The aim of this undertaking is to improve service delivery and to make a financial saving of over £1m per annum. Another collaborative project in the region is the Multi Agency Information Transfer (MAIT) which aims to make a single data set for all public service data to underpin the emergency services’ command and control systems. This will form the basis of electronic incident sharing through a common unique identifier. This project will enable public sector agencies to make savings by reducing overheads and administrative burden.

Emerging best

practice

Reducing overlap

between the emergency

services

Surrey and Sussex Fire & Rescue, Police, South East Ambulance Service

The Public Service Transformation Network is supporting Surrey and Sussex emergency services to improve service delivery. The vision of the programme is to improve the delivery of emergency services in Surrey and Sussex, transforming how the services can work more efficiently and effectively together. It has the joint aims of improving service to the public, reducing costs and increasing resilience by reducing overlap in service provision and responding to the changing pattern of demand. The project is focusing on the potential for joining up control and dispatch functions for the police and fire and rescue service and co-location with the ambulance service developing a combined Civil Contingencies Unit, combined operational response for certain incident types, joint operational support functions and a joint prevention programme.

Wider approach to prevention

activities

Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service, North West Ambulance Service and Greater Manchester Police

Led by Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, 10 Community Risk Intervention Teams (CRIT) deliver prevention services on behalf of all the emergency services and respond to high volume but low priority calls on behalf of the police and ambulance service. The aims are to reduce demand for services whilst improving quality of life outcomes for individuals and the wider community.

9


Table 2: Breakdown of research carried out in

the 6 case study areas

Research Area Interviews Focus Group

Hampshire

Lincolnshire

Manchester

Northamptonshire

Surrey/Sussex

South Wales/ Gwent

England & Wales surveys

In order to gather further evidence on collaborative

activities taking place and to understand wider

attitudes to collaboration, two linked emergency

services surveys were undertaken across England

and Wales.

The first survey was targeted at the Chief Officers

of each service (including local authorities), Police

and Crime Commissioners and Chairs of Fire

Authorities. The second survey was targeted at

those organisations representing staff within

emergency services (e.g. trade unions and

professional associations).

The survey topics included:

Awareness of emergency services

collaboration;

Extent and nature of involvement in

collaborative projects; and

Barriers/enablers

Survey of Emergency Services personnel

An invitation to participate in an online survey of

emergency services staff was sent out to 188

individuals – all chief officers of their respective

organisations and services, PCCs and Chairs of

Fire Authorities. 58 completed surveys were

received which equates to a response rate of 31%.

Survey of representative bodies

An invitation to participate in the online survey was

sent out to 92 officials; 59 completed surveys were

received equating to a response rate of 63%.

Analysis

The surveys were both conducted using

SurveyMonkey. Following data cleaning, analysis

was conducted using Excel and SPSS.

Public perception survey

In order to capture public perception

regarding emergency services collaboration,

a short public survey was conducted of 1,069

individuals across England and Wales.

The survey topics included:


collaboration;

Confidence in emergency services

collaboration; and

Importance of emergency services

collaboration.

‘[in all collaborative work] there is a natural reluctance when you ask some people to

try something new. There is also a refreshing exuberance from others. They

see it as an opportunity.’

(Strategic Lead, Fire & Rescue

Services)

“[In all collaborative work] there is a natural reluctance when you ask some people to try

something new. There is also a refreshing exuberance from

others. They see it as an opportunity.”

Strategic Lead, fire & rescue

services

10


Case study: Northamptonshire What’s working? Collaboration between fire and police is very robust with resources and responsibilities being imaginatively shared. This includes:

Shared HQ for fire and police with office integration for command teams underway

Piloting of a joint police and fire Rural Response Vehicle; Multi-agency Incident Team of three people in a vehicle; responsible for incident assessment and initial response determination (This includes the ambulance service whose overall collaboration is on a more project by project basis.

Joint Operations Team (Gold and Silver command) based at Headquarters

What are the critical drivers of collaboration?

Collaboration was initially driven by key senior staff with a vision endorsed by strong local political support. There is now a clear pathway to deliver that vision; an agreed ‘blueprint’ document mapping out the pathway, and a ‘statement of intent’ which has been publicly consulted on. Collaboration is viewed as being wider than emergency services with strong emphasis on the prevention agenda, for example, integrated offender management is to be delivered by a fire and rescue managed joint team.

Collaboration to be achieved through a

three stage process:

1. Development of inter-operability capacity

2. Integration of services

including single site locations, control and

multi-skilling and command

3. A move to a single

overarching organization

11


4. Collaboration: enablers and barriers Throughout the research, particular attention

was focused on developing a clear

understanding of the environments and

processes that enabled or inhibited

collaboration. The areas included in this report

are those that emerged as common in each

phase of the evaluation; literature review, in-

depth interviews and surveys. We paid

particular attention to the examples of

successful collaborations described during the

extensive interviews with both senior and

frontline staff and also to the issues that they

described as having prevented or impaired

success.

As well as the specific enablers and barriers a

critical and overarching issue was identified. A

number of collaboration initiatives have either

been stalled completely or have delivered sub-

optimal solutions because changes made within

one service (intra-service) have been made

without regard to the potentially greater benefits

to be drawn for collaborations with other

services (inter-service).

For example, a number of control room mergers

could have offered greater service streamlining

and savings if independent decisions to move

forward with intra-service control room

rationalisation had not been made.26 It is

recognised that there is an inevitable legacy of

decisions that were made before inter-service

collaboration became an imperative however

this can and should be avoided in the future. It

would seem reasonable to suggest that one

required test of any future intra-service business

case should be that the potential of inter-service

collaboration to address the business case

objective has been explored. In addition, the

extent to which the proposal will enable or inhibit

future inter-service collaboration and the

resulting improved effectiveness, resilience and

benefits should be explicitly explored and

documented in the business case.

It is interesting to note that the results of the

general public survey indicate that there is a

clear expectation that this should and already

does happen.

Enablers of collaboration

Seven key enablers of collaborations were

identified:

A clear and shared vision of the objectives

of the collaboration. Without this, effective

and sustainable collaboration appeared

unlikely to happen or be supported. The most

effective examples examined during the

research set out the objective, the pathway,

actions and responsibilities to delivery and a

clear view of what success would look like.

Collaborations that had stalled or were slow to

progress lacked these essential features.

Trust at all levels of the collaborating

agencies. Other research has identified the

need for trust at chief officer level in the

collaborating agencies both to stimulate and

deliver beneficial collaborative working. This

research confirmed that this underpinned all of

the most productive work. It also highlighted

the need for trust at and across all levels27 and

in particular between front-line staff from

different agencies who often had to deliver the

collaboration vision of others in challenging

and stressful situations. Trust developed at

this front-line level was often described as

leading to even more innovation and wider

ownership of the top of the office vision.

Where inter-service trust at this level was

tenuous or missing, the top of the office vision

was often described as being just that; a vision

without substance or ownership.

Clear, shared resource plan. The most effective

plans covered staffing, facilities, revenue and capital

budgets and were seen as essential if collaborations

were to realise potential benefits.

26

It is acknowledged that intra service doesn't mean it can't also involve inter service but it needs to be carefully planned. 27

This includes PCCs, fire authorities, chief officers, other partners such as Social Care

12


Case study: Lincolnshire What’s working? The Joint Ambulance Conveyance Project, delivered out of three fire stations in Lincolnshire is built upon sound foundations (the existing partnership co-responder scheme). As such, it is seen as evolutionary not revolutionary and importantly, it is both trusted by the public and supported across all levels within East Midlands Ambulance Service and Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue. There is an acceptance that retained fire fighters can play a significant role in supporting the work of the ambulance service (specifically paramedics), particularly given the predominantly rural nature of the county. In addition, there is an understanding from strategic leads within fire and rescue that the responsibilities of retained fire fighters need to be adapted and expanded to ensure the role continues effectively. Above all else, the project is protecting and saving lives.

What drives the partnership? There is a focused, combined will to succeed across all of the project partners with strong cross-party political support from locally elected councillors. The partnership is driven by a desire to deliver a first-class local service to local people which can contribute to community well-being.

How will be sustainability be achieved? There is great concern amongst all partners with regard to sustainability. With a clear appetite for expansion to other fire stations, there is recognition that a balance needs to be found between funding any such expansion and maintaining the current provision. Commissioning of fire and rescue services by the ambulance service is one avenue that might be explored but great emphasis was placed on the need for some form of continued funding. It should be noted that this project contributes great social value to the communities involved and project partners are keen to explore this when accounting for impact.

“We are risk focused and we save more lives

through attending medical emergencies than we do through fires. So there are

people walking around today who wouldn’t

have been if we were not involved in collaboration.”

Lincolnshire Fire Service Strategic

Lead

“It’s that sense of community as well, that these services are taking place at a very local level. And it builds confidence in a sparsely populated rural area. They feel that they are being looked after from a

well-being point of view”

Elected councillor

13


Agreed and realistic timeline and delivery

pathway. This needs to be clear and take

account of the often differing funding and

planning cycles of potential collaborators.

Moreover it needs to be broken down into

achievable steps towards the end point vision

with essential actions allocated within and

between agencies with agreed timeframes and

mandates for action.

Local cross party political buy-in and overt

support. If collaboration was allowed to become

an inter-party battleground, successful

implementation and benefits realisation was

reported as unlikely. In many of the examples

reviewed this had been achieved but almost

without exception, the need for a national

consensus about the way forward was raised as

an issue needing some attention.

Robust governance architecture. Large-scale

collaborations and the related investment and

change programmes are usually complex and

often challenging. It was seen as essential that

time needed to be spent at the outset designing,

testing and embedding a governance infra-

structure in order to ensure this complexity and

potential challenge could be managed as work

progressed.

Retaining service identity. All three blue light

services have easily recognisable identities in the

public, and media perception is that, although

they may suffer ups and downs, the services are

generally strong and respected. Retaining the

best features of these identities whilst working

towards closer collaboration and shared

resources was seen as important. The reasons

ranged from (i) not allowing the perception of

losing identity to become an area for dissent and

distraction from the main agenda to (ii) the need

to safeguard the relationship (developed over

time through individual service identities) with the

communities being served. It is interesting to note

that there was also a minority view that protecting

the strength of the current identities could inhibit

collaboration.

Barriers to collaboration

There were six key barriers to collaboration

identified:

Current focus of collaboration. The focus of

collaboration should be across all levels of service

and include non-blue light agencies. It should not be

confined to emergency response, control and back

office functions. There were some very imaginative

examples of integration around shared approaches

to prevention strategies, shared command,

investment and collaborative work with non-blue

light agencies to consolidate change and improve

service delivery.

Funding streams and cycles. There are different

government funding structures and cycles available

to the blue light services which are seen as

inhibiting effective collaboration. These range from

the structure of funding e.g. loan versus grant

funding, through timing of funding availability to lack

of funding flexibility to respond to changing

circumstances or emerging opportunities.

Organisational differences. The mandates,

governance regimes and organisational structures

of the three services were reported to have been,

and to a large extent continue to be, barriers to

progressing collaborations. However, whilst this is

undoubtedly an accurate reflection of the

management challenge, some areas appear to have

overcome many of the issues that other areas feel

prevent progress. Sharing the learning from success

in this area is critical.

Representative bodies. The role of the various

representative bodies is rightly to ensure the welfare

of their members. Inevitably there will be differences

from time to time about the balance between

protecting the terms and conditions of individual

staff and the overriding objective of delivering safe,

effective and efficient public services. It is also

important that all staff views are represented

whether they belong to a representative body or not

and also that the views that carry weight reflect local

needs and priorities. The most effective examples

14


reviewed had invested a great deal of time and

effort in staff engagement which included, but was

not confined to, representative bodies.

Current legislation. A number of instances where

current legislation was a barrier to collaboration

were highlighted. There is no doubt that some of

the far-reaching vision described during the

research would need changes to primary

legislation - consideration should be given to this in

the future. However there is a great deal more

general application of existing successful models

that can, and should be, made which requires no

legislative change. Whilst the legislation debate

needs to be had, it should not be seen or used as

a barrier to a great deal more progress within the

current framework.

Government Departments. A number of

instances where a more coherent, consistent and

shared vision would be helpful from the key policy-

making departments supporting blue light services

were highlighted during the research. Inevitably

there will always be an element of differently

nuanced messages and actions between

government departments with different mandates

and priorities. The Emergency Services

Collaboration Working Group was seen as playing

an important role in drawing together the

collaboration agenda, providing a conduit for

issues to be fed into the key departments’ policy

processes and also a forum to highlight where

inter-departmental action was needed to remove

barriers. If this group continues it would be a useful

forum to develop solutions to the barriers listed

here and also to disseminate the imperatives

represented by the key enablers.

15


Case study: South Wales & Gwent

How has collaboration been achieved? There has been joint identification of shared priorities and problems with a consistent message from all participants about the scope, aim and impact of collaboration. The quality of the relationships at the top-level management across organisations is the biggest single enabler (and potential barrier if there is a clash of ideas or if individuals leave) to collaboration. Even an overwhelming business case is unlikely to succeed without this support. There is active political endorsement in South Wales and Gwent - this is both at the Local Unitary Authority and at Welsh Office Ministerial level.

What issues need to be addressed? A number of issues arising from earlier all-Wales mergers remain problematic as does the uncertainty around police devolution. These have left a legacy of long-standing collaborations of types that are unlikely to exist elsewhere. Some of these are successful whereas others have effectively stagnated. The perceived ineffectiveness or effectiveness of these legacy arrangements is often used to undermine or support current proposals. In addition, keeping staff on-board has been a critical issue as collaboration may mean significant changes to location and working conditions.

What are the key features of good collaboration? Collaboration is more effective when it is across all the related services

and not just bi-lateral (or even tri-lateral)

Concentrating on collaboration only at the emergency end of the service spectrum is not efficient; for example collaborative prevention strategies avoid emergencies (e.g. South Wales Valley’s arson targeting programme)

Top-down driven collaboration has a poor success track record; local drivers and ownership are essential

Availability of good quality information and accessible evidence (a ‘what works’ knowledge bank) is seen as something that could usefully be developed nationally

“At a time of austerity we really do need to

recognise and embrace the power of

partnership. Co-operation and

collaboration are the future”

Strategic lead

16


5. England and Wales surveys

In order to gather further evidence on collaborative

activities taking place and to understand wider

attitudes to collaboration, two linked emergency

services surveys were undertaken across England

and Wales. The first survey was targeted at the

Chief Officers of each service, Police and Crime

Commissioners and local authority Chief

Executives. The second survey was targeted at

those organisations representing staff within

emergency services (e.g. trade unions and

professional associations.)

Some of the key findings are presented in this

section.

Survey of emergency services personnel

Respondents’ profiles

Nearly half of the respondents were employed by

the fire and rescue service. 15% worked for the

police, 10% were employed by the ambulance

service and 9% worked for a local authority. 19%

of respondents fell into the “other” category – 3/4

of these respondents stated that they

represented a Police and Crime Commissioner.

The vast majority (71%) of respondents operated

at a senior level such as a chief officer or Police

and Crime Commissioner.

Fig. 1 – Types of Involvement in Emergency Service Collaboration

17


Involvement in emergency service collaboration

The overwhelming majority of respondents (98%)

were involved in some form of collaboration with

another emergency service and/or local authority.

80% were involved in collaboration with the Police

and the same proportion with a local authority. (Fig.

2 illustrates the different levels at which

collaboration takes place across individual

services.)

The nature of emergency service collaboration

89% of respondents reported that collaboration

takes place at a strategic level, 83% at an

operational level and 77% at a tactical level. 40% of

respondents stated that the collaboration their

service was involved in covered non-operational

areas.

The vast majority (90%) of respondents were

either satisfied or very satisfied with the

collaborative work in which their organisation

was involved.

A number of respondents reported that

collaboration had been hampered by lack of

political support and some also noted that

cultural differences between services such as

decision-making processes and differing

motivations could hinder collaboration.

Those satisfied with collaboration reported on

improved outcomes for service users and the

collaboration leading to cost savings.

Fig. 2 – Levels at which emergency service collaboration takes place

18


80% of collaboration centred on wider joint

prevention activities, 75% of respondents reported

that their organisations shared offices with another

service and 60% reported that back office

functions are shared between services.

The fire and rescue service and the police were

more likely to share offices; the ambulance service

and local authorities were more likely to be

involved in wider joint prevention activities. 90% of

respondents reported that the extent of their

organisation’s collaborative activities had either

significantly or slightly increased over the previous

12 months.

Only 4% stated that the extent of their

organisation’s collaborative activities had

decreased over the same period of time. A

number of respondents mentioned that

involvement in JESIP, the need for service

improvement and intensified financial pressures

had contributed to increased collaborative

working.

Similarly, respondents’ personal ability to work

collaboratively had also increased during the

previous 12 months with 65% reporting a slight

or significant increase. 35% of respondents

stated that there had been no change in their

personal ability to collaborate.

Fig. 3 illustrates the main enablers and barriers

cited by the respondents in relation to

collaboration.

Collaboration (ranked importance by emergency services respondents)

Fig. 3 Main three enablers of collaboration

Strong desire among organisations to work

together

Willingness on the part of key individuals to

work together

Strong trust between organisations

Fig. 4 Main three barriers to collaboration

Unwillingness on the part of individuals to work

together

Differing organisational cultural barriers

Lack of funding to take joint work forward

19


Case study: Surrey & Sussex

How has collaboration been achieved? Key strategic leads have been critical to the success of the collaborative work across Surrey and Sussex. There is a shared vision and belief in the process. Strong political support has added to the success of collaboration. This has included support from DCLG. The establishment of an Emergency Service Programme Delivery Team with representatives from across the services has also aided in programme development and in driving projects forward.

What’s working? Local communication is mostly strong and there is clear ownership and buy-in from different partners across both areas. Joint Contact, Control and Dispatch (DEIT hub) is showing early signs of success with point to point contact information between Surrey Police and Surrey Fire and Rescue Service successfully transferred. Four other partners have showed a commitment to engaging with the project. Other successful projects include fleet management which could potentially lead to significant savings. Forced entry by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service to locate vulnerable or injured people, the positioning of mental health practitioners in control room and fire service as first responders are also showing early signs of success.

What key issues need addressing in terms of sustainability?

Time and budget constraints; particularly having to spend project monies by the end of the financial year, there is a concern over the short-termism of structures that can then prevent innovation

Differing governance structures can mean that projects are delayed because of the different ways organisations deal with the approval process.

Long-term investment and resources are required to ensure that collaboration is successful

It is difficult to continue to cut services and save money - at some point questions will need to be addressed about what all ‘blue light’ services can successfully deliver.

“The principle of blue light work? Its genesis is probably

in austerity but there is also sense

in it”

Strategic Lead in policing

20


Survey of representative bodies

In order to broaden the research, a short online

survey of representative bodies was conducted.

This covered those trade unions and

professional organisations which represented

employees of one or more of the emergency

services and local authorities.

Respondents, profiles

Just under half of respondents represented

members within the fire and rescue service,

40% represented the police, 17% represented

the ambulance service and 15% represented

local authorities.28

Key points on collaboration

75% of respondents represented members

who had been engaged in collaborative

work.

16% of respondents reported that their

members had not been involved in any

collaborative work.

Where members had been involved in

collaborative work, 80% of these

collaborations were carried out at an

operational level.

75% reported that collaboration took place at

a strategic level, 50% in non-operational

areas, 43% at a tactical level and 36%

involved wider joint preventative activities.

Respondents commented that collaborative

activities can lead to confusion over

accountability.

A number of respondents felt that

collaborative work lead to greater information

sharing.

Respondents reported that it was important

that operational staff were consulted before

any collaborative activities were undertaken.

The need for a drive from central government

was also cited.

Collaboration (ranked importance by representative bodies' respondents)

Fig. 5 Aspired outcomes of collaboration

The creation of best practice approaches

Improvements in training

Better knowledge of each organisation's capabilities

Fig. 6 Main three barriers to collaboration

Proposed changes in staff job roles

Proposed changes in staff terms and

conditions

Negative impact on staff numbers

28

Note that this total is greater than 100% because some representative bodies can be responsible for members across more than one service.

21


Case study: Hampshire

What’s working? In sharing back office functions, the H3 partnership has managed to implement several efficiencies, reducing the work involved in these functions by 20-30% and saving approximately £4 million per year. The H3 partners (fire, police and local authority) have discovered that there is a market for public to public trading as this avoids recent controversy around outsourcing and also ensures that jobs are either kept or created in the local community. The H3 model has received much attention from other public sector organisations, many who are keen to be involved. Oxfordshire County Council is in the process of joining and the H3 partners are looking into possibly creating a franchise of the model.

What drives the partnership? H3 came out of a joint need to create efficiencies yet at the same time provide high performing services. The main driver behind the partnership was the strong working relationship between the strategic leads of the 3 services. This working relationship was built on trust and had been formed during past joint exercises. The strategic leads also shared a commercial perspective on how their services should be run.

What evidence is there of wider sharing of the lessons and of them being learnt? The strategic leads have relied heavily on the strong relationship between themselves however they have since realised that such a relationship might not exist between other services joining the platform so there is a need to have strong processes in place to mange this. Although much emphasis was placed on staff communication, the strategic leads feel that staff briefings should start much earlier in the process in order to ensure that everyone is fully onboard.

“People sometimes look at me like trust in a working relationship is just a quaint thing but trust is a central issue

in commercial undertakings. “

H3 Strategic Lead

“Austerity, leadership and

relationships were what lead to this collaboration.”

H3 Strategic Lead

22


6. Public perception

Most of the research focus of this evaluation has

concentrated on the emergency services from an

organisational, individual or representative

perspective. Given that the remit of all three

services (and local authorities) is to serve the

public, a short survey was undertaken to determine

their opinions of collaboration. A survey of 1,069

individuals was conducted to gather the public’s

ideas on the subject. The survey topics included

awareness of, confidence in and importance of

emergency services collaboration. The key findings

from this survey were as follows:


collaboration

72% of respondents thought that the emergency

services should work together more often to

provide a better all-round service

There was some regional disparity. 82% of

respondents in the East Midlands thought that

the emergency services should work together

more often compared to 61% in Yorkshire.

11% of public sector respondents did not think

emergency services should work together more

often, compared with 2% in the private sector.

Only 32% of the public felt informed about how

the emergency services worked together in their

local area. Again, there were regional

differences with 47% of respondents in the

North West feeling informed compared to only

20% in London and the North East.

Over half of respondents (53%) would like to

have known more about how the emergency

services worked together in their local area.

20% of the public sector employee respondents

stated that they were not interested in knowing

more about how the services worked together

compared to 13% in the private sector.

Confidence in emergency services

collaboration

Almost two-thirds of respondents were confident

that emergency services worked together

effectively to prevent emergencies.

This ranged from 74% of respondents in the

North East to 47% in London.

76% of respondents were confident that the

emergency services worked together effectively

to respond to emergencies which was 15

percentage points higher than those that were

confident that the emergency services worked

together effectively to provide value for money

(61%).

Importance of emergency services

collaboration

Only 4 out of 10 respondents felt it was important

that emergency services in their local area

should share the same premises.

This was in contrast to the overwhelming

majority of respondents (84%) who reported that

it was important for leaders to work together

closely in order to protect the public. Only 1%

stated that this was not important.

The same majority of respondents (84%)

reported the importance of control rooms in their

local area electronically sharing information with

each other, with just 2% stating it was not

important.

23


7. Data analysis and economic

evaluation

In analysing the data and economic case for

collaboration in the six case study areas, it should

be noted that it is too early (and too complicated)

at present to quantify impacts. This section aims to

provide some indications of the types of costs and

benefits involved and suggestions for future

monitoring and evaluation.

The purpose of conducting data analysis and

economic evaluation was to (i) systematically

understand financial and outcome data in the

selected case study areas, (ii) analyse the

business cases in terms of clarity in presenting

costs and benefits that can be independently

verified, (iii) develop outcome measures that can

be used to measure success or otherwise of the

projects, (iv) recommend a uniform way of

presenting business cases and indicators of

success and (v) encourage the areas to quantify

the wider social benefits of their projects.

Available data, from a range of reports, was

systematically analysed and the trends in each

area were compared with the national average.

Cost benefit data (including projected data)

presented in each project area’s business case

were analysed. The underlying model on the basis

of which the cost benefit calculations have been

made was not always available so it was not

always possible to independently assess the

methodology or plausibility behind the estimates.

This includes the projected savings in reports and

therefore we have no option but to take them at

face value. Availability of the underlying model on

which the calculations have been made would

enable verification as well as allowing assessment

of the possible variations in estimates in order to

present various scenarios (low, high, medium) to

give robust estimates of future demand and hence

projected costs.

Another important element that cannot always

be inferred from the reports is how much

savings (or otherwise) can be attributed to

collaborative working between services. Some

reports mention the estimated amounts but

once again the underlying model is either not

available nor does it make clear the

assumptions about the role of confounding

variables i.e. in many cases it is not explicit

whether the projections adjust for other factors

that may have affected demand and hence

costs. Hence, we need to be cautious about the

conclusions drawn.

Overview of costs and benefits and

suggested outcome variables for monitoring

The range of costs of collaboration and

projected benefits across the six areas vary and

depends on the type of collaboration. To

illustrate, costs of collaborations vary between

£95,000 in Dyfed Powys Police for the

development of the MAIT to £4,300,000 in

Northamptonshire where the country’s first

integrated police and fire service is being set up

within the remits of current legislation.29 Costs

between our case studies mainly vary due to

different levels of collaboration.

It transpires that collaborations based on

technical/electronic innovations such as ones in

Wales and Surrey and Sussex (both investing

in developing a Multi-Agency Information

Transfer programme) come much cheaper than

those investing in a much broader range of

collaboration projects such as the one in

Northamptonshire which aims to fully integrate

police and fire services. Estimated benefits vary

highly among the collaborations

29

It should be noted that, as current legislation allows, this is an integration of support services and operational teams but not governance or wholesale operational or terms and conditions

24


Case study: Manchester

What partners are involved in the collaboration? The CRIT is being led by Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) working in partnership with North West Ambulance Service (NWAS), Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and local authorities. The collaboration builds on successful prevention work carried out over the last 10 years by GMFRS through promoting a preventative approach which impacts positively on the demand on all three emergency services and on adult local authority social care services.

What does collaboration look like on the ground? The Community Risk Intervention Teams (CRIT) visit homes across Greater Manchester, helping to lessen the risk of fire incidents in properties, improving security and reducing the threat of falls. They also respond to ‘low priority’ incidents which relieves pressure on police and paramedics in Greater Manchester. Operating from three fire stations across the county, they are staffed by new recruits (mainly ex soldiers and stand-in firefighters). The teams receive clinical training to the level of first responder and operate three vehicles, equipped with risk reduction equipment.

What evidence is there of successful outcomes? As in most of the project areas, it is very early to state conclusive what impact the collaborative work is having in Greater Manchester. However, evidence of early outcomes is impressive and the partnership certainly has set ambitious financial targets - total cashable saving of £7,961,000 by the second year against project’s cost £3,760,000. Activity levels of the team can be seen in the following tables - contained within this activity are some really poignant and personal stories which include life-saving interventions. (see examples of the positive outcomes at http://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/media/2408/crit-case-studies-feb-2015.pdf)

Response Activity

Cardiac Arrests

Confirmed First

Responder Falls

Mental Health

Welfare Concern

51 424 63 9 228

Total Response

Activity

Prevention activity

Total combined

activity

775 256 1031

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/greater-manchester-police

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/north-west-ambulance-service

25


Dyfed Powys Police predicts £22,000 savings a

year from 1,089 reduced calling handling hours.

However, most other projects did not provide such

exact figures of how savings are being made. One

exception is Greater Manchester (project’s cost

£3,760,000) where potential savings were

explained in a great detail and sums up to a total

cashable saving of £7,961,000 by the second year

which will be realised through reductions in

demand and early interventions. Overall, while

costs are identified in most cases (though we do

suggest that the assumptions underlying them be

made clear), benefits are only touched upon.

When there are cashable savings they are

quantified but very little analysis exist of the wider

benefits of collaboration even though in most

cases they lead to primary changes (such as

response time of calls) that can be measured and

in turn lead to lowered damage, death or serious

injury that are of immense benefit to society. Thus,

there is a cogent case to be made to understand

how collaborative working leads to a wide ranging

set of benefits and attempts should be made to

calculate social rates of return on projects.30

To monitor collaboration activity, prior to its start,

key targeted variables that are expected to change

as a result should be identified. Baseline data

should ideally be collected before the project takes

place and, during the follow up periods observing

the changes and trends among chosen variables

will give us a crude indicator of the collaborations’

impact. However, care must be taken to control for

any confounding variable that can affect these

indicators. For purposes of evaluation more clarity

is needed. As mentioned, benefits are often very

broadly described without stating wider impact on

the community and any changes in quality of the

public services they receive. Where cashable

savings numbers are presented, in most cases

some explanation of how they are derived (i.e.

the underlying model on the basis of which

these savings are made) are not presented.

Moreover, some savings will be non-cashable

and understandably, these are harder to

measure, or they will be in terms of quality

indicators improving rather than changes in

cashable savings.

The following table gives an indication of the

types of indicator for each type of service that

may change as a result of collaboration. The

trend of the indicators in the table as well as

comparing with national figures is an important

first step in understanding how these regions

are doing. This lays the background for us to

identify how their performance may be related

to their collaborative setup and get an estimate

of future trends. However, it is important to go

beyond that in trying to disentangle the net

benefits of joint working from any other change

that occurs at the same time.

30

There are of course challenges to calculating social rates of return (see Millar and Hall, 2012) but this suggest the need to understand and overcome barriers to measuring such returns, not to abandon attempts to capture such social benefits.

26


Table 3 - Key Monitoring Benefits

Ambulance - Changes in costs of Double Crewed Ambulances (DCAs) (cashable

savings)

- Changes in Clinical Indicators such as response rate to Red 1 and

Red 2 calls and how fast ambulance arrives at the patient

- Faster medical intervention to casualties which would lead to lower

spending on rehabilitation and number of bed stays

(the above could help to measure cashable savings to the public purse

since faster response rates to critical patients should reduce the risks of

them being in hospital for longer/needing longer rehabilitation/expensive

medications)

- Number of bed stays

- Spending on rehabilitation

Police - Public confidence in police

- How safe community members feel in their local area

(the two above could help measure benefits to the community from having

higher police visibility which some of the projects identify as their potential

benefits)

- Crime rates

- Detection rates (for various crimes, some interventions might affect

visible crimes more such as burglary, theft, mugging)

- How fast different incidents are being resolved (such as Family

related matters)

Fire - Number of fire incidents/year

- Fire checks undertaken/year

- Waiting time to respond to fire incidents

- Severity of incidents

Support

staff/IT/systems

integration

- Flow of savings over a given time against up front and running cost

of integration

- Developing a measure for resilience

Co-location of

services

- Better space utilisation ratio

- Lower running costs

27


8. Conclusions and recommendations

This research has been driven by a multi-

disciplinary project approach which has provided

compelling evidence on the nature, extent and

appetite with regard to current and future

emergency services collaboration.

The following conclusions and recommendations

are driven by the 51 interviews and the 3 group

sessions conducted in the six case study areas.

They reflect in-depth conversations with key

strategic personnel (Chiefs of emergency services,

Police and Crime Commissioners, local authority

elected members and Chief Executives) as well as

interviews with more operationally and tactically

focused staff.

The semi-structured nature of these interviews

enabled the collection of rich and descriptive data

about behaviours, attitudes and perceptions

connected to both local collaborative projects and

to collaboration in its wider sense, as an unfolding,

complex process. The findings are substantiated by

the results of the surveys of emergency services

across England and Wales, the public opinion

survey and the review of policy and literature which

frames this research.

The following conclusions, underpinned by a

rigorous and robust analysis of both the primary

and secondary data, link back to the project

objectives in order to form a definitive and clear

response to the original research questions.

Conclusions

Collaboration is driven by both efficiency and

effectiveness and by the need to save money.

Effectiveness is not just related to achieving

savings it is also about delivering better services

and outcomes for the public.

Collaboration has been achieved in a number of

ways and with a range of participants. There is

no ‘one model’; it works on an area by area

basis that reflects local need.

Collaboration across England and Wales

is ‘patchy’, due to a number of factors

which include:

o The nature and timing of funding

streams which do not always allow all

services the opportunity to collaborate at

the same time or to the same degree.

o Local politics which can inhibit or

stimulate collaboration – this includes

trade unions.

o Inconsistent messages across

government departments.

o Legacy issues from previous

collaborations which can impact on the

appetite for further collaboration.

A number of common lessons have been

identified in the six case study areas:

o Where emergency services collaboration

is successful, it is grounded in a clear

shared vision between partners.

o Local political (non-partisan)

endorsement is critical in providing

support.

o It is often key individuals driving

collaboration and this requires that

appropriate communications and transfer

of responsibilities are in place when

personnel move on.

o Appropriate, universally agreed

governance structures are essential in

the management and development of

collaboration.

In collaboration between services (inter), it

is important that due consideration is given

to collaboration within the same service

(intra).

In aligning services through collaboration,

retaining ‘brand’ identity is both an

aspiration and a key challenge.

There is positive public backing for

collaboration but a lack of public

awareness.

Sustainability of collaboration is linked to

local decisions around future direction (e.g.

underpinning what exists or expanding

reach).

28


Collaboration would be given further momentum

if linked to Key Performance Indicators. These

could cover things such as response times,

public confidence, capital expenditure, crime and

detections rates, cost savings etc.

Future funding is key to sustainability and

expansion – a range of options exist e.g. more

funding from central government, commissioning

of services, franchising of existing models.

Early outcomes appear favourable (e.g. response

times in Lincolnshire and Manchester) but it is

too early to measure impact with any degree of

certainty.

Data is patchy, inconsistent and not linked to

targets.

Evidence of successful financial outcomes within

the project areas is limited and will take time to

be realised therefore it is difficult to provide a

conclusive economic analysis.

Collaboration projects support wider public

service change and link in to local and regional

developments in other areas e.g. social care.

Recommendations

The following recommendations should be

reviewed and considered by the Emergency

Services Collaboration Working Group. They flow

from the report’s conclusions and the evidence

gathered throughout the research. This evidence

reflects a thorough assessment of the responses to

the research questions, the subjective views of the

research participants and the objective,

independent views of the researchers.

The recommendations cover suggestions for

greater collaboration (supported to varying degrees

by research participants) as well as suggestions for

promoting enablers and removing barriers. These

are broken down into three types (in addition to

separate data recommendations):

Increasing collaboration

Removing barriers

Promoting enablers

Furthermore, they are split into three levels31,

characterised by:

evidence of breadth and level of support

the ease (or difficulty) with which

recommendations can be implemented

from a practical point of view

the degree of effort, will and compromise

required by strategic leaders and/or

central government in order to bring

about further collaboration.

The three levels are summarised as follows:

Level 1

Characterised by substantial support and

deliverability

Underpinned by both primary and

secondary data

Issues that are fairly straightforward to

address

Tasks that can be achieved with

moderate effort/will by those partners

who have an appetite/need for

collaboration or further collaboration

Level 2

Characterised by strong support

Underpinned by both primary and

secondary data

More complex issues to

manage/overcome

Issues that require a degree of

negotiation and compromise in order to

achieve

Level 3

Characterised by mixed support

Key barriers to manage/overcome

Ambitious and sweeping change

Decisions that will require addressing at a

senior level in order to embed

collaboration consistently (at all levels)

across England and Wales.

31

Level 1 being the easiest to implement, Level 3 being the most difficult

29


Recommendation: Increasing collaboration

Level 1 The creation of more single back offices

The adoption of single back offices should be

welcomed and supported as an example of where

collaboration works well across all three emergency

services. In addition, by their nature, they can also

stimulate and promote further collaboration in terms

of culture and learning as well as removing some of

the stigma attached to joint working, e.g. loss of

individual service identity. Evidence from the

interviews suggests that single back offices (which

may include functions such as finance, human

resources, facilities management etc.) can deliver

efficiencies and increase resilience. 75% of

respondents to the England & Wales survey stated

that their service was involved in some form of

office sharing, with 57% sharing back office

functions.

Level 1 Adoption of shared Key Performance

Indicators

As indicated in the data analysis section and as

confirmed in interviews throughout the majority of

the project areas, data collection is inconsistent.

Collaborative projects would greatly benefit from a

coherent, focused approach to collecting,

measuring and analysing data. This data should be

explicitly linked to projects in order to provide clear

Key Performance Indicators and shared targets.

Level 1 Further capital resource

rationalisation

Evidence from participants in the project areas

suggest that one of the ‘quick wins’ in terms of

collaboration can be found in sharing resources –

e.g. vehicles, buildings, equipment etc. This was

particularly evident in Hampshire, Northants, South

Wales where research participants commented on

the benefits in terms of cost-effectiveness and

efficiencies brought about by rationalisation.

Level 1 Adoption of co-located control

rooms

Co-located control rooms are the natural, but

not the inevitable first step, to merged control

rooms. Co-location can deliver considerable

efficiencies, and in emergency situations

could ensure a more effective, integrated

response, which would counter problems

experienced in previous emergencies.32

Research evidence, from participants in both

the focus groups and interviews, indicate that

there is a broad resolve to move in this

direction, albeit, with differing degrees of

enthusiasm as to the nature and extent of this

type of collaboration. It is recommended that

opportunities to increase co-located control

rooms (and solutions to any barriers) should

be explored.

Level 2 Implementation of shared

operational staff33

In terms of shared operational staff, there is a

great opportunity to rationalise resources in

order to deliver savings and efficiencies.

Evidence from the project areas (e.g.

Surrey/Sussex and Hampshire) indicates that

there is great potential to employ shared staff

in order to improve services to the public,

reduce costs and increase resilience through

a reduction of overlap in service provision and

in response to differing patterns of demand.

Level 2 Development of shared

command structures

Collaboration needs to exist across all levels

of service and rank. It should not be confined

to operational staff such as emergency

responders or those staff working in control

32

Rule 43 Coroners Report on the London bombing highlighted the problems of situational awareness across control rooms during the attacks - http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120216072438/http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/docs/orders/rule43-report.pdf (accessed 25/3/15) 33

This includes operational support staff, back-office support and frontline staff

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120216072438/http:/7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/docs/orders/rule43-report.pdf

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120216072438/http:/7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/docs/orders/rule43-report.pdf

30


and back office functions. Shared command would

deliver efficiencies and send out a message that

collaboration can be all-encompassing in terms of

the personnel affected. Over three quarters of

respondents to the England Wales survey indicated

that collaborations takes place at Strategic, Tactical

and Operational levels; a move to a shared

command structure would consolidate this activity.

Level 3 More integrated local and national

governance structures

Evidence suggests that governance structures, be

they local or national, can serve to facilitate or

frustrate collaboration in equal measure. Almost

universally, across all project areas, interviewees,

time and time again, raised the issue of governance

– reflecting on it being an enabler and/or a barrier.

It is essential that collaboration is underpinned by a

greater alignment of governance structures to

ensure the success of any further and future joint-

working.

Level 3 The adoption of integrated control

rooms

As previously stated, integrated control rooms with

multi role staff are not an inevitable next step from

co-located control rooms. It is acknowledged that

the research identified a range of views on this

issue and that appetite for merging of services is

mixed. Integrated control rooms would no doubt

deliver great efficiencies and cost savings through

rationalisation of staff and resources. Evidence

from the research (substantiated through some of

the key interviews and qualitative data from the

England and Wales survey) suggests that there is

significant backing from the police and fire and

rescue services. However, there is an

understanding that the ambulance services’

position reflects the fact that their strategic direction

is focussed towards the wider NHS integration.

Recommendation 2: Removing barriers

Level 2 Address the disparity in data

collection

Data collection and interrogation is carried out

differently across the three emergency

services. There needs to be some sense of a

joined-up approach to the importance and use

of data in order for it to be used in an

intelligent way which can contribute to

improved services. Respective government

departments need to ensure this takes place

and should clearly indicate why data is

collected, who can access it, how it should be

interpreted and used, and how it should be

evaluated. It is recommended that there is a

move to a more universal data resource which

can be accessed easily by all three

emergency services. This needs to be

relevant, useful and linked to common key

performance indicators.

Level 2 More direction from central

government

Participants in the interviews, identified a

number of instances where a more coherent,

consistent and shared vision would be helpful

from the key policy-making departments

supporting blue light services.

A clearer direction on future legislation,

integration and mergers would help.

Level 3 The adoption of one merged

local budget

It is acknowledged that achieving the ambition

of one merged local budget is aspirational

given the structures (budgetary and

departmental) that currently exist. However,

participants did indicate that in order to realise

absolute collaboration, one of the outcomes

would naturally be one budget covering all

services.

31


Level 3 Alignment of terms and conditions

Terms and conditions vary across the three

emergency services and as such present a major

barrier to collaboration. However, no attempt to fully

integrate staffing could take place without reference

to alignment of these terms and conditions. This

would necessitate complicated and sensitive

negotiations involving each of the services,

associated trade unions and staff associations and

government departments.

Recommendation 3: Promoting enablers

Level 1 More funding streams

There was a clear message from all the project

areas that further funding from central government,

which is joined-up in terms of timing and

accessibility across the respective departments, is

essential to ensure sustainability and extended

reach and impact. Further funding options need to

be explored in order to provide continued support to

collaborative projects.

Level 1 Promoting good practise

The Emergency Service Collaboration Woking

Group should work with the project areas (and

other collaborative projects across England and

Wales) to collect and share examples of ‘good

practise’ and ‘lessons learned’. These could be

published as exemplars and a spatial mapping

exercise could be employed in order to determine

‘equivalent areas’ that might benefit from adopting

similar ‘collaboration initiatives.’ This would entail

matching areas where similar issues or conditions

exist, e.g. matching the JACP in Lincolnshire with a

similar rural area (Cumbria, Northumberland etc.) or

matching the CRIT project in Manchester with

similar urban areas (Sheffield, Leeds etc.)

Level 1

Sharing individual service data

Interview participants indicated that they were

often frustrated in their attempts to obtain data

in a timely and appropriate fashion. In

addition, 60% of respondents to the England

and Wales survey stated that issues with data

and information sharing were proving to be

significant barriers to their ability to

collaborate. Better data sharing protocols

need to be introduced to ensure that individual

service data can be shared more easily.

Level 1 Further implementation of

common protocols

Evidence from those individuals participating

in the focus groups in the project areas

suggests that common protocols can and

should be adopted (and used) where they can

be of benefit to service delivery. This should

include procedures for delivering integrated

responses, use of plain English etc. Recent

research from the evaluation of the Joint

Emergency Services Interoperability

Programme indicates that the adoption of

common protocols for Incident Command has,

through sustained use of shared language,

started to become embedded amongst ‘blue-

light’ Commanders. It is recommended that a

similar approach should be agreed and rolled

out across all emergency services staff to

enable better collaboration.

Level 2 Increase in joint training

programmes

Most of the collaborations in the project areas

have seen the implementation of some joint

training (where staff from emergency services

have been trained together, e.g. in the H3

project in Hampshire) or standardised training

(where staff from respective services have

32


undertaken the same training as staff from other

services e.g. defibrillator training in Lincolnshire).

This training not only up-skills staff but also enables

a greater appreciation of each others’ roles and

increases resilience across collaborative areas.

Similar lessons were learned through the joint

training in JESIP. The working group should

investigate how joint training programmes can be

designed, supported and extended to cover other

collaborations across England and Wales.

Level 2 Supporting leadership

The impetus for collaboration is often driven by

leaders within the respective services. This was a

clear message coming out of the project areas.

Words such as ‘trust’, ‘strategy’, ‘direction’,

‘cooperation’ were all linked to leadership and the

ability to provide considered decision-making. It is

therefore essential, that these leaders are afforded

every support and opportunity to make informed

decisions. The development of a ‘What Works’

centre for collaboration (similar to the model of

existing ‘What Works centres) linking practitioners,

academics and industry experts, should be

considered. This will enable emergency services

leaders to apply an evidenced based approach to

collaboration.

Level 3 More comprehensive intra-service

rationalisation

There were a number of examples raised through

the interviews where organisational change and/or

significant investment decisions had been made

within one agency without reference to the potential

for inter-service alternatives. These had effectively

prevented progress on collaboration projects and in

some cases prevented more value for money

options going ahead. Future business plans for

rationalisation of resources within a blue light

service, especially ones used as the basis for new

funding, should be assessed against options that

examine the alternatives to deliver the same or

greater benefits through collaboration with other

blue light services.

Level 3 Police devolution

The fact that policing in Wales is not a

devolved function of the Welsh Government

was cited by some as a barrier to progress. A

good deal can and has been done to further

the collaboration agenda but the fact that the

police are potentially being asked to commit to

arrangements with devolved services when

their direction of travel could be set by a non-

Wales agenda should be addressed.

Cross-cutting data recommendations

The final set of recommendations focuses

on cross-cutting data issues - specifically, in

terms of tracking the data and

understanding and interpreting outcomes

that would allow for a fully-fledged analysis

of the benefits of different forms of

collaboration.

Business cases must be explicit about the

underlying economic model on the basis of

which projections are made. These should

include assumptions about future demand

and, in being robust, explicitly consider

alternative scenarios. The case study areas

that included estimates of wider benefits

certainly help to understand the linkages

better and this should become routine

practice. In particular, most business cases

either do not comment on or quantify the

benefits or provide a very sketchy picture of

some direct benefits. Without capturing the

social benefits, important aspects of the

rationale behind joint working are not

captured.

To measure success, as a minimum,

performance trends need to be tracked over

a number of years - pre and post

collaboration. Post collaboration, there

needs to be data over 5-6 years (and even

longer) before any conclusions are drawn.

Certain types of changes are short run, for

33


example, the impact of collaboration on waiting

times may be evidenced quite quickly but there

needs to be a control for the underlying demand,

as changes in demand may give a false

impression of positive or negative outcomes.

There is a need to measure how improvements in

performance link to each other e.g. how does

improved fire response time lead to improved

patient outcome (less severe inhalation and burn

injuries for example) and less property damage?

Clearly, there seems to be very little by way of

measuring and linking outcomes that can be used

to do robust cost benefit analysis.

A more sophisticated analysis would control for all

confounding factors and isolate the causal impact

of collaborative working via multivariate

regression analysis. It should also attempt an

efficiency analysis across the services pre and

post joint working. This would need to carefully

control for socio-economic characteristics that

affect demand. It would also need detailed input

from the services on their various costs

components. The challenge is in getting such

data as advances in estimation techniques allow

us to analyse efficiency in the presence of

uncertainty (e.g. through Stochastic frontier

analysis, see Kumbhakar and Lovell, 2003).

In conclusion, whilst there is evidence of innovative

collaborative partnerships happening across

emergency services in England and Wales,

sustained collaboration will be determined by

government’s and services’ ability to invest in and

monitor partnerships in the long-term to establish

best practice. Both policy and legislative change

may also be required to overcome some of the

more complex structural and organisational

barriers.

“[A good outcome] would see

a greater evidence based

approach around 'what works'

in emergency service

collaboration”

Police respondent, England

and Wales survey

“Closer collaboration has

enabled us to maintain

meeting the needs of our

local communities”

Ambulance service

respondent, England and

Wales survey

“Collaboration always

requires extra work

communicating, negotiating

and sometimes

compromising. However, if

done well the benefits always

outweigh the disadvantages”

Fire and Rescue

respondent, England and

Wales survey

34

References

References

Allen, D., and Karanasios, S. (2011). Critical factors and patterns in the innovation process. Policing (Oxford): a journal of policy and practice, 5(1), 87-97. Ambulance Clinical Quality Indicators, NHS England Charman, S. (2014) Blue light communities: cultural interoperability and shared learning between ambulance staff and police officers in emergency response, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 24:1, 102-119) Community Risk Intervention Team (CRIT), Fire and Rescue Authority Transformation Funding for 2015/16 Community Risk Intervention Teams pilot by P. O’Reilly, Director of Prevention and Protection, July 2014 Crime statistics at www.ukcrimestats.com/Police_Force/Greater_Manchester_Police Current Practice and Prospects for FRS Co-responding, Fire Research Series 14/2008 East Midlands Ambulance Services Annual Reports: 2007/08, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2012/13, 2013/14 Ellwood, T and Phillips, M (2013) Improving Efficiency, Interoperability and Resilience of our Blue Light Services, Occasional Report APPG HS (Session 2013-14). Emergency Service Collaboration, The Current Picture (The overview of collaborations in England and Wales) 2014 Emergency Services Collaboration Programme – Joint Contact, Control and Dispatch (JCCD) Project, Police Innovation Fund – 2—15/16 Emergency Services Collaboration, The Current Picture (An overview of collaboration in England and Wales) Enhancing the Mobile Application Store for Policing, Police Innovation Fund 2014/15 Facing the Future, Sir Ken Knight, May 2013 Fire and Rescue National Framework for England, July 2012, DCLG, (para. 1.38.) Fire Statistics Wales, 2013-14 published by Statistics for Wales Herrington (2012) Inter-agency Cooperation and Joined-up Working in Police Responses to Persons with a Mental Illness: Lessons from New South Wales, Policing, Volume 6, Number 4, pp. 388–397) HMIC (2012) Increasing Efficiency in the Police Force - the role of collaboration, London, HMIC. HMIC (2014) Policing Austerity, Meeting the Challenge, London, HMIC. http://publicservicetransformation.org/images/Emergency_Services_Collaboration_2014.pdf (accessed on 16/3/2014) http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/hampshire

http://www.ukcrimestats.com/Police_Force/Greater_Manchester_Police

http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/hampshire

35

References

http://www.surreyi.gov.uk/ https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/northamptonshire Joint Bid BY Lincolnshire Country Council (The Fire and Rescue Authority) and East Midlands Ambulance Service for the Transformation Challenge Award Kevin D. Rooney and Ulf Martin Schilling, Point-of-care Testing in the Overcrowded Emergency Department – Can It Make a Difference?, Critical Care, 2014 Kumbhakar, S and Lovell, C. (2003) Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Cambridge University Press Millar, R and Hall, K. (2012) Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Performance Measurement, Public Management Review, DOI:10.1080/14719037.2012.698857 Multi Agency Information Transfer (MAIT) – DPP Integration, Police Innovation Fund – 2014/15 North West Ambulance Service Annual Report 2013/14 Rogers, P (2011) Resilience and civil contingencies: tensions in northeast and northwest UK (2000–2008), Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 6:2, 91-107). Sander, C.B (2014) Need to know vs. need to share: information technology and the intersecting work of police, fire and paramedics, Information, Communication & Society, 17:4, 463-475 Service Transformation Challenge Panel (2014) Bolder, Braver and Better: Why we need local deals to save public services.

http://www.surreyi.gov.uk/

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/northamptonshire

36

Appendices

Appendix 1: Summary of Recommendations

Level 1 - characterised by substantial support and deliverability

The creation of more single back offices

Adoption of shared key performance indicators

Further capital resource rationalisation

Adoption of co-located control rooms

More funding streams

Promotion of good practise

Sharing of individual service data

Further implementation of common protocols

Level 2 - characterised by strong support but with more issues to manage/overcome

Implementation of shared operational staff

Development of shared command structures

Address the disparity in data collection

Increase in joint training programmes

Supporting leadership

More direction from central government

Level 3 – characterised by mixed support and with key barriers to manage/overcome

More integrated local and national governance structures

The adoption of integrated control rooms

The adoption of one merged local budget

Alignment of terms and conditions

More comprehensive intra-service rationalisation

Police devolution

37

Appendices

Appendix 2: Research methods

Apart from the public opinion survey, all other interaction with participants was conducted through

purposive sampling. The approach to this project necessitated the researchers taking a decision about

the individual participants who would be most likely to contribute appropriate data, both in terms of

relevance and depth. Therefore in terms of the interviews, focus groups and online surveys, specific

individuals were identified and targeted with the support of the Home Office, the Emergency Services

Collaboration Working Group and the respective associations of each emergency service and the Local

Government Agency

.

Participant profiles It should be stressed that this research was carried out within adherence to strict ethical and legal

boundaries in relation to confidentiality and data protection. No identifiable, individual data will be

shared.

Interviews

Semi-structured interviews of 51 individuals conducted face-to-face or by telephone. The number of representatives interviewed were as follows: Fire and Rescue (14), Police (12), Ambulance (9) Local Authority (5) PCC (5), Other (6)

Focus Groups 3 focus groups with representatives from Fire and Rescue, Police and Ambulance service (24 people in total)

England and Wales Survey

Respondents from all 3 emergency services, PPCs offices and local authorities (refer to Appendix 3 for further information)

Representative bodies survey

Trade unions and associations representing members working in all three emergency services and local authorities (refer to Appendix 4 for further information)

Public opinion survey Fieldwork conducted between 20th and 22nd February 2015 – see Appendix 5 for further information The sample (1,067) was made up of the following demographics:

547 Male, 520 Female

123 (aged 19-24), 114 (25-34), 107 (35-44), 149 (45-54), 266 (55-64)

984 (White British), 73 (BEM)

Region: North East (44), North West (146), Yorkshire & the Humber (101), Wes Midlands (119),

Wales (68), Eastern (104), London (115), South East (185), South West (115)

38

Appendices

Appendix 3: Interview Questions

The interviews and group sessions were conducted using a semi-structured format with a ‘topic guide’

containing the following themes and questions.

Main themes Additional questions

What drove the collaboration/s? Was it national policy/austerity/local relationships or initiatives/other?

How was collaboration/s achieved? Who was originally involved?

Has the collaboration widened?

Is there an agreed collaboration plan and business case?

What does the collaboration/s look like? What are the mechanics of the collaboration?

To what extent is the project/s operating as intended?

How does collaboration fit as a part of wider strategy?

Who/what is missing and what would it/they add?

Would standardisation of training help?

Is their standardisation of information sharing

How are communications working in terms of the collaboration/s?

How does internal (within services) communication work?

How does external (across services) communication work?

How does the collaboration project deal with wider marketing and communication?

How are you monitoring the collaboration/s?

Are there internal key performance indicators?

Are there any external key performance indicators? Are there any other ways the collaboration is monitored/assessed?

Is there a risk register?

Data sharing/data availability?

39

Appendices

What appears to be the public perception of the collaboration/s?

Has it been publicised?

Has opinion been formally canvassed?

Has there been any press coverage/feedback?

Are you collecting relevant service user feedback?

Does it threaten some relationships? E.g. Youth engagement/FRS?

What are the barriers of the collaboration/s?

What are the external barriers?

What are the internal barriers (to the individual agencies)?

What are the Internal barriers (with the service area)?

What are the enablers of the collaboration/s?

What are the external enablers?

What are the internal enablers (to the individual agencies)?

What are the Internal enablers (with the service area)?

What would speed up collaboration?

Collaboration as a concept Is the size of the authority a factor?

Are some areas a natural fit?

What are the impacts and outcomes of the collaboration/s?

What are the impacts and outcomes in regard to service delivery?

What are the impacts and outcomes in regard to service personnel?

What are the impacts and outcomes in regard to the general public?

How do the impacts and outcomes relate in regard to progress towards objectives?

What are the unintended outcomes/impacts?

Quantifiable savings

Impacts on time and treatment quality of service and outcomes

40

Appendices

Has the collaboration resulted in any new practices?

Impact/extent of co-terminology

Have you introduced any new KPIs relating to the collaboration?

Is there any resentment towards new practices?

What are the lessons learned from current collaboration/s?

Are there any emerging areas of best practice and how are these being shared more broadly?

To what extent do you think this collaboration is evidence of good practise?

Is there evidence of wider sharing of the lessons and of them being learned?

What future collaborations, on top of existing initiatives, are being planned?

What do these look like?

When will implementation start?

Sustainability and Risk How sustainable do you feel this collaboration/s could be?

In what ways will the collaboration be sustained?

Will further funds be required to support sustainability

If things go wrong or if there are no further funds to support – what is the exit strategy

What risks are involved

Prompts

Can you expand a little on this?

Can you give me some examples?

Can you tell me anything else?

In what ways?

Can you explain?

How did this come about?

How did you feel about it?

How was that received?

41

Appendices

Appendix 4: England and Wales survey questions (and anonymised responses)

Which of the following types of organisation do you work for?

Which of the following (if any) does your organisation work in collaboration with? Please tick all that apply:

42

Appendices

At what level is your organisation most likely to collaborate? (tick all that apply)

Is your organisation involved in any of the following emergency services collaborations? (tick all that apply)

43

Appendices

What was the motivation behind the collaboration? (tick all that apply)

How satisfied are you with the extent of current collaboration/s with other Emergency Services that your organisation is involved in?

In your opinion, how has the extent of your organisation's collaborative activities changed over the past year?

In your opinion, has your personal ability to work collaboratively changed over the past year?

44

Appendices

Could you please rate how significant the impact of the following enablers is on the ability of your organisation to engage in emergency services collaborative work?

45

Appendices

(continued)

46

Appendices

Looking at the list below, please state how often your organisation engages in each activity with other organisations:

47

Appendices

Which of the following barriers to Emergency Services Collaboration have you encountered and how significant have they been?

48

Appendices

(continued)

49

Appendices

Do you feel that your organisation would like to get involved in further Emergency Services Collaboration (nationally and locally)?

Responses to open questions (verbatim quotes) What do you think good Emergency Services Collaboration will look like in the future?

Sharing of facilities i.e. HQ, training centres, workshops etc and then opportunities to integrate back office functions. Better sharing of data to understand vulnerability and to understand what actions and interventions support community well-being to target resources. More integration of staff in specific cross sector teams working more closely together on the prevention, protection and intervention agenda

The mission in Fire and Rescue appears to be reducing while it is growing in the ambulance service and police service. perhaps some redistribution of resources?

the future is not just about emergency services collaboration, but wider across public sector in order to manage demand for each provider. e.g. investment in education, environment, economic development, prevention tactics, healthier lifestyles etc. will reduce demand into the policing, fire and ambulance worlds. It's about 'upstreaming' investment to reduce demand downstream.

Further collaborative customer focused delivery of service Greater clarity and joint singular purpose Legislative empowerment to facilitate closer strategic management. Greater inclusiveness of all blue light and emergency services to ensure the delivery of a bespoke service for the community

Impossible to say, but you might start to look at the merging of emergency services

I was in favour of the co-locating of Control Room staff, although I am aware some of the initial set ups have since been abandoned

50

Appendices

A single blue light service between Health, FRS and Voluntary sector.

Better outcomes for the public - both performance and value for money Simpler and more effective governance structures

Joined up prevention activities across all 3 establishments to continue to reduce demand. Greater direction through one political lead rather than a no. I would support view of a Community Emergency Responder cross service organisation within county boundaries keeping services local to communities who are paying for them.

Joint control rooms Community tri-responders Firefighters who are trained paramedics More shared estate 3 emergency services in the same government department Positive media coverage

I believe that in many areas buildings could be shared. I believe that in rural areas there is more opportunity to work together in building co-responding schemes

A total integration of Fire and Police structures. We are less convinced regarding the ambulance service as their links into NHS mean that they may not benefit from being integrated to the other two blue light services although that assertion may simply be ignorance on our part.

Fire and police can and should work much more closely together, particularly in planning and supporting each other. The police can and should learn more of prevention from Fire, and Fire can benefit from the economies of scale provided by working with the police. Collaborating with Ambulance service is so complex, so culturally different, and with so little will on the part of Health that it is currently impossible and not worth putting effort into.

Shared support functions Shared stations and control rooms Single governance arrangements

We should come under ONE Government department - joint funding, training, uniform, communications equipment, stations etc - whilst remaining as 3 entities,

51

Appendices

Please feel free to leave any further comments about Emergency Services Collaboration in the space provided:

The role of CFOA, ACE and the College of Policing are key to joining up strategies and a national level.

no national directives, or very much encouraged, no national direction, everyone is off doing different stuff, money not equal, council tax equalisation, budget shortfalls, bringing together may need an injection of cash in the beginning but may long term save money, doing things because it's the right thing for communities, not just budget cuts. Given time to do things properly.

National political direction needed to overcome local lack of appetite for collaboration where this has obvious potential benefits to deliver better services to society

Big hurdles to overcome regarding differing terms and conditions and staff association

There needs to be a central government drive for greater collaboration working against an understood and strategic blueprint. There needs to be a single central government department There should be a single Secretary of State for a single department. Consideration of the wider roles, to ensure easier integration will be important. Police is generally enforcement, whilst Fire, Ambulance and Emergency Voluntary Sector is community response and support. A single organisation would reduce central government grant and local council tax base.

Collaboration means being prepared to give more than you get out. If this is still more than could have been achieved by operating independently, the initiative still has merit. With maturity better equity in benefits is established.

Significant collaboration of the type described above is very unlikely to happen without national political direction

Collaboration is only part of the answer. All major change has a single directing mind and this can be achieved either through direction from central government (supported by political drive and financial assistance) or through decisions made locally where there is a common timeframe and shared desire to achieve the same outcomes. The former is a much quicker route to progress for both savings and performance as it reduces discretion at a local level. Whilst there may be some protectionist approaches from some senior officers/politicians who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, many progressive officers would be happy to work in a different way even if this means working as a more junior officer in a larger organisation. Reducing senior managers and joining up back office arrangements will better ensure local delivery is able to be maintained during times of austerity. Local accountability can be maintained through other democratic changes and creating larger organisations will not directly affect police officers, ambulance staff of fire stations. With the right messaging, the public would understand and support such changes.

52

Appendices

Appendix 5: Representative bodies survey questions (and anonymised responses) Do you represent members that work for any of the following employers? (please tick all that apply)

To the best of your knowledge, have the organisation whose members you represent been engaged in any collaborative working over and above responding to and attending emergencies? (e.g. shared offices, shared management team, wider joint prevention activities, shared back office functions like HR or IT, shared resources etc.)

At what level did this collaboration operate? (tick all that apply)

53

Appendices

Which of the following do you think, in general, should be important outcomes for organisations that engage in collaborative work? (please rate their importance)

54

Appendices

(continued)

55

Appendices

In general, which of the following do think would be barriers to collaboration? (Please rate their importance)

56

Appendices

Responses to open questions (verbatim quotes) Please could you briefly describe the impact of this collaboration on your members? (e.g. How many were affected and in what ways?)

Threat of redundancies which are still possible.

Too vast to estimate

As units have been collaborated, they have been decreased in numbers and now have to cover the geographical area of [redacted]. As a result, we have a reduction in dog officers - dog officers therefore have to travel many more miles to jobs. When on a 'blue light run' the dog gets excited and as a result barks. Some runs have been identified at 45 minutes on blues and two tones with a dog barking in their ears Reduction in detectives in Major Investigation unit- having to travel a long way to see witnesses and victims. Firearms officers now cover both counties doing the dual role of firearms and Roads Policing- can you imagine the effect of a firearms officer travelling up to 45 minutes on a blue light run and then getting out to point a gun at someone - can you further imagine what will happen if they then shoot someone and the resultant IPCC enquiry. Back office functions - including Federation officials now have to travel between the two Headquarters - although there is an increase of video conferencing, there is still a need sometimes to physically be there. Travelling time between the two sites is an hour each way - meaning many people using two hours a day to travel. ERSOU- many specialised officers have decided not to travel the two hours each way to get from Norfolk to Luton so they have either returned to other duties or retired and will not be replaced. For those who do commute, they have long and tiring days even before they start

Collaboration and cooperation is essential. If the purpose to collaborate is to make financial savings vital skills are being lost. Shared services can cause confusion on who is accountable as skill sets don't necessarily transfer across

Numbers were reduced in the roads policing dept as part of the collaboration which means that officers are working excessive overtime to make up the numbers and are travelling long distances across three force areas increasing their fatigue. It is only a matter of time before someone falls asleep after a long day.

Greater exposure to live jobs for officers from more rural areas. Some officers became disenfranchised and not able to take up positions on unit because of geographical location of hubs. Certain locations extremely difficult to staff because of geography.

10,000 trained across the country in command training don't know the number of shared facilities

New roles

57

Appendices

They pick up shifts where my members do not get the chance

Restructuring, relocation, working to people from another organisation.

Back office functions have little impact on members. Operational ones have had a minor impact to date

Confused governance. Lack of ownership. Differing standards of accountability.

Very little effect on our members other than it coincided with a move to a single control room for Wiltshire Police. There were some advantages in respect of information sharing due to the professional relationships that were built up through working in the same room.

Created some element of job security, more work for others no more pay.

Not able to do this briefly

What do you think good Emergency Services Collaboration will look like in the future?

Limited progress in providing any improvement to service delivery (if at all). Created stress and worry for employees whose jobs are under threat.

Money savings to forces/Less of a service to the public due to drops in resources and greater times to get to incidents/More police vehicles travelling at high speed for greater distances to get to incidents/Higher complaint rate for incivility of officers due to tiredness/Higher complaint rate of officers not turning up on time/Each force had its own computer systems that have now had to have large amounts of investment to make them the same and compatible

Job losses/job insecurity/skills levelled down/skills lost

Reduction in the delivery of roads policing which appears to be resulting in an increase in serious collisions. We are saving money due to working with less officers but the down side is people lose their lives as a result.

Positive outcomes for officers having greater exposure.

58

Appendices

Greater ability to respond in a co-ordinated and cohesive manner. Better relationships built prior to any incident

Financial cost savings

in some cases improvements are seen but contribute no significant cost savings that are immediately visible

Strategically - Confused and not measured. Operational - Low cost monetary savings Some good practises and swopping of best practise.

In the last couple of years both the fire service and the ambulance service moved back out into their own individual control rooms in order to reduce costs. Some of this has happened because they have entered into collaborative agreements with regional partners of the same service as them. What is clear is that there is no national strategic model. I feel that on a national level a clear direction should be set. We either look to collaborate on a regional or national basis with partners from the same service or we seek more local collaborations with other emergency services. At the moment we have a mish mash which undoubtedly builds in inefficiencies, inconsistencies and delays.

Increased in resilience against job cuts

An ambiguous question, is that the outcomes as expected, as adapted as each business case has been looked at, is that from the operational perspective, the impact upon service delivery, each individual involved?

Please feel free to leave any further comments about Emergency Services Collaboration in the space provided:

Too little information at present to provide any useful feedback

I can see going forward, further collaboration with other public services. We will then have to endure the pain and cost again of shared computer systems and the changes that will need to be made. We currently have issues with data sharing with other agencies - this could be improved if we collaborate. There will be better working conditions and better working relationships between organisations. THERE MUST NOT BE ANY FURTHER REDUCTION IN STAFF - THE CURRENT SITUATION IS KILLING STAFF NOW. Cut estates and utilities by all means but not staff

59

Appendices

Collaboration requires support from within the workplace too often decisions are made and staff reorganised rather than staff consulted in a meaningful manner to support better outcomes.

Real tangible savings are never realised. Operational efficiency suffers and in general within the public sector the service declines. If collaboration is succeed then robust and slim management with empowerment is required.

Within the police we have seen regional collaboration move along at an incredibly slow pace. Having many years ago been involved in collaboration with another force over development of a custody system I witnessed first hand the problems of collaboration. It is my impression that current collaboration seeks to find a perfect solution for all involved. That is unrealistic and it would be much more effective to adopt an 80/20 outlook. Collaboration will only properly work if it is mandated and driven by central government. Senior staff (be they consultants or existing senior staff) can then be held to account for delivering the objectives and savings of the collaboration. Improvements in technology present us with significant opportunities to reduce the numbers of senior staff. No longer do people have to work closely together to be able to have meetings or share information in a group setting. No longer do managers have to have in-depth knowledge as information can be obtained quickly and easily using technology. Information can be accessed and distributed in a much more efficient way than ever before. Our emergency services need to recognise this. However you set up the management structures local services will always be delivered (mostly) by local people working within those organisations.

Collaboration is good as long as it is done with the proper form of consultation. Staff need to be onboard and the benefits to be shared amongst the employees at all levels not just senior managers.

60

Appendices

Appendix 6: Public Opinion Survey

61

Appendices

62

Appendices

Research Report Full report - sfjuk.com · Jon Parry, Professor Eddie Kane, ... Health, Licensing,...

Documents

Transcript of Research Report Full report - sfjuk.com · Jon Parry, Professor Eddie Kane, ... Health, Licensing,...