North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has ‘made significant progress’ and been rated ‘Good’ in Key Areas by HMICFRS

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has made significant progress and been officially recognised as ‘Good’ at understanding fire and other risks, preventing incidents and effectively responding to fires and emergencies.

The assessment comes from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), which today published its latest inspection report following their inspection of the Service during December 2024 and January 2025.

In total, the Service has been graded ‘Good’ in six out of eleven areas of inspection, with the remaining five graded as ‘Adequate’, a new grade which has been introduced between ‘Requires Improvement’ and ‘Good’. The report highlights significant progress and continued commitment to public safety across York and North Yorkshire.

His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services Michelle Skeer said: “The service has embraced change and made significant progress since our last inspection in 2022.”

HMI Michelle Skeer also commended the Strategic Leadership Team, led by Chief Fire Officer Jonathan Dyson, and all staff across the service for their willingness to change and their continued commitment to improvement.

Chief Fire Officer Jonathan Dyson welcomed the findings, saying: “I am delighted that HMICFRS has recognised the significant efforts made by our Service and I thank Michelle Skeer for her comments. These results are a testament to the hard work, professionalism and dedication of our staff across the Service.

“The improvements, made since our previous inspection in 2022, reflect our ambition to continually improve and the efforts of our teams; particularly as we’ve delivered these results within a very challenging financial environment.

“The investment we received in April this year (from council tax), after the Inspection, will enable us to continue to build on our achievements and drive sustainable progress with investment in support services, estates, equipment, firefighter safety and training.

“We’re already making headway on improvements in the areas where we have received ‘Adequate’ gradings to further ensure we are a high quality and community focused service protecting those most at risk and vulnerable within our communities.”

In our previous inspection report, we were rated ‘inadequate’ in two key areas: Efficiency and People, both of which were accompanied by causes of concern. Since then, we have made these areas a top priority, resulting in a significant improvement of three rating bands. We are proud to be rated as ‘good’ in both.

Among the latest round of inspection reports, we are one of only 11 Services that did not receive a ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ rating in any area, of those currently published.

Previously, we were issued two causes of concern, which included eight recommendations and 24 areas for improvement. In the most recent report, HMICFRS has identified no causes of concern and reduced the number of areas for improvement to seven, which we had already highlighted as areas of focus and work is progressing on this activity.

Overall, we have shown improvement in nine out of eleven assessment questions across the categories of Effectiveness, Efficiency and People and achieved an uplift of 15 rating levels compared to our previous inspection, which is a significant shift for a Service, within one inspection period.