Lancashire Combined Fire Authority
Meeting to be held on 24 June 2024
Member Champion Activity Report
Contact for further information – Assistant Chief Fire Officer Jon Charters
Tel: 01772 866802
Executive Summary
This paper provides a report on the work of the Member Champions for the period up to 23 June 2024.
Recommendation(s)
The Authority is requested to note and endorse the report and acknowledge the work of the respective Champions.
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Information
The concept of Member Champions was introduced in December 2007 with a review of the roles in 2017.
The Authority appoints its Member Champions at its Annual Meeting in June, and the current Member Champions are:
· Community Safety – Member Champion role vacated by Cllr Jean Rigby (new Member Champion required).
· Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion – Councillor Zamir Khan.
· Health and Wellbeing – County Councillor John Singleton JP.
· Road Safety – County Councillor Ron Woollam.
Reports relating to the activity of the Member Champions are provided on a regular basis to the Authority. During this period, all have undertaken their respective role in accordance with the defined terms of reference. Their activity to date is as follows:
Community Safety
The Water Safety Campaign was launched at the beginning of April. Part of the campaign activity was to deliver Water Safety education sessions in high schools which fell into high-risk localities and invite all other schools across the Lancashire footprint to take part in several virtual education sessions. During the week commencing 13 May 2024, the Prevention Support Team delivered virtual sessions to almost 8,200 KS3 and KS4 learners. Area activity will continue throughout the summer with Corporate Communications sharing key messages over various media platforms, particularly when weather and circumstances dictate, and during national campaigns led by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC). For example, Be Water Aware, Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) Drowning Prevention Week and World Drowning Prevention Day.
The beginning of May saw the launch of the first Partner Newsletter ‘Prevention Matters.’ This has evolved from listening to feedback from the many agencies we work with and aims to keep our partners informed of our services, campaigns, and initiatives, along with sharing useful information to help keep the people they work with safe and well. This issue focused on the Home Fire Safety Check service and introduced the Prevention Support team and their areas of work. The ‘hot topic’ for this issue was “Emollient Creams – a hidden fire hazard.” The newsletter, which will be produced bi-monthly, was initially circulated to over four hundred partner agencies and this has since been shared to wider teams with many individuals signing up to receive this. Initial feedback from partners has been incredibly positive and many found the ‘hot topic’ particularly useful and informative.
For Boat Safety week in May, Ormskirk staff promoted fire and water safety to people who moor their boats in Scarisbrick Marina. They put up safety posters in the public houses that line the towpaths and completed a training exercise in the water, which created an opportunity to engage with the local boating community and issue safety information and key messages.
Over the easter holidays, staff at Leyland fire station hosted a charity Extravaganza and Easter Egg Hunt for families and young people in their community. Over 224 children received an easter egg along with water and home fire safety information. The event ran in a carousel format so that groups of young people could take part in a variety of activities including first aid, rope rescue, the smoke tent, road safety and a look around the fire appliance. The event was a huge success for all and raised over £1200 for The Fire Fighters Charity and Teenage Cancer Trust.
Prevention Support and Community Safety staff from Western area took part in a professional development afternoon for the Occupational Therapy (OT) team at Blackpool Teaching Hospital. The session was attended by over 30 members of the OT department and the training covered recognising vulnerability factors and how this links to increased fire risk in the home. Also included was information on the home fire safety check service and how staff can make a secure referral for this through the partner portal on the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) website.
Prevention staff from across the service have worked collaboratively with Lancashire Fire Operations Group (LFOG) partners over Easter and other high-risk periods to prevent wildfires. Supported by a number of partners and volunteer groups, this education and enforcement activity will continue over the coming months.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion – Councillor Zamir Khan MBE
Over the last quarter, representatives from the Service have been actively engaging with employees and communities in various ways.
The Employee Diversity Inclusion Steering Group which oversees the work of the Service in relation to EDI has expanded its remit to include culture, to reflect the broader role of the Equality, Diversity Inclusion and Culture Board more accurately, as it will now be known.
The Member Champion and ACFO Jon Charters joined Community Safety Adviser Faz Patel on Awaz Radio to speak to listeners across the UK on Ramadan Safety and introducing the 2024 ‘Safety During Hajj’ package. This was followed up with a launch event led by Lancashire Council of Mosques combining the spiritual and safety messages for persons travelling to Saudi Arabia to conduct their pilgrimage, supported by a brief video hosted by the ACFO and Firefighter Riaz Patel.
Further live radio interviews have since been conducted on Awaz Radio by Faz Patel and the ACFO, engaging with listeners from across the UK, and live debate with persons in West Midlands, London and from the Saudi Ministry of Health, demonstrating the extensive reach of this valuable community safety programme.
The NFCC have developed a tool kit which services can use in terms of assisting with engagement and in recruiting a diverse workforce, these have been made available on the Engine House, to inform the development of events and activities at a local level.
Representatives from the service will be attending Pride events across Lancashire over the summer, these are excellent opportunities to communicate safety messages and promote employment opportunities to join the On Call, Wholetime and the Fire Service more broadly.
Our Campaigns Calendar for 2024-2025 has been developed and published, which targets different communities who may be at more risk in relation to cooking, drowning, candle safety and electrical safety.
In partnership with the Firefighters Charity, we have promoted several health and wellbeing programmes and workshops, in terms of maintaining fitness, building personal resilience, living with the menopause, and maintaining health and wellbeing.
The service celebrated Global Accessibility Awareness Day, according to the latest estimate from the Department of Work and Pensions’ 24% of the population is disabled, the aim of Global Accessibility Awareness Day is to focus attention on digital access and inclusion for all. Staff within the service are working hard to develop knowledge and expertise in terms of developing policies and information which is accessible.
On 13 May 2024, we marked Mental Health Awareness Week with the theme of “movement: moving more for our mental health” and a workshop on the importance of diet and proper hydration was delivered over teams.
Health, Wellbeing & Climate Change – County Councillor John Singleton JP
Health and Wellbeing
Utilisation of the free and confidential independent support from the Employee Assistance Programme has decreased from 14.3% to 11.7% as a direct comparison to 2022/23 reporting period. The top 3 categories remain consistent and include Mental Health, Relationships and Legal advice enquiries (e.g. divorce and separation, childcare, motoring etc.).
In November 2023 we held the first of 12 pilot health and wellbeing programmes for all new starters. This has been co-developed and is being co-delivered by the Safety Health and Wellbeing (SHW) Advisor and the Fire Fighters Charity. The aim of the programme is to increase personal resilience of all staff and includes elements of positive psychology, relaxation coping strategies and suicide awareness. The programme is receiving positive feedback within LFRS and interest from other Fire and Rescue Services across the UK.
This reporting period we have undertaken 25 TRiM (trauma support) interventions, including 8 Traumatic Incident Briefings (TIBs); evidencing the introduction of TIBs in August 2022 is still being effective and utilised well.
31 Wellbeing Support Dog requests have been completed, over this year through which we have interacted with 217 staff and 850 members of the public. Work will get underway in Q3 2024/25 to recruit to the wellbeing dog resource following a number of changes to the team.
Wellbeing Wednesdays continue to be received well by colleagues, with the delivery model of bringing the opportunity to have a wellbeing conversation on station providing popular. Each station will continue to receive at least one Wellbeing Wednesday visit per year.
In September 2023 we launched Peer Support Ambassadors to bolster our peer support network. Colleagues who volunteer to be a Peer Support Ambassador attend a 2-hour workshop about active listening, signposting, raising awareness of mental health and reducing the stigma around mental health conversations. Workshops will be held every year to increase the number of peer supporters available.
Climate Change and Environment
Our measured carbon emissions (for gas, electric and vehicle fuel) have seen a 25% reduction from the baseline. This does represent a small increase from last year of 1%.
Water has increased by 8.1%, Gas has increased 3.4%, Electric has decreased by 1.7% and Vehicle fuel (from fleet) has increased by 3.4% compared to last year. The data has been shared individually with stations involving both Environmental Champions and Station Managers, allowing comparisons to be made by station over several years.
General waste had increased by 7.7% compared to the previous year and dry mixed recyclable waste has also increased by 5.2%. The overall recycling rate across the service remains very good at 34% (a small decrease of 1% in direct comparison with last year). Glass recycling has decreased by 46.3%, whilst confidential wastepaper recycling has increased by 6%. There are many stations that stand out with excellent waste management and others where there may be opportunities for improvement. Some stations highlighted for further investigation into the data last year, have seen fantastic results; for example, both South Shore and Colne have increased their recycling to almost 40%. Several stations have been highlighted for further support over the next reporting period to improve waste management; these will be monitored, and outcomes reported through the appropriate meeting structures.
Road Safety – County Councillor Ron Woollam
Road Sense is a Year 6 Road Safety Education Package delivered by LFRS and offered to all primary schools in Lancashire. 13,300 pupils have received the package, so we are on track to deliver to all schools by end of the summer term. Feedback from teachers remains very positive, please see example below:
“Very informative and knowledgeable delivery and information was relevant to our children and setting. Our children always respond better when information comes from experts with experience rather than usual teacher.”
The Biker Down team had a very busy month delivering courses and creating content for social media. The team created several short videos with the assistance of a firefighter from Leyland Fire Station who also restores classic motorcycles. All the videos shared a safety message about getting your bike prepared for the riding season. These have been hugely successful with over 8,500 plays on Facebook. In total, these posts throughout the month have made over 10,000 impressions. They have also proven popular on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) with 2253 impressions on this platform. The course feedback continues to be positive. An example from May’s course below:
“I am first aid trained and teach first aid at cadets. Biker first aid is different with different challenges and as a rider who has come off, I feel this course has proven invaluable. Thank you.”
Wasted Lives and the use of the crashed car has been focused on the celebration of Eid in May. For the first time, in collaboration with local mosques situated within St Matthews Ward and on the outskirts of the Preston City centre, the community safety team held a meeting with mosque management to discuss displaying a crashed car during peak hours on Friday. This decision was made so that both the elderly and young individuals attending the mosques would see the crashed car as they entered and exited.
Approximately 1000 worshippers encountered the crashed car during Eid and were shocked to witness a real vehicle that had been involved in an accident resulting in a fatality. Parents took note of this, and young people were also startled by the sight of the crashed car, gaining a better understanding of the consequences. Furthermore, the community safety team within Preston visited various centres across the area, delivering key messages to local community centres, youth groups and car hire firms. Social media platforms were also used to disseminate road safety messages. This road safety initiative lasted for one week.
A similar initiative took place outside Nelson Fire Station. Pennine Community Safety Team, Prevention Support and the Neighbourhood Policing Team joined forces with the crashed car to create a visual presence and highlight the dangers of speeding to passing motorists and pedestrians.
Both events proved to be a huge success and the plan moving forward is to continue forging links with members of the community and highlight the dangers around hiring high powered vehicles and driving them in an antisocial manner.
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Business risk
Whilst no formal obligation is placed on the Authority to have Champions, effective utilisation of such roles offers a number of benefits.
Sustainability or Environmental Impact
The Member Champion role provides leadership on environmental issues and assists in engaging Authority members in strategic objectives relating to protecting the environment.
Equality and Diversity Implications
The Member Champion role provides leadership on equality and diversity issues and assists in engaging Authority members in strategic objectives relating to equality and diversity.
Data Protection (GDPR)
Will the proposal(s) involve the processing of personal data? N
If the answer is yes, please contact a member of the Democratic Services Team to assist with the appropriate exemption clause for confidential consideration under part 2 of the agenda.
HR implications
Some Member and Officer time commitments.
Financial implications
Activities are within budget.
Legal implications
None identified.
Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985
List of background papers
Paper:
Date:
Contact: ACFO Jon Charters
Reason for inclusion in Part 2 if appropriate: N/A