1. greenstreet berman Home Fire Risk Checks: how do we know they have made a difference? 13 th May 2009 Fire & Rescue 2009 21st Century Fire and Resilience Michael Wright, Nina Williams, Rachel Evans and Alex Rogers

2. greenstreet berman Evaluation questions Process evaluation –Did the grant generate expected activity level? –Were the HFRCs targeted? Impact evaluation Cost benefit Seeding future activity

3. greenstreet berman Home Fire Risk Check Capital fund £25m over 2004-08 1,967,924 HFRCs completed 2,407,651 alarms installed Equivalent to about 1 in 10 households receiving alarm FRS reported funds definitely enabled additional HFRC work to be delivered

4. greenstreet berman Rate of alarms installed vs fire risk

5. greenstreet berman Factors influencing rate of HFRCs Funding level Deployment of FRS staff Spend on specialist equipment: –Deaf alarms, electric blankets etc –Domestic sprinklers Partnerships

6. greenstreet berman Roles of partners Partners were: Essential in breaking down barriers with some groups of the community such as minority groups. “…barriers could not be broken down without the aid of partners.” 84% said partners key in generating referrals, esp for more vulnerable people; “…key enabler for HFRC.” 51% FRS also said partners helped deliver HFRCs.

7. greenstreet berman Partner activity levels

8. greenstreet berman Top 5 partners cited by FRSs

9. greenstreet berman Targeting by type of person Mixed quality of data on who targeted Targets were: –Deprived –BME groups, those with language barriers; –Disabled - specifically mobility, sensory loss (particularly sight or hearing) and mental health problems; –Heavy drinkers, smokers and drugs; –Lone adults and single parents; –Rented accommodation; –Over 80s, over 60s –Parents of those under five

10. greenstreet berman Trend towards targeting HFRCs 75% of interviewed FRSs reported having changed the way they target their HFRC activity; More targeting by area & by type of person; 20% reporting that they make more use of referrals to target their work.

11. greenstreet berman Pre-HFRC trend Deaths, casualties and fires falling prior to HFRC initiative

12. greenstreet berman Method Was the decline in dwelling fires, deaths and casualties greater in those FRSs that carried out a higher rate of HFRCs? Before period Q3 2000 to Q3 2002 “After period” of Q3 2005 to Q3 2007

13. greenstreet berman Correlation (fires & alarms) = -0.72

14. greenstreet berman Correlation (casualties & alarms) = -0.56

15. greenstreet berman Correlation (accidental fatalities & alarms) = -0.35

16. greenstreet berman Contribution to PSA 3 By 2006 the number of dwelling accidental fire deaths was 37% below the PSA baseline HFRC accounted for 57 % of the fall in accidental fire deaths between baseline and “after” period HFRC grant would have achieved the PSA target independent of other trends

17. greenstreet berman Cost benefit analysis Alarm cost versus value of lives saved 53 lives saved at £1.35m = £71.2m per year For 5 year alarm life = £351m For 10 year alarm life = £683 Initial outlay was £25m capital cost and £62.5m revenue cost

18. greenstreet berman The future Did the HFRC enable and seed future HFRC work?

19. greenstreet berman Targets to reduce dwelling fires, deaths and injuries

20. greenstreet berman FRSs with targets for HFRCs

21. greenstreet berman Funding of CFS As of 2008… 93% of FRSs reported using or planning to use their own budgets to fund HFRCs –56% seeking funds from LAAs –23% from third sector 25% said that CFS already funded by mainstream budgets 25% FRSs reported some work will stop once the grant ran out. Difficult to ring fence money even though CFS is a statutory duty

22. greenstreet berman Staffing of CFS

23. greenstreet berman “[We are]…tremendously optimistic about the future. If we put our minds to it and make it a priority, we can do it.”

24. greenstreet berman Conclusions Clear impact of alarm installation HFRC contributed to meeting PSA3 targets Partnership working was essential FRSs now engage in more targeting FRSs plan to continue with CFS

25. greenstreet berman Our recommendations Mainstream HFRCs into core FRS activity If 20% of people lacked an alarm, there is at least another 2.5 million homes to visit! Build on partnerships Balance of area and person based targeting Do local evaluation

26. greenstreet berman Finally Any questions/comments Nina Williams –nina.williams@greenstreet.co.uknina.williams@greenstreet.co.uk –020 7874 1572 Michael Wright –michael.wright@greenstreet.co.ukmichael.wright@greenstreet.co.uk –020 7874 1578

27. greenstreet berman Evaluation reports Interim evaluation of HFRC initiative http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/homefire riskcheckhttp://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/homefire riskcheck Final evaluation of HFRC initiative http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/homefire riskcheckgranthttp://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/homefire riskcheckgrant