Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
We can confirm that Essex County Fire & Rescue Service does hold the information you have requested.
Questions and final response:
Question 1 – This is an information request relating to Pride Month 2024. Please include the following information: Whether any events have been organised for Pride month. If so, please provide the date, start and end time, and title/topic of the event?
Essex County Fire & Rescue Service (ECFRS) have not organised any events relating to Pride Month 2024.
ECFRS colleagues did attend various other Pride events within Essex during Pride Month.
Question 2 – Whether any LGBT themed merchandise has been purchased for Pride month. i.e. since the beginning of the 2024/25 financial year. If so, please provide me with information on what has been purchased and the cost?
ECFRS purchased 1000 paper flags, the flags contained our current Recruitment message and a link to our website, the costs of which was £543. 30 t-shirts were purchased for colleagues to wear at events both this year and subsequent years, the costs of the t-shirts were £207.
Question 3 – Whether the organisation have sponsored any Pride events. If so which events and please provide details of the nature of the sponsorship (particularly the financial value)?
Essex County Fire & Rescue Service (ECFRS) co- sponsored the Essex Pride event this year.
The cost of sponsorship was £450, this included our stand, from which we provided Home, Water and Road Safety messages, promoting smoke alarms and basic lifesaving skills by engaging with over 4000 attendees of all ages, backgrounds and identities attending the event and to the public observing the parade through Chelmsford City centre.
This also included a recruitment advert in the event programme and the display of a banner at the entrance to the event in the city centre.
We hope you find this information useful.
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Incident and other data is published on our transparency site. Incident Data (essex-fire.gov.uk).
Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this request will be published on our website http://transparency.essex-fire.gov.uk/.
All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.
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Thank you for your interest in Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, we hope this satisfies your request.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to apply for an internal review.
Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of your original email and should be sent to informationgovernance@essex-fire.gov.uk or sent to our postal address: Internal Review, Information Governance Team, Kelvedon Park, Rivenhall, Witham, Essex CM8 3HB.
Please ensure you quote the above reference number in all future communications