Fire Statistics Review

A report on statistics users responses to a consultation on the presentation of fire statistics following transition to a single service.


7. Conclusions

Scottish Government publishes two statistical bulletins[6]:

  • Fire and Rescue Service Statistics, Scotland
  • Fire Statistics, Scotland

Much of the extra data requests were based around specific topics of interest. It is not possible to provide tables in the annual publications that will fulfil all users' specialist requirements, even when the data exists within the collection, however, what we will explore is how we can release data in such a way that users can extract what they need themselves.

Below is the summary of our intentions for changes, made in the light of the consultation responses, for both publications.

Both Statistical Publications
We will rationalise the bulletins, and acknowledge the value of including some data in the printed or on-screen report. We will include tables to an appropriate level for viewing.
We will publish data at Scotland and local authority level
We will continue to provide datazone level data for Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics.
We will supply the long term trend data at Scotland level and explore providing it at local authority level with some conversion method to allow comparisons of sub-national data.
We will publish Fire and Rescue Service Statistics, Scotland in October 2014 and Fire Statistics, Scotland in November 2014
We will explore ways of making published data easier to find.
Fire Statistics, Scotland - Incident data
We will monitor the outcomes of the IRS review and consider whether to include extra tables on the basis of that.
We will publish datasets including the cause, source of ignition, fire spread and impairment in tables similar to those provided in the 2012-13 Fire Statistics, Scotland publication.
Rather than publishing annual national tables to respond to all data requirements, specific, ad hoc data requests will be considered by Scottish Government. We can provide datasets on request to researchers
We will explore ways of providing more of the raw data for analysis
We will monitor the IRS review and their decisions about the severity of fire index.
Further investigation into the utility value of providing tables of fires broken down by public/FRS action is required before including them in the national publication.
Scottish Government will produce annual data publications as soon as possible after the data is collected and key statistics will continue to be provided with a long term trend and as a rate.
Fire and Rescue Service Statistics, Scotland - FRS data
Scottish Government will continue to work with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and other stakeholders to transfer responsibility for Fire and Rescue Service Statistics, Scotland to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Concerns over quality and continuity will be noted and we will work together to mitigate the risks as far as possible.
For the current publication, we will continue to provide the non-domestic fire safety fields as they were in the previous publication. However, we note the comments and will take what quality assurance actions we can to improve the data.
When the Fire and Rescue Service Statistics are handed over to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, the data steering group should take into account both the continuity of existing data and alignment with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service systems.

Table 14 : Decisions from the Discussion Section

Contact

Email: Kirsty Bosley

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