Our Chelmsford Department hosts the Centre for Fire Service Research and Professional Development (CFRPD) which has developed a number of relationships with several brigades:

• Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS)
• Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS)
• Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (MFRS)
• London Fire Brigade (LFB)
• Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS)
• Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service
• Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service

These relationships have led to a number of partnership opportunities, including the development and delivery of tailored programmes of management development.

These programmes have led to the introduction of a number of academic, award bearing programmes, which include for example the Certificate in Management, Postgraduate Certificate in Public Service Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Public Service Management, Diploma in Management Studies, Masters degree (MA) Management, Doctoral Programmes.

These programmes jointly developed with ECFRS and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service meet the management development requirements of not only the Fire Service's Integrated Personal Development System (IPDS) but also the requirements of strategic leaders within the Fire and Rescue Service. The success of these programmes is demonstrated by the continued popularity of the programmes which has resulted in excess of 60 staff undertaking award bearing programmes from Essex and a further 50 staff from across the Northwest region having completed award bearing programmes.

The CFRPD programmes have recently been the subject of a pilot programme across the Fire and Rescue Services of the combined Northwest Region. This pilot has been very well received and is expect to become part of the mainstream management and leadership development of staff within the region.

In addition to the formal award bearing programmes offered by LAIBS, the CFRPD has, in conjunction with its brigade partners, developed a number of interactive workshops and seminars targeted towards the Integrated Personal Development System's (IPDS) requirements of junior and middle management within the FRS. These events have covered diverse topic areas, such as Marketing and Communications in the Public Sector; Quality Management in a Service Industry and Managing Industrial Relations.