The county's fire and rescue service has received a mostly positive inspection report on the way it responded to the Covid pandemic.

Among the highlights is an acknowledgement that the service adapted and responded to the pandemic effectively and managed to maintain its statutory functions of prevention, protection and response.

The report also stated the fire and rescue service in general and the chief fire officer in particular, played a leading role in co-ordinating the county wide response, both within the county council and across the LRF (Hertfordshire Local Resilience Forum).

The report also noted the service worked constructively with partner organisations to support and protect the community during the first phase of the pandemic.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services carried out an inspection between September 21 and October 2.

An inspection of all 45 fire and rescue services was conducted entirely virtually with virtual fieldwork carried out between September and November last year.

The report to the county's Community Safety and Waste Management Cabinet Panel this month, states the service received a great deal of positive feedback in the letter - stating the inspectorate's work was very much on the period between March and June.

Deputy chief fire officer for Herts Fire & Rescue Service, Chris Bigland, said: "In terms of the Covid work, I would like to share just the absolute pride that we have in the 'can do' attitude of our staff and that firefighters have stepped up and have volunteered across a number of activities.

"In terms of commitment of Hertfordshire firefighters responding to the global pandemic, just this week and last week up to 100 staff working across community protection including other areas of the council, firefighters, trading standards, protection officers, all supporting Operation Eagle, knocking doors in EN10, trying to do the best we possible can to help government understand the situation around the South African variant.

"We've had a number of staff out on ambulance deployment. We've had firefighters helping to set up vaccination centres, all of which has been done with our firefighters absolutely committing to volunteering to doing this work because it's the right thing to do. This is what firefighters are all about."

However, the letter also provides feedback on areas where it felt additional work may be required.

While acknowledging that the service gave some consideraton to the wellbeing needs of staff, it believes that more could have been dones to talk to staff about their needs and identify those at higher risk from Covid so that the right support could be put in place.

The letter said that more could have been done to identify and address the specific needs of staff members from a black, Asian and ethic minority background, adding: 'These members of staff didn't get the tailored support that they may have needed.'

The report stated the service accepts that in respect of supporting BAME staff members, this might have been the case in the early stages of Covid as will be the case in many other organisations across the country.

However, it added, that considerable work has gone on, since this national issue became more widely highlighted, with individual risk assessments in place since May 2020 for all staff members in this group.

Councillors agreed to note the content of the report letter and a national report.

The national report in several instances, replicates, at a national level, the positive achievements which the inspectorate had identified in Hertfordshire with an acknowledgement that fire and rescue services nationally responded very well to the outbreak.

The national report states that all services maintained their ability to respond to fires and other emergencies with many of them also supporting a wide reange of activities, making a positive contribution to the multi-agency response.