North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service deploys FireWatch to centrally manage and integrate HR contracts, personal records, availability and duty planning, health and safety, occupational health, and training and development – delivering 40% cost savings.
Background
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue has been a long-term user of the FireWatch solution. The decision to invest in FireWatch marked a significant turning point for the Service, signalling a shift toward embracing innovative technology as a key enabler for meeting—and exceeding—business objectives within a modern fire and rescue environment.
Traditionally, Fire and Rescue Services were primarily focused on responding to fires and other emergency incidents. Over time, however, their role has evolved and expanded significantly. Today, it encompasses a broad range of emergency response activities alongside a substantial commitment to community safety and prevention work, including the enforcement of fire safety legislation.
FireWatch has made—and continues to make—important contributions to the efficiency programme at North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and is now an integral part of its day‑to‑day operations. Together, the evolving service remit, changes in working practices, and ongoing economic pressures have driven fundamental changes in how the Fire and Rescue Service operates.
The challenge
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (NYFRS) was seeking a solution that could assist in the efficient management of operational staff and availability planning.
The information the organisation held pertaining to staff was spread across a number of disconnected administrative IT systems, including HR, Training and Development, and other areas, making it difficult to manage in a co-ordinated way.
The Service had previously used multiple administrative ‘resource’ systems to provide a true view on crewing levels and appliance availability. To achieve a dynamic, automated vision of crewing availability, it became apparent that their FRS systems would need to have an in-built ‘understanding’ of the complexities and rules regarding contracts, roles and skills, which would be available within one central place.
The requirements
FireWatch was selected as a suitable solution to meet these complex challenges. There were a number of key factors that helped NYFRS make this decision:
- Its integrated and in-built awareness of posts, contracts, roles and skills due to offering purpose-designed modules for multiple areas – HR, IPDS and others – all of which dynamically accounted in real-time for impacts on crew availability information and future effective dates
- Depth of system functionality and ‘intelligence’ to enable co-ordinated management of staff fulfilling multiple differing roles (both permanent and temporary) and to cope with the potential for varying qualifications that could be utilised and counted in crewing figures, at any given point during a day
- Ability to not only model Stations but also Appliances and Base Crewing Counts at both planned and minimum levels based on qualifications, resource and appliance availability
- Support for dynamic change, colour-coded availability displays and staff numbers based on real-time information. This real-time information is derived from changes to contracts, detachments, sickness, holidays, exceptions, booking on/off, skill assessments at incidents, drills, course attendances and many other scenarios
- Complementary features and data with the capability to be used in conjunction with future mobilisation systems. To function efficiently and effectively, the mobilisation system would need real-time resource and skill data that FireWatch could provide
NYFRS’s intention is to seamlessly integrate FireWatch with a new mobilisation system, potentially delivering further efficiency savings and operational process gains.
The results
NYFRS is now using FireWatch to integrate and manage HR contracts, recording of personal details, availability management/duty planning, health and safety, occupational health, and training and development.
As a result of the successful implementation of these solutions, NYFRS has been able to streamline the management of core operational and administrative functions, improve collaboration across teams and departments, and assist senior and middle managers to strategically plan and manage organisation resources.
Jonathan Foster, Group Manager – Efficiencies, NYFRS, said:
“FireWatch has and continues to make significant contributions to the efficiencies programme within NYFRS and is now an integral part of our day-to-day business. Although the system has been a challenge to implement, we are now reaping the true benefits of a fully integrated system which is continually being improved to serve the individual needs of NYFRS and our partner services across the UK.”
The value
- A significant contribution to NYFRS’s efficiencies programme; by consolidating functional administrative support, a 40% administrative staff saving was achieved
- Reductions of large amounts of spreadsheets and databases across all departments, leading to reduced system maintenance and duplication avoidance. In one department alone, it has resulted in the removal of 15 spreadsheets and 2 databases
- Removal of paper records for Retained Crewing Availability, leading to reduced administration and improved automated reporting systems for management information
- Removal of paper records for Retained Payment Claims, resulting in reduced administrative burden from stations through to the payroll department and more speedy, accurate payments which can be monitored by individual members of staff
- Provision of a one-stop shop for operational crews from declaration of crewing availability, attendance at operational incidents, recording individual activity at incidents for skills maintenance, along with payment claims
- Removal of paper timesheet and holiday records for support staff
- Consolidated one-stop system for managers to gain timely and relevant information for the entire organisation, including support staff and managers
- Integral to the Training and Development Strategy, FireWatch has led to a reduction in risk to staff through effective skills and qualification management and, ultimately, to a more accurate Training Needs Analysis year-on-year
