THE number of safety audits carried out by fire and rescue services has dropped by 42 per cent in the last seven years due to “long-term underinvestment,” a watchdog report has said.

Fire safety audits look for problems such as blocked fire exits or faulty fire doors.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said it had “significant concerns about protection.”

It rated Avon Fire and Rescue Service in the south-west of England as “inadequate” for protection of the public through regulation, with improvement needed at a further eight of the 14 services inspected – Bedfordshire, Cornwall, Hampshire, Isles of Scilly, Isle of Wight, Lincolnshire, Surrey and Warwickshire.

“Protection teams are not given a sufficiently large share of the service’s resource to do their work,” the report concluded.

In response, Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: “It is a travesty that we no longer have enough staff or resources to carry out essential inspection and fire safety work to ensure that buildings are protected from fire.

“Since 2010, the number of fire safety inspectors has fallen by 28 per cent, so it’s unsurprising that there has been such a drastic reduction in the number of fire safety audits.

“This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cuts – we know firefighters are being asked to do more with less. Ministers must urgently invest in the fire and rescue service, and in particular in fire safety resources, to ensure that the public are kept safe.”

Labour’s shadow fire and emergencies minister Karen Lee said it was the fault of the Conservative government’s policy of austerity over the last eight years.

She called on ministers to provide “long-term sustainable funding” for fire services.

Lamiat Sabin is Morning Star parliamentary reporter.