Northamptonshire fire and rescue service invests in new PPE: over the coming months, firefighters at Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service will start taking delivery of their new PPE kit, providing them with the best protection available today - adv

This is the result of an extremely robust tender and specification process which saw the contract awarded to Lion Apparel Systems as they delivered the right product combined with high levels of service and maintenance within a competitive budget.

I had experienced the TotalCare package at my previous brigade and fully understood the concept of a managed service that accepted liability for performance and maintenance of the products.

The new PPE system makes a significant contribution to the safety of our firefighters and therefore the safety of the community as a whole in Northamptonshire, The primary objective was to equip our firefighters with the best possible protective solution.

The brigade is now in a position to achieve a satisfactory discharge of a Health and Safety Improvement notice for failure to comply with PPE requirements. Our firefighters now benefit from coats and trousers made from Titan and Gore-Tex airlock fabrics, the Cromwell F600 helmet, Seiz gloves, Haix Firehunter boots and Hunter rubber fire boots. It is a solution that offers the most modern standards of protection to our people.

Our core objective in developing the specification was the protection of our fire-fighters and we realised that the timescale allowed to satisfy the demands of the Health & Safety Improvement Notice would make the process extremely challenging and costly. A collaboration with Cambridgeshire Fire Brigade made sense for a number of reasons: the specification for Cambridgeshire applied equally to Northamptonshire with no requirement for variation; It would reduce our resource commitment for both brigades and offered a process that helped suppliers reduce the cost of tendering, making further savings that could be passed on to both brigades.

We worked extremely closely with staff in the progression of the tender and the standard of contribution was exceptionally high, particularly from the FBU, in both Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. All the options were trialled and evaluated by firefighters and, following final presentations, the overwhelming choice was the Lion solution.

Within the context of the Government's white paper and its recommendations on the management of regional procurement, this contract and the whole tender process has been an excellent example of cost saving by a brigade and that cost being passed on by suppliers without compromising the quality or specification of the product and service tendered.

Brigades often incur higher costs than necessary from suppliers by duplication of work that could be shared as best practice. Provided that, as in the case of this contract with Lion, the supplier guarantees that savings will be passed on to the brigade, this becomes true best value and partnership. At Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service we will follow similar principles in other areas of collaborative procurement.

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