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Contract award to develop FSEC national training programme for Fire & Rescue Service
18 April 2007- Training4GIS, the training and consultancy division of The GeoInformation Group™, announced today its success in winning a major central government contract to create a bespoke training programme to assist Britain’s Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) to take full advantage of the Fire Service Emergency Cover (FSEC) Toolkit.
In 2003 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, now called Communities and Local Government, asked each FRS to produce an Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP). The plan was to integrate all aspects of service delivery, including fire safety, fire and emergency cover and would aim to lead to improved community safety and productive use of fire service resources. After several years of development, testing and validation to support IRMPs the FSEC Toolkit was rolled out in 2004.
The FSEC Toolkit process consists of three main components: risk assessment, response planning and modelling the consequences of resource deployment. The FSEC Toolkit includes: GIS software, digital map data, census output areas and data, road data, Valuation Office buildings data and three years worth of geo-coded incident data for the FRS area.
Since 2004 the FSEC Toolkit has been utilised, but often not maximised by the majority of UK FRS. In 2006 Communities and Local Government tendered a contract for a training organisation to write and deliver a programme that would provide a new set of training courses for the FSEC Toolkit. The training programme proposed to Communities and Local Government, by Training4GIS, provided a flexible, modular and sustainable approach, including three levels of training:
1. Chief Fire Officer Briefings - to raise awareness of the benefits of the FSEC Toolkit to senior management
2. Team Leaders Workshops – a two day course to inform and educate those who manage the team who provide the results of the FSEC Toolkit analysis
3. Practitioners Modules –four modules to educate users in the methodology, practical use and potential of the FSEC Toolkit
Training4GIS was awarded the contract by Communities and Local Government in September 2006. The team of professional trainers has since created a comprehensive training programme that continues to roll out across Great Britain.
Fiona Cocks, Training4GIS Manager, comments, “This is the second high profile contract Training4GIS has won from Communities and Local Government in under a year and demonstrates the capability and professionalism of our staff. The clear and concise training has been developed to assist in the understanding of the methodologies behind the FSEC Toolkit. The training we provide will help all levels of FRS staff to exploit this powerful analytical tool and produce affective results.”
The FSEC Toolkit Training Programme has been delivered to representatives from the following Fire Authorities:
• Kent Fire & Rescue Service
• London Fire Brigade
• Shropshire Fire & Rescue Service
• Dorset Fire & Rescue Service
• Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service
• Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue Service
• Highlands & Islands Fire & Rescue Service
• Nottingham Fire & Rescue Service
• Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service
• Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service
• Cumbria Fire & Rescue
With high levels of demand for the courses, interested parties should contact the training team on 01223 880077 or visit www.training4gis.com/fsec/ as soon as possible. All of the FSEC GIS Training courses have been approved by the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) and qualify for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. The CPD points can be used towards achieving and maintaining Chartered Geographer (GIS) status.
