Managing Resources in a Child Fire Safety Awareness Project - Case Study Example

Name : xxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxx Title : Managing Resources Institution : xxxxxxx @2010 Title Managing resources in a Child fire safety awareness project Objective To meet the objectives outlined in the latest national Risk Management plan while educating primary school children on fire safety. Introduction: Bournemouth in the county of Dorset is a coastal city of England with a population of approximately 400,000. Bournemouth is located approximately 170 km southwest of London. Bournemouth road network focuses on a few main roads in and out of the town centre. Bournemouth is well served by rail network with two rail stations in the town. As part of the latest national risk management plan the councilor of Dorset has approached the fire and rescue services unit to carry out a safety awareness programme among young primary school age children of Bournemouth. This project is meant to engage two community safety practitioners employed by the fire and rescue service unit who will be directly involved in the awareness campaign. The awareness campaigns will be conducted at the various institutes of learning and public social centers to ensure that the information is received effectively. A variety of tools will be used to aid in the presentation of the information to the school age children and the community in general. This project will receive funding from the county fund and the procurement and resource management processes will follow the stipulated procedures laid down for the same in relation to recruitment, resource management, procurement and operational assurance. Key tasks of the Fire Rescue Services unit. The Fire Rescue Services (FRS) unit is charged with the following: (i) Enforce fire safety in the Bournemouth area which includes making the arrangements to provide information in order to prevent injury or death. (Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004). (ii) Giving advice about prevention of fires restricting their spread and elaborate on the ways of escape from buildings and property in the event of a fire. (iii) Extinguishing fires in the areas of operation (Bournemouth) (iv) Protection life or property during a fire occurence. (v) Making provision to deal with calls for help and for summoning personnel. (vi) Rescuing people in road traffic accidents (vii) Prevention of damage to property while fire fighting operations take place (viii) Putting in place emergency plans (ix) Putting in place arrangements to make information available to the public about civil protection process. The general services offered by the Fire Rescue service unit will therefore include emergency planning, fire fighting, prevention and education, communication and mobilization, rescue, statutory inspections and certification among others. Staff Recruitment The following are the objectives of the staff selection procedure to be carried out by FRS in the recruitment of the two community safety practitioners a) To ensure transparent competition for the post of the community safety practitioners. b) To ensure that the selection of the community safety practitioners is based on relevant competence and expertise at it’s broadest. c) To establish clear roles and responsibilities for this position of community safety practitioner. d) To ensure a smooth selection process devoid of any interruptions to filling these positions. e) To explain and elaborate the various phases of the recruitment process. The staff selection process at FRS will conduct it according to the procedures by the human resources department. The community safety practitioners will be a full time job offered on a fixed contract basis. The recruitment exercise is being carried on due to the latest statutory requirements based on the national risk management plan that has come into effect. There are a number of steps that will be followed in the community safety practitioner recruitment process. Most of these processes will be carried on in conjunction with the human resources section of the FRS. Based on the job description the human resources section will prepare a vacancy notice (Recruitment plan 2010).This notice will detail the description of duties and responsibilities to be undertaken. There will also be background information concerning the community safety practitioner position. Other information included in the notice will be experience requirements, skills, and security clearance requirements and start date. The human resources section will also place an advertisement having a closing date for the application. This advertisement will be published. Recruitment processes can either be carried out internally within the organization or outsourced to a third party in this case a human resources management consultancy. For this project this process will be carried out internally with funding from the county. The human resources section will then proceed and formulate the application forms. One of the requirements to be attached to this application is a conformation that the candidate fulfills the security clearance required for this position (Levels of CRB check 2010) A selection committee is then constituted consisting of at least three people. Two representatives will come from the county with one coming from the FRS human resource section. The chair shall be taken by one of the two representatives while the secretary will be the representative from the human resources section Dorset County. Interviews Application screening will be done to determine and verify the candidates who meet the eligibility conditions for appointment as listed. The selection process also known as short listing is then carried out. The short listed resulted will be send via email to the eligible candidates. Conditions of employment are communicated at this juncture. Interview dates are set as the invitations are send out to the respective candidates. Preparation of files for the interviews including the evaluation forms is then carried. Conducting the interview Basically the interview will last half an hour or less. The interview pattern will be maintained for all the candidates and these will be administered in the English language. Other testing types for instance computer skills, practical tests may also be introduced non discriminatorily. The selection team will then prepare a selection report indicating the strength and weaknesses of each candidate. The committee chair will obtain a recommendation. At this point a reserve list can also be prepared. All this process is conducted in confidentiality. The selection report by the committee can then be submitted to the chief executive for the final decision making. The human resources section will then notify the successful candidate by a letter of confirmation or email, a list of documents ass testimonials that need to be furnished at the human resources section and forms to be filled (Recruitment procedure 2010; The recruitment process 2010 ). The recruitment and selection process is strictly governed by a number of legislations such as the race relations act 1969, the sex discrimination ac 1986, and employment act 1980 among others. The requirements for this recruitment process in manner of stationery may be directly sourced through the procurement process. According to the regulation on recruitment and selection the successful interviewee receives a seven working days lapse from the time of notification to accept the offer. Unsuccessful candidates are also informed by email. Resources needed for the recruitment process. 1. The following documents are typical for the recruitment process. 2. The personnel record form an the recruitment checklist 3. Job and a person description form 4. Employment application form covering letter and the equal opportunities recruitment monitoring form. 5. Interview skills guidance notes and employee’s reference letter 6. Offer of employment letter and pre- employment health questionnaire Health and Safety This process is incorporated in the procurement process in order to avoid the risk of litigation or unintentional collateral damage. All suppliers involved in this process must therefore satisfy DFRS requirements about health and safety that cover among other things health and hygiene, safe work practices and the evidence of safety and health implementation and compliance. During the interview or prior to the interviews we can make use of computers for compilation of the applications and eventually in the processing of the results of the whole process generating reports using report generation tools for onward submission to the seniors. The process of equipment and goods acquisition by FRS is governed by a centralized national procurement policy. Therefore while seeking for any extra funding besides that allocated for this process, FRS will need to formally apply for this funding from the government. However considering that a budget has already been prepared by the FRS inclusive of training and employment , funds for this process will be drawn directly from this allocation to run the recruitment and selection process here. Based on the fact that FRS is under the Dorset County Council which is among the nine regional centers of excellence as considered by the government it is indicative that Bournemouth based on collaborative funding and procurement already have a share of about £ 250,000 to run this project. However any extra funding needed must be requested procedurally through the county to the government based on the local annual budget. Evaluating the project The purpose of this project is to conduct a community safety awareness campaign which targets primary school age children. This process will be run by the FRS in conjunction with two community safety practitioners. The approach must be consistent with the FRS approach in regards to the safety education for children on fire matters. A common approach includes games and stories with strong fire safety themes. An evaluation by the community safety practitioners will be made to ensure the best and most effective approach is adopted. The following are the main aims this project: 1) To encompass all primary school age children in Bournemouth with fire safety awareness within 8 weeks 2) To inspect all the primary schools in Bournemouth for basic fire safety procedures and compliance during this period 3) To enumerate and assess the potential risks within the primary schools in Bournemouth 4) To establish and sustain an on going safety awareness campaign for primary school age children. The single most important practice during this project is the compilation of all data during the process. A highly structured information gathering policy is necessary to govern this process. Where appropriate questionnaires will be employed in order to gather the most appropriate information. An extensive report concerning the success of the whole project must be compiled by the practitioners within 4 weeks after the completion of the project. This report must indicate among other things the number of children and schools covered against the total number of children and schools in Bournemouth. The total cost of the project including the resources used for the exercise which is necessary for future budget considerations when similar undertakings are considered. A number of benefits will be got from this project which includes: An improved safety standards awareness involving the primary school age population and the general population. Re-evaluation of the FRS performance depending on the outcome of the project based on the data and information gathered Identification of potential risk areas initially overlooked and establishment of means to address these risks. Identify the opportunities for improvement and consider policies and standards for intervention and prevention. Policies employed The FRS has a number of policies up and running including a contingency policy in the event of the equipment failing to function properly in an emergency. This project will operate under these policies as instituted by the authority prior to this project. The emergency, information and call management policies will be most considered during this project. After the safety awareness campaign is completed data and information gathered during the project will help to streamline a number of areas where there is deficiency. Operational Assurance On a broad basis operational assurance will cover a number of performance areas. These areas must be able to undergo monitoring, reviewing, improving, testing and implementation (Cheshire fire and rescue services 2010). Performance measurement involves understanding what is gotten for the money spend. This is achieved through exercises such as development of performance frameworks and associated indicators (National Audit Office 2010). . The goal of operational assurance is to improve the operational response by the FRS. In general to improve performance factors such as incident command mentoring, performance (operational) evaluation, station performance and district plan reporting must be considered. Fire Rescue Service will consider the performance against a number of factors which are part of the operational assurance process. Based on the Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) the FRS will consider the extent to which the community fire safety and statutory fire activities contribute towards influencing operational fire and rescue services. This project is going to directly contribute towards this end. During this awareness campaign there shall be the collection of pertinent data on the levels of the campaign success which will also depend on the levels of expertise exercised in collecting, analyzing and interpretation of relevant data. Feedback from awareness campaign is likely to determine the FRS operational preparedness as well as incidence response factors that are relevant in operational assurance. Due to the fact that FRS integrates in the national standard incident command system more relevant findings will be established during this child safety awareness project. One other important aspect considered in operational assurance that is likely to be of concern even during this project is the call management and incident support by the FRS. The call management policy together with the actual speed and effectiveness of call and incidence handling will be monitored during this project and eventually benchmarked against notable practices to determine their appropriateness. Conclusion Management of resources human and non human remains a fundamental undertaking for the success of any project being undertaken. Procedure manuals and other reference materials are currently available to benchmark any process involving the management of resources and human resources within a project. For an effective assessment reference must be made using specific disciplines in specific application areas. For this write up reference has been made in relation to the operational assurance procedures especially within the fire and rescue service. Recruitment and procurement procedure which have also been standardized will have their reference based on the national procurement procedures and other recruitment policies and legislation. All these processes must be financially assessed and approved by the financing authorities and the government. Each local authority draws their annual budget that is subject to regulation by the central government. FRS are therefore run under a standardized government procedure in relation to service delivery and financial and human resource management. References Acas - The recruitment process 2010, Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=748 Cheshire fire and rescue services 2010, Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.cheshirefire.gov.uk/ Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/ukpga_20040021_en_3 Levels of CRB check 2010, Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.crb.homeoffice.gov.uk/guidance/applicants_guidance/levels_of_crb_check.aspx National Audit Office 2010 Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.nao.org.uk/help_for_public_services/performance_measurement.aspx Recruitment plan 2010, Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.humanresources.hrvinet.com/recruitment-plan/ Recruitment procedure 2010, Viewed on 11th July 2010 http://www.clickdocs.co.uk/recruitment-procedure.htm Read More