Targeting home fire safety checks

1. Targeting home fire safety checks Andy Mobbs - London Fire Brigade Risk Information Team February 2008

2. Reducing accidental fires in the home • Modernisation of the fire service put clear focus on prevention as well as response • Strategy for HFSVs started in 2003 • Yearly target of approx 65,000 visits • With 3.5 million homes in London and around 6,500 fires in the home, visits must be effectively targeted to reduce risks • 3.25 percent of homes visited to date

3. Problems with targeting – where • Incident locations vary year-to-year • Accidental dwelling fires for Southwark 2005, 2006 & 2007

4. Problems with targeting – who • CLG ‘at risk groups’ defined from those fires that cause greatest harm • Broad descriptions cannot easily be translated into ‘real people’ • Older people • Children and young people • Ethnic minorities or faith groups • People with learning or physical disabilities • People with alcohol or drug use problems • People with mental illness • People in poor housing

5. Solution • Develop a risk model that combines our incident data with what we know about people, their society and their environment in such a way that we can predict the ‘real’ level of risk (incident likelihood) • Use consumer profiling to describe (and locate) ‘at risk groups’ by lifestyle • ….which we call iRAT

6. What is iRAT? • An Incident Risk Analysis Toolkit • A statistical approach to analysing the occurrence of incidents • A way of combining data about incidents, people, society and geography • Prioritising households by lifestyles • A systematic way to deliver prevention activities in the areas of highest likelihood to those who experience incidents most often

13. Prioritising households using Mosaic

14. What is Mosaic? • A commercially available consumer profiling database • “Its comprehensive analysis of citizens at postcode and household level provides deep insight into the socio-demographics, lifestyles, culture and behaviour of UK citizens” • Detailed lifestyle profiles together with preferences for marketing communications • “Additionally, it provides a ‘common currency’ that enables the same citizen to be viewed in the same way by all public bodies, supporting joined-up government and partnership working”

15. Comparing Mosaic groups with accidental fires in the home • Previous targeting has focused on what we have learnt about fire death and injury • But this targets the consequence of fire and not necessarily those who are most at risk of a fire occurring • Less is known about those who experience fire but are not harmed by it • Approximation using consumer profiling • More complete profile of people that does not focus on one single factor • Age or ethnicity or deprivation

16. Analysing accidental dwelling fires using Mosaic

17. Analysing accidental dwelling fires using Mosaic Under representation Over representation

18. Group F -“People who are struggling to achieve rewards and are mostly reliant on the council for accommodation and benefits” Key Features - Families, many young children; Low incomes; Heavy watchers of TV Receptive to - TV; Telemarketing; Leaflets, Posters; Red top newspapers Comparing Mosaic groups Group E - “Young, single and mostly well-educated, these people are cosmopolitan in tastes and liberal in attitudes” Key Features - Young singles, few children; Full time students/Professionals; Open-minded Receptive to - Internet; Leaflets, Posters; Telephone advice lines; Magazines, Broadsheets

20. Taking the work forward • Accessibility of mapped data • Priority postcode data • Mistrust of statistics • Confusion between ‘at risk’, ‘prevalence vs. proportions’ and ‘risk reduction’ • Need to refine Mosaic by using type analysis • Applying Mosaic to other incident types

21. Questions?

22. Contact details London Fire Brigade Risk Information Team Andy Mobbs 020 8555 1200 andrew.mobbs@london-fire.gov.uk Paul Eady 020 8555 1200 paul.eady@london-fire.gov.uk Riana Smit 020 8555 1200 riana.smit@london-fire.gov.uk