Avon Fire & Rescue Service's Publication Scheme
Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AF&RS) is
committed to providing information to the public about all aspects
of our work. This document sets out the types of information we
have readily available and how you can access them. The format
of the document follows the template provided by the Information
Commissioner's Office for fire service publication schemes.
Key areas of the document
Charging for
information
Contacts for
information
Translation
Services
Who we are and what we
do
AF&RS’s organisational
structure
Useful Documents
What we spend and how we spend
it
Procurement
Pay and
conditions
What our priorities are and how we
are doing
How we make decisions
Policies
and procedures
Lists and registers
The services
we offer
Fire service specific
information
AF&RS generally do not charge for access to information, and
there is no charge for any of the information listed in this
Publication Scheme. However, the Freedom of Information Act does
give us the option to charge for processing more complicated
requests. The guidance suggests any request that is likely to take
over two and a half days to process may be charged for. Please be
assured that we would only consider charging in very unusual
circumstances and we would always discuss the options before
incurring any processing fee.
For most requests for information you can use the contact details on this
website.
Alternatively apply in writing to:
The Information Officer
Avon Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters
Temple Back
Bristol
BS1 6EU
Telephone: 0117 926 2061
If you need a copy of an incident report, you can call 0117 926
2061 and ask for the Performance Improvement Unit, or apply for
an incident report online.
You can also use the website to make a
Freedom of Information request.
If you are a member of the press, you can contact our Media Team
by calling 0117 926 2061 and asking to speak to the Press
Office.
You can translate information
on this website using Google translate.
For translation requests, please contact our Equality and
Diversity team on 0117 926 2061 extension 249 or see the
equalities
area of the website.
You can also find fire safety information in British Sign
Language for the Deaf community on our website.
Our website www.avonfire.gov.uk has been
redeveloped in order to be as accessible as possible for people
with a wide range of disabilities. For more information please see
the accessibility area of the
website.
Standard categories of information
The types of information we hold and where to find them.
You can find general information about:
- who we are;
- what we do;
- the people we employ;
- our geographical area of operation;
- our responsibilities;
- our relationship with other authorities; and
- our history
from the 'About Us’ section of our
website
Avon Fire & Rescue Service is controlled by the
Avon
Fire Authority, which consists of
elected
members from across the Avon area. Details of the
structure of the authority, names of its members, committees &
forums, and authority papers can all be found on the
Avon Fire Authority area of
our website
On a day-to-day basis AF&RS is run by the Service
Management Board (SMB), which includes the Chief Fire
Officer/Chief Executive. You can find details of the SMB members
and their areas of responsibility by following the link.
For details of your local fire station, please use the
‘station finder’ on our website home page or go to the
‘your local station
page.’
You can view AF&RS current
vacancies online.
General
You can find more information about how we operate, who we
report to, our strategies, our performance, and how we work in
partnership with other agencies in the following documents:
Full statements of accounts, together with summaries and
council tax budget details can be found in our finance document
section.
Details of our projected income and expenditure can be
found in our Medium Term Financial Plan, which will be
available soon. In the meantime you can contact the
Information Officer, whose contact details are on the bottom of
this page.
Details of our expenses payable and a
summary from last year can be found in the Members allowance notice 2007/08 (PDF 62kb,
opens in a new window).
Details of our Internal Financial Regulations (Standing
Orders) and Scheme of delegation to officers can be found
with the other Fire Authority
papers.
You can find our Audit reports in
the document section.
Information about our procurement processes, particularly
support for potential suppliers, can be found on the information
for suppliers area, here you can also find more
detailed policies and procedures.
For details of our major contracts please refer to the
external ''Blue
Light" website and select Avon Fire & Rescue
Service from the list of organisations in the search area. Blue
Light is an online information hub aimed at improving access
to contract and procurement information for buyers within the
Emergency Services.
Pay and
conditions
The pay and conditions of uniformed
employees in the fire service are negotiated by National
Joint Councils (NJC). They are voluntary organisations covering
England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, agreements are
reached through 'collective bargaining'. The results are contained
in a document known as the 'The Grey Book' - Firefighters conditions of
service (PDF 235kb, opens in a new window). You can also
download a list of Firefighter Pay Scales (PDF 35kb, opens in a new
window)
Support staff are paid according to a scale of pay
divided into 14 grades, called the Hay Scale. The appropriate grade
is determined by an employee’s level of responsibility and the
impact they have on the organisation. There is also a small
allowance within each grade for the length of service, an employee
starts at the lowest level within their grade and increases one
level each year until they reach the top level for their grade.
Download details of Support Staff Salary Scales (PDF 40kb,
opens in a new window).
We have three headline objectives:
- To make the Avon area safer
- To do this more effectively and efficiently
- To support our staff to achieve the first two
objectives
These headline objectives result in additional specific
objectives, strategies and plans. The most significant of these
are:
To ensure we are achieving our objectives we have a range of
Performance Indicators (most of which are based on
Central Government’s original Fire Service Performance Measures).
Progress is reported through our Best Value
Reports, found in our Corporate Plans
store.
The most significant headline Performance Figures are published
monthly on our website.
To ensure transparency, we are regularly audited for all aspects
of our work. You can view our major audit results.
For further information about our performance and how it
compares to the rest of the United Kingdom, please visit the
Audit
Commission’s website.
AF&RS is controlled by the Avon Fire Authority,
which consists of elected members from across the Avon area.
Details of the structure of the Authority, names of its members,
committees and forums, and Authority Papers can all be found
by following the link. On a day to day basis, our service is run by
the Service
Management Board (SMB).
As a general guide, most of our decisions are based on
identifying risk in the community and then determining how we can
best improve our performance and so minimise this risk. To give an
indication of the tools we have available to identify risk and
manage performance, please refer to Performance Management at Station and Unitary
Level (PDF 1020kb, opens in a new window). This also gives
an overview of how our decisions are made with regard to
preventing and protecting activities.
The public can also attend the
Fire Authority meetings to observe the decision making
process. You may like to present a petition, make a statement or
ask a question to the chair. Your presentation must be under
five minutes and details of content should be made available to the
Clerk of AFA (via the Committee Services Assistant – see below),
giving two clear working days notice of the meeting.
For
copies of the AFA meeting papers and other
relevant documents, please follow the link.
If you have any queries regarding papers or meetings, please
contact:
Committee Services Assistant
Principal Officers’
Suite
Avon Fire & Rescue Service
Temple Back
Bristol
BS1 6EU
Email: thefireauthority@avonfire.gov.uk
We also consult with the public about
the major decisions in our Integrated Risk Management Plan. Details
of previous consultation results are available IRMP Public Survey Report (PDF 614kb, opens in a
new window)
Various policies are available from our website. These
include:
- Standing Orders, delegated powers, corporate governance, code
of conduct, and similar matters from the AFA document
store
-
Policies and procedures for handling requests for information,
ensuring information security, data protection, retention policies,
and our complaint procedure, can all be found in other
policies and documents.
-
You can now view policies and
procedures about the employment of staff such as
Equalities, recruitment, discipline, grievance, and Health and
Safety.
You can view AF&RS current
vacancies online.
Our activities can be broadly classified as preventing,
protecting and responding activities.
- Preventing activities are designed to reduce the chance that an
emergency will happen.
- Protecting work involves controlling an incident at the point
of the emergency or making sure people have time to escape before
the emergency becomes too serious.
- Our responding work is the services we provide to deal with
emergencies when they do occur and escalate.
For an overview of how our decisions are made with regard to
preventing and protecting activities, please refer to our
Performance Management at Station and Unitary
Level (PDF 1020kb, opens in a new window).
To see the standards we have in place for our response
services, please download our Response Standards Overview
(PDF 40kb, opens in a new window)
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Additionally we have a range of Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs) that cover the technical aspects of our work.
The SOPs are classified as relating to:
- fires and rescue;
- pre-planned operations at specific premises;
- hazardous materials and environmental protection;
- general pre-planning and procedures;
- fire and community safety;
- new dimensions;
- business continuity; and
- support procedures.
Many of these are confidential or restricted so we do not
publish them as a matter of course. If you have a particular need
to see one of our SOPs please send you request using one of
the Contact Us online
forms.
We publish a leaflet about our Partnership
Working (PDF 3663 kb, opens in a new window), which
you can download.
Our most significant, non-human, assets are our properties
(stations, Control and Headquarters) and vehicles. You can find
information about all of our stations and Service
Control plus a list of our
vehicles on this website.
The Finance Asset Register will be coming soon.
In the meantime you can contact the Information Officer, whose
contact details are on the bottom of this page.
As part of our Fire Safety activities under the Regulatory
Reform Order, we keep a public register of any
notices we serve on properties that need increased or improved
fire safety precautions. See
details of how to access the public register.
You can access a list of our Elected
Members interests, gifts and hospitality by
contacting our Clerk to the Fire Authority at Avon Fire Authority,
Service HQ, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6EU.
Most of our services can be divided into those to help the
general public and those to support safety measures in the business
community.
You can find out more about fire safety for the
public and commercial fire
safety.
Additional advice is available from the Central
Government website 'FireKills'.
On our website you can find useful fire safety information and educational games
for children, their parents and
teachers
In response to the increasing threats from terrorism and severe
weather, the Government has established specialist teams for
Urban Search and
Rescue (USAR) across the country.
We produce an Avon Fire Authority (AFA) Newsletter every
quarter, the latest can be downloaded from our AFA
document store
We regularly provide information about incidents we attend and
other work we are involved in via our News webpage
For major incidents we will usually provide a full press
statement and publish the fire investigations report. For an
example of this, please refer to our
coverage of the Weston-super-Mare Pier Fire.
You can request an
incident report online.
Please note however that certain reports may be withheld pending
full investigation, especially where there may
be criminal investigations or where we are still
determining if the cause was deliberate or accidental.
Usually the report will also have to be edited before release so
that we comply with the Data Protection Act requirements to
safeguard personal information. If you have any questions about
this, please refer them to the Information Manager using the
online forms to contact
us.
Alternatively apply in writing to:
The Information Officer
Avon Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters
Temple Back
Bristol BS1 6EU
0117 926 2061