LANCASHIRE Fire and Rescue Service was the only fire and rescue service to be given an ‘outstanding’ in any category following an inspection

The Service was inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) during the Winter Hill moorland fire in July, in the first full assessment of fire and rescue services in England for several years.

The inspection assessed how effectively and efficiently Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service prevents, protects the public against and responds to fires.

It also assessed how well the service looks after staff.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, which was in the first tranche of fire and rescue services to be inspected, was rated as ‘outstanding’ for promoting its values and culture.

In all other areas, the service was rated as ‘good’ with no areas that ‘require improvement’ in any of the 11 categories that were assessed.

Deputy chief fire officer Justin Johnston said: "We were fairly confident we were a good service and we have really good staff and we deliver well for the public but it’s nice to have an independent agency come in, have a look at us and say they agree.

"They’ve been out and met many of our staff as well as trawled through our data and asked some pretty searching questions.

It’s pleasing to get to this point where you’ve got an endorsement.

"Not only were we outstanding in one particular area, we were also good in every other category.

"Clearly if you go into an inspection process you would expect to have some areas identified where you require improvement and we didn’t have any of those.

"That doesn’t mean we haven’t got things to learn and areas to improve.

"For us the challenge now is to go from good to outstanding in as many areas as we can.

"The inspectors came in when the Winter Hill fire was ongoing so they got to see our staff very engaged with tackling that incident and all the support that was required around it.

"Everyone did a fantastic job in answering the inspectors’ questions and showing them how we work but an operation on the scale and duration of Winter Hill gave them an opportunity to see us at our best.

Chief fire officer, Chris Kenny, added: “The report released today is further evidence that Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is a strongly performing, forward thinking service and I am proud of every member of staff who has helped us get to this position.

"It is no accident that the culture and values of the service were rated as outstanding - this is a reflection of the attributes I see in our staff every day.

“We have had to make some tough decisions in recent years because of the budget constraints, but we made those decisions early.

"This has meant that we are now in a stronger position financially and it has allowed us to innovatively reinvest some of those savings in frontline services. For example, after widespread flooding, we purchased flood suits for every firefighter.

“We have taken a bold approach to collaboration. We work closely with a wide range of partners and this has seen us sharing the first fire and police air support unit, we take part in new operational activities such as gaining entry to properties where there’s a medical emergency and assisting in vulnerable missing person searches.”

“We are now looking to build on our strengths and we are already working on areas that we know we can improve and this is reflected in our annual service plan.”

“I believe that we are one of the best equipped, best trained and most professional fire and rescue services in the country and we are committed to finding new ways of working to improve services for the people of Lancashire.”