12th Meeting
of the
Fire & Rescue Statistics User Group
held on
Tuesday 24th August 2004 at 10:30 am
in
Eland House

Present:

Mr. G. Evans	Chair, FBU
Mr. T. Wilmot	World Fire Statistics Centre
Mr. A. Paish	World Fire Statistics Centre
Mr. D. Champion	Fire Statistics and Research Division, FRSD, ODPM
Mr. S. Emery	English Heritage
Mr. N. Bason	Association of British Insurers
Prof. A. Everton	University of Central Lancashire
Mr. M. Rowan	LFEPA
Ms. S. Pantry	Fire Information Group
Mr. G. Gower-Kerslake	Buildings Division
Ms. C. Reynolds	FSRD, FRSD, ODPM
Mr. A. McCormack	Secretary, FSRD, FRSD, ODPM
Mr. J. Heatherill	Scottish Inspectorate
Miss C. Reynolds	FRSD, ODPM
Dr. C. MaGill	FRSD, ODPM
Mr. S. Kidd	Fire Industry Confederation

1 Chair's Introduction

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, including Jim Heatherill, the new member for the Scottish Executive.

2 Apologies

Mr M. Eady,	HMFSI, ODPM
Dr D Rae	Fire Service College
Mr. I. Evans	NCFSC, ODPM,
Mr. I. Jerome	FPA
Mr. D. Pearson	FBU
Mr N. Bason	ABI

3 Minutes of Previous Meeting

3.1 There were a few minor corrections of the minutes.

4 Matters Arising from the Minutes.

4.1 Cath Reynolds updated the group on the Cost of Fire Sub-Group. Sophie Cruikshank was leaving ODPM, and a replacement economist - Tom Aldred - had been recruited, but had not started work for the group. The Cost of Fire Group would possibly be revived then.

4.2 The Chair asked about the collection of Heritage information in the new FDR1form. David Champion confirmed that a flag for an incident at a building with listed status was planned to be included in the new form.

4.2.1 Steve Emery went on to outline the progress so far in geo-coding data on buildings with heritage value for distribution to brigades. A pilot study of first Hereford and Worcester and later Wiltshire was going quite well, but with some issues with the compatibility of the geocoding.

4.3 It was agreed that the group should seek to publicise itself at the Fire Service College Research Event, and a separate team would discuss this at the end of the meeting (see next section).

5. Fire and Rescue Statistics User Group Research Seminar

5.1 The group was offered the chance to put on a seminar the afternoon before the research event proper, between a planned Buildings Disaster Assessment Group open meeting (since postponed until December) and an evening function. This was accepted.

5.2 The speakers and secretary agreed to discuss this separately after the meeting. For information, the following timetable was agreed upon.

1400	Glyn Evans	An Introduction to the Group
1430	Sheila Pantry	Fire Information On-Line
1500	David Champion	The review of the FDR1 Form.
Break for tea
1600	Tony Paish/Tom Wilmot	Worldwide Cost of Fore Comparison
1630	Steve Emery	Loss of Heritage due to Fire

6. Fire and Rescue Statistics Website Demonstration

6.1 Sheila Pantry demonstrated the proposed FRSUG website. This included a diary of events, a page for the group constitution, a membership page, group publications, minutes and agendas.

6.2 The response was very favourable. Small changes were suggested to the layout and proposed content. These included:

• listing the group terms of reference and position among the other fire bodies rather than a constitution,
• the diary of events should focus on fire and statistics conferences, and avoid commercial events such as company training and seminars. It should also contain a disclaimer,
• the membership should not contain e-mail addresses, except that of the group secretary (ideally this will be a dedicated address for group correspondence),
• the group would continue to produce minutes in the accepted style, but would also produce a shorter report which would not attribute anything to the speakers unless they requested it.

6.3 It was agreed the secretary would take responsibility for ensuring updates were carried out once the website was up and running.

6.3.1 David Champion agreed to take forward a submission on the website, having got informal agreement to host the site already. It was intended this submission would contain a press release, but this has subsequently been shown to delay the project. It was agreed with the secretary to continue with the submission for setting up the site, and to produce a new submission including the press release at launch.

6.4 Several links were suggested, including the ODPM Fire pages, the COST C17 website, to FIG itself, and a link to the FPA website.

7 Update on COST C17

7.1 Stewart Kidd and Steve Emery gave a short update on COST C17. The aims include getting a common European measure in place for building culture loss. With this in mind, a Finnish researcher had been engaged to find out as much about other European countries fire statistics collection. Steve requested that a visit to FRSD should be arranged. This was done in the autumn.

7.2 Stewart Kidd agreed to pass on COST C17 data to be distributed to the group.

ACTION Secretary to forward SK's papers to the group.

8 An investigation on Fire Extinguisher Use

8.1 Using FDR1 data, a short report on the increased use of fire safety equipment such as fire extinguishers was put before the group. It was agreed to look any increase with time in this work, and to try and relate it to fire extinguisher use data provided by Stewart Kidd previously.

ACTION Secretary to complete report for next meeting.

9 Review of the FDR1 Form (David Champion)

9.1 David Champion reported on progress with the review of the FDR1 form. An IT scoping study contract had been awarded, and was due to report at the end of September.

9.2 The favoured option at present was for a hybrid scheme, where data could be submitted on or off-line, or by other means such as telephone.

9.3 If this option was approved, another contract to examine the options and suggest the best way forward would be placed, with the consultant due to report in mid-2005.

9.4 FaRSUG had a representative on the data definition group which included all the main stakeholders on the contents of the form. It is planned to include all fire service incidents (with varying amounts of information held for each type).

10 Any Other Business

10.1 The Statistics Commission had asked for a summary of user group priorities relating to Govt. statistics for a document they were preparing. The Chair asked for any suggestions to be submitted (Thank you to those who did).

10.2 Tony Paish asked about the adjustment to the previous fire statistics regarding the removal from the Fire Statistics of the casualties and fatalities from the Paddington Train Crash. David Champion agreed to investigate the matter.

The meeting was closed.

11 Date of Next Meeting

11.1 The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 30th November at 10:30 am in Portland House, Tower Bridge Meeting Room.