Organisational Learning

A fire and rescue service must:

Foundations (strategy, governance, culture, capability)

1. have a strategic and consistent approach to organisational learning that draws from all areas and levels of the service. This learning informs, and is informed by, its Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP)
2. have a defined governance structure which ensures:
   1. a named and accountable strategic lead responsible for driving and overseeing organisational learning across the service is in place
   2. organisational learning is visible, resourced and aligned with current strategic priorities and future strategic planning
   3. organisational learning is embedded across the service’s culture, policies and practices
   4. the risks presented from organisational learning are acknowledged, managed, and contribute to the continuous improvement of the service
3. adopt the principles within the NFCC Organisational Learning Good Practice Guide, including the 5-step approach to organisational learning
4. build a positive organisational learning culture by:
   1. ensuring that all employees understand their personal accountability and responsibility for organisational learning
   2. ensuring leaders at all levels:
      1. are responsible for modelling, promoting, and protecting a culture that enables organisational learning to thrive
      2. cultivate a safe environment for people to share and receive learning and act on that learning with transparency and fairness
   3. communicating learning consistently, transparently and accessibly to employees and relevant stakeholders
5. maintain clear mechanisms for sharing lessons, decisions, and improvements, and provide regular feedback to demonstrate the outcomes of learning
6. support our employees so that they are confident in identifying learning and feeding it into the appropriate systems and processes

Identification of learning

7. have in place processes that are able to capture learning and identify lessons from a wide range of internal and external sources including positive practice
8. define and apply risk-based triggers to determine when and how learning should be commissioned, understood and captured
9. maintain sufficient flexibility to capture and act on learning that does not meet defined triggers, ensuring valuable insights are not missed
10. store accessible and high-quality information to facilitate effective learning

Analysis and recommendations

11. analyse trends and events to understand risk and identify root causes
12. implement proportionate evidence-based solutions that identify root causes and support informed recommendations for continuous improvement
13. use national guidance and best practice as a framework to identify improvements

Risk management and prioritisation

14. use a risk management process to triage, prioritise, track and evaluate learning outcomes in line with corporate and strategic risks
15. record a rationale and monitor the risk where recommendations are not progressed, reviewing prioritisation as new evidence emerges

Share learning

16. maintain clear mechanisms to escalate and exchange learning to inform internal and external stakeholders, locally, regionally and nationally, of identified learning, associated decisions, and evaluation outcomes
17. communicate locally, regionally, and nationally without judgement to identify sector trends and insights

Change & evaluation

18. ensure change as a result of learning is, when appropriate:
    18. built in the service’s business planning process
    19. embedded into policies, processes and guidance
    20. incorporated into education and training programmes
    21. recorded and communicated
19. evaluate and assure learning proportionately to determine whether intended outcomes have been achieved, and lessons learned are embedded
20. feed evaluation findings back into the organisational learning process to support continuous improvement

A fire and rescue service should:

21. utilise new and emerging technology to support continuous improvement and organisational learning

1. Improved health, safety and wellbeing of communities and employees leading to a reduction in incidents, injuries, and preventable deaths.
2. Improved competency and consistency of practice across the workforce.
3. Improved decision making and evidence-based learning leading to enhanced service effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, and adaptability.
4. Improved organisational preparedness and resilience.
5. Improved collaboration and national working through a standardised and nationally approved approach to organisational learning, supporting sector-wide improvement.
6. Improved sharing of information and good practice.
7. Improved evaluation and assurance across all areas and levels of the service, providing greater confidence in alignment with national guidance and standards, while enabling learning and evidence to inform continuous improvement across the sector, partner agencies and community safety outcomes.
8. Positive, inclusive working culture that earns employee’s trust and confidence and reinforces a culture of learning and continuous improvement.

It is recognised that fire and rescue services must comply with a broad list of legislation to undertake their duties. This Fire Standard reflects only the most appropriate legislation to this topic and should not be regarded as exhaustive. Most legislation relating to this Fire Standard can be found on the webpage outlining legislation applicable to all Fire Standards.

• Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR)

Fire Standards

• Code of Ethics
• Communications and Engagement
• CRMP
• Data Management
• Emergency Preparedness and Resilience
• Internal Governance and Assurance
• Leading and Developing People
• Leading the Service
• Operational Preparedness
• Operational Competence

This list is non-exhaustive, and additional sources of guidance may be available beyond those outlined below.

• Health and Safety Executive
• JESIP Joint Doctrine
• Joint Organisational Learning
• Lessons Management Best Practice Guidance
• NFCC Leadership Framework
• NFCC Maturity Models Facilitated Workshops
• NFCC Maturity Models self-assessment: Learning Organisation
• NFCC Meet the Improvement Team
• NFCC Operational Guidance, in particular:
  • The section Corporate guidance for operational activity, including the corporate actions
• NFCC Operational Guidance Surgeries
• NFCC Organisational Learning – Learning materials
• NFCC Organisational Learning Library
• NFCC Organisational Learning Tool
• NFCC Organisational Learning: Good Practice Guide
• NFCC Prevention Of Future Deaths
• NFCC Research Portal
• NFCC Share knowledge and learning
• NFCC The New Improvement Offer
• NFCC The Operational Response Implementation Guide
• NFCC Training