IRMP 5 - Public Questionnaire

Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire. It should take no more than 15 minutes to complete, and you don’t need to have any specialist knowledge of the fire and rescue service – it’s your perceptions we’re interested in! We consult on our Integrated Risk Management Plan each year. We have put together a list of simple questions which highlight the key proposals in our plan. The questions relate to the plan, to make it easy for you to find more information if you need it.

Quality of Service Offered

Before we ask you questions on this year’s plan, we want to know what you think about the fire and rescue service in Kent and Medway. We would also like to know what’s important to you about the way we deliver services to the public, and where we should be making improvements.

1. For each of the statements below, please indicate how much you agree or disagree that it is applicable to KFRS

KFRS is doing a good job

KFRS is efficient and well run

KFRS responds quickly when needed

KFRS keeps residents informed about what it is doing

KFRS staff are friendly and polite

KFRS is easy to deal with

KFRS is in touch with what local people want

2. For each service we deliver, please rate how important you think it is on a scale where 1 is not at all important and 7 is extremely important

Dealing with emergencies such as fires in homes

Rescuing people from road traffic collisions

Giving fire safety information to high-risk groups such as the elderly or disabled

Fitting sprinkler systems into people's homes where we think they will save life and reduce risk

Running fire safety campaigns

Running road safety campaigns

Telling people how to keep themselves safe in the event of large floods

Dealing sensitively with someone with a disability affecting communication or movement who is in an accident/emergency

Taking enforcement action against businesses that haven't completed an adequate fire-risk assessment

Reducing the number of hoax calls we respond to

3. Now, for each item below please say if you think we need to improve this service, on a scale where 1 is not at all and 7 is a lot

Dealing with emergencies such as fires in homes

Rescuing people from road traffic collisions

Giving fire safety information to high-risk groups such as the elderly or disabled

Fitting sprinkler systems into people's homes where we think they will save life and reduce risk

Running fire safety campagins

Running road safety campaigns

Telling people how to keep themselves safe in the event of large floods

Dealing sensitively with someone with a disabililty affecting communication or movement who is in an accident/emergency

Taking enforcement action against business that haven't completed an adequate fire-risk assessment

Reducing the number of hoax calls we respond to

4. Any further comments on this section

The Future - what are we planning to do

From page 8 of the Integrated Risk Mangement Plan you saw our plans for the future, and we would like your views. Firstly we would like to know what you think about some of the challenges that face Kent and Medway. We have also left some space for you to provide any further comments you may have.

5. For each of the statements below, please indicate how aware you were of each of the following predictions before you read the document

Housing in Kent and Medway is predicted to increase by more than 100,000 new homes by 2021

The population of Kent and Medway is predicted to rise by 120,000 by 2021

The population of Kent and Medway aged over 65 is predicted to rise to 330,000 by 2021

Local authorities, including fire and rescue authorities are required to make efficiency savings annually

6. Do you think your home may be more at risk from environmental changes, such as more frequent flooding?

One thing we would like to encourage house builders to do is protect new estates not only from fire, but also from flood risk. This can be done by collecting rainwater run off underground for recycling. An additional advantage is that it could reduce water bills.

7. If you were buying a new home, how interested would you be in a scheme like this?

8. If you would like to tell us why you think this, please do so below

9. Any other comments on this section

Fire Stations for the Future

Fire stations in Kent and Medway are broadly in the right places. However, some are quite old and we want to redefine what a fire station should look like for the public and our staff. Some of our needs will be obvious – we need to store equipment, and have good shower facilities, for example. But there are options around other facilities. Below is a list of things that we could make available in new fire stations.

10. Please indicate whether you agree or disagree that these facilities should be avaliable at new fire stations in the future

Space for staff to sleep when on a night shift or off duty

Rooms that local people could use

Shared use with other services, such as the police or ambulance

Information for the public about what to do in an emergency

11. Any other comments on this section

Folkestone's third fire engine

Folkestone is a very similar town to others in Kent, such as Dover, which have two fire engines. We know that removing the third fire engine will have no impact on risk – but we will understand if you have concerns about this action.

12. Removing the third fire engine from Folkestone would make me feel

We already do a lot of work in Folkestone and the surrounding area to ensure that it is a safe place to live and work. For example, we provide safety information to residents and businesses, and conduct media campaigns on the importance of safe driving and having a working smoke alarm. If there is anything else you think we should be doing please let us know in the space below.

13. Any other comments on this section

Height Vehicles

We think we can reduce the number of height vehicles we have without increasing risks. These vehicles are mainly used as water towers in fire-fighting. They rarely rescue people from buildings; we have not used them like that in the last three years.

Our research shows that if we went to 5 height vehicles, the best locations would be Medway, Canterbury, Thanet, Ashford and Tunbridge Wells. This would improve coverage of the county through better travel times and enable a benchmark standard of 30 minutes for attendance at an incident to be introduced.

14. Moving from seven to five centrally located height vehicles makes me feel

15. Please indicate whether you agree or disagree that the benchmark standard for getting a height vehicle to an incident should be set at 30 minutes

A height vehicle should aim to arrive at an incident anywhere in the county within 30 minutes

KFRS should report to the public on whether it has achieved the standard annually

16. Any other comments on this section

Managerial cover for emergency incidents

When we attend an emergency incident, the number of officers sent to manage the event depends on its scale. Because there are now fewer emergency calls, we want to reduce the number of staff. This means that we can employ more specialist staff such as fire engineers, and still ensure that incident management is as good as it can be. We are confident that this will not impact on service delivery to the public.

17. Please let us know how much you agree or disagree with the following statements

KFRS should make sure that specialist staff are avalaible when they are needed

KFRS can reduce the number of managerial staff avaliable on call without impacting on public saftey

KFRS should employ some specialist non-uniformed staff to help manage chemical incidents

More use could be made of specialist non-uniformed staff for fire safety work with businesses

18. Any other comments on this section

Financial Options

We have given you the options for how we want to change the service we provide over the next 3 years. Each of these projects will have an impact on our budget, and this in turn, has an impact on you, as a council tax-payer. To help us set our budget for the coming year, we would like your views on where we should set the council tax level. After allowing for some increase in the amount provided for pay and prices, we are expecting the government to reduce the funding we get from them by up to 3% a year for the next three years. This means that we need to look carefully at how we set our element of the Council Tax bill (about 5% of the total bill) to allow us to make investments in important areas.

We have presented four options below, and ask you at the end of this section to select your favoured option. To help you do this, we have also put some information on what the impact would be on the services we deliver. All figures quoted are based on a Band D home.

Option 1: increase council tax by below 2.5%.
To achieve an increase in council tax of less than 2.5% would require cuts to be made to the service, as well as requiring us to take all the proposals offering savings at the earliest possible opportunity. It is also likely it would impact on other services we deliver which we are not consulting on this year, such as fitting smoke alarms in the homes of people at a high risk from fire. Setting an increase such as this would cost less than £1.53 a year per household, or 3p a week.

Option 2: increase council tax by between 2.5 and 3.5%
We could use all the savings from the proposals in this plan to keep the council tax below 3.5%. However, this will give us little scope to develop or improve our services. It would mean though, that no services would need to be cut back from current levels. Setting an increase such as this would cost between £1.53 and £2.16 a year per household, or 3p to 4p a week.

Option 3: increase council tax by between 3.5 and 4%.
This option has the benefit of allowing us to phase in the changes outlined in the plan over a longer period, and is likely to be most beneficial to our staff. However, it would still require some level of savings to be made to reinvest in the areas we want. Setting an increase such as this would cost between £2.16 and £3.06 a year per household, or 4p to 5p a week.

Option 4: increase council tax by more than 4%
This option allows us to plan for the savings that the proposals in the plan will produce, and complement them with the funding to invest in developing areas of the service which need it. However, it is the most expensive option for the tax-payer. Setting an increase such as this would cost more than £3.06 a year per household, or 6p a week.

19. Please indicate which of the 4 options you would prefer

20. Any other comments on this section

Website

We constantly try to improve and develop our web site www.kent.fire-uk.org to make it more informative and user friendly. We are interested to know what you think of the website, and if there is any extra information you would like to see on it.

21. How often do you visit the Service's website?

22. How would you compare it to other websites?

23. How easy was it to find the information that you needed?

24. Any other comments on this section

Personal Details

The following information helps us when we are analysing your answers and making decisions about how to improve the service we provide. All responses will be treated as confidential. Sometimes we use quotes from the text you give us in reports to the Authority, but will never attribute these comments to any individual

25. Your gender

26. Your age group

27. Your ethnic group

Please state any other ethnic group

28. Do you consider yourself to have a disability

29. Do you or any member of your family work for Kent Fire and Rescue Service

Future Surveys

We may need to do further surveys at a later date. If you would like to take part, please complete the following information. If you do not want to take part, please leave this section blank.