NFCC launches Standard Data Collection Requirement to support fire safety visits

The Standard Data Requirement for the Person-Centred Framework is intended as Best Practice guidance, giving each Fire and Rescue Service something to work towards. Standardised data collection and monitoring practices will improve data collection systems and ensure that the data being collected is comparable across the country.

This launch is part of a bigger data and digital ambition to encourage and support Fire and Rescue Services to improve data quality, encourage standardisation and develop standardised terminology. This includes, but is not limited to, encouraging electronic data collection and finding ways in which to improve data completeness and accuracy.

Neil Odin, the NFCC’s Prevention Committee chair and Prevention Programme executive, said: “Ultimately, the shift from property to person-centred data recording systems, in tandem with increased multi-agency working, will greatly assist in addressing fire risk, how to quantify it and what actions need to be taken as part of home fire safety visits to complement local approaches.”

Odin continued: “To generate good quality data, maximise local and collective learning and enable continuous improvement over time, each Fire and Rescue Service must assess its home fire safety visit procedures, ideally in a way that’s consistent with other Fire and Rescue Services. This enables evidence to be pooled across Fire and Rescue Services, and it also enables individual approaches to be directly compared to identify Best Practice. The more closely this approach can be followed, the greater the quality of data that can be generated across the country.”

Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004

The requirement for the collection of person identifiable data at a local Fire and Rescue Service level is justified and covered under the statutory duty to prevent fires. The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 places a duty on Fire and Rescue Services to protect life and property from fire. Part 6 Sections 45 to 48 of the Act empowers a Fire and Rescue Service to obtain information and investigate fires and provides powers to investigate what caused a fire or why it progressed as it did.

The demographic data the NFCC is recommending that all Fire and Rescue Services collect can be proven as causal factors in higher fire risk based on fire investigation data and fatality reports. Each local Fire and Rescue Services home fire safety visit requires consent to collect this data. The intended aggregation by the NFCC will only require anonymised data to support national research and development.

*The NFCC is keen to receive feedback from Fire and Rescue Services on the Standard Data Requirement which will help inform further future developments to the Framework and the data requirement. The document and feedback form is accessible at the following link: Standard Data Requirement for the Person Centred Framework | NFCC CPO (ukfrs.com)