Improved interaction with communities through social media and other methods has been highlighted as a key area to improve by fire authority chiefs.

Cleveland Fire Authority bosses also noted they continue to aim for faster response times to calls, despite already having the fastest in the country for emergency incidents.

It came as Cleveland Fire Executive Committee looked at the progress made during the year as part of its integrated risk management plan.

Ian Hayton, chief fire officer at Cleveland Fire Brigade, noted the authority is performing well against their targets overall, although highlighted community engagement as an area to improve.

He said: “We had at the start of the year a very, very comprehensive plan to deliver.

“I think if I was to put a percentage on it we are in the high 90s of completion, we’ve completed everything we intended to complete and I think that’s testament to the people that we’ve got working for us.

“Certainly one of the areas that we recognise that we need to build upon is the engagement with our communities.

“We have an overarching framework in relation to engagement and there are three strands to our engagement strategy that are being developed. We have a community engagement, a staff engagement and a partner engagement strategy.”

He added despite the existing high performance of Cleveland Fire Brigade, they also continue to explore measures to reduce overall response times.

He said: “We know we have the fastest response time in the country in relation to our response to emergency incidents.

“Quite clearly we value that every second counts and therefore we’re looking at different components to ensure we get an even faster attendance right the way through that cycle.

“That really is going to be continuous work, it isn’t a one off project, we’re continually trying to do that.”

Coun Luke Frost, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council representative on the committee, highlighted improving social media activity, both during ongoing incidents and in other instances, to increase community engagement.

He said: “We can do a lot more around social media. We’ve used the word a couple of times today about being savvy, and I think that’s something we could improve.”

Mr Hayton said they were working with fire control officers and the communications team to come up with ‘unique’ ideas to inform residents of messages from the fire authority.