Fire Service FOI requests

The fire service is something that we all rely on at some point. They are one of the most vital emergencies services and the work that they do is amazing.  We all love the fire service and if you ever see the work that they do, and how fast they can get a move on, it is truly amazing.  Yet how much do we truly know about them?  Do we keep as much scrutiny as we do the police?  Do we check their movements as much?  No.

AS I have asked all the councils and police in Wales  how many FoI requests that they have answered, I turned my eye towards the Fire service. So I asked them all the same question, which was:

1) How many FoI request did you receive from the time period 01/01/15 to 01/01/16
2) How many of the above FoI requests were answered within the 20-day time frame
3) How many did you refuse to answer

The answer was thus the answer was:

Name	Amount	Time Frame	Refused
South Wales Fire Service	138	133	2 - exempt 2 - widely available
Mid and West Wales Fire Rescue	121	all	None
North Wales Fire and Rescue Service	128	111 (see request for details)	16

This surprised me for the sheer lack of requests that they received.  If you compare this to the councils and the police (I Can't find the links, sorry). Does it mean that we value them less or does it mean that we didn't know we could send them?  I didn't know until I started this.  The thing is what would we ask them?  They do a lot.  It also shows use that they are pretty good at getting back on these things too. (As they got back to nearly all the requests within the time frame).

So what have we learnt?  We need to ask the fire service some more questions...