CHESHIRE’S new chief fire officer believes the county’s service is in good shape to meet tough new guidelines from the Government.

Mark Cashin, who moves up from deputy to chief fire officer on July 1, told the Cheshire Fire Authority that many of the proposals put forward in a new Home Office framework are already being met by his service.

At a meeting on Wednesday, he explained that the Government is keen to see consistent performance from fire and rescue services across England.

“The Government has got a bit fed up of the sector not doing that itself,” Mr Cashin said.

“They have set aside £1.5 million to set up an independent body to look at national standards and compare apples with apples, from one service to the next.”

As part of the Home Office’s drive for improvement, Cheshire Fire and Rescue will be visited next month in the first cohort of inspections.

Services across the country are also being asked to cost up their ‘basket of goods’ for essential items and increase transparency to allow for greater public scrutiny.

Mr Cashin told the authority that Cheshire is ‘leading the way’ by already meeting many of the guidelines – including its pioneering work in tackling domestic violence.

He added: “There are lots of things we are doing in this document that not everybody does.

“You might read this and think that these things are already done everywhere, but lots of services don’t do them.”