Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillor A Barnes and Councillor A Matthews.

Members are asked to consider any pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the agenda.

None received.

RESOLVED: - That the Minutes of the last meeting held on 30 January 2017 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented a report on the Service's Annual Service Plan for 2017/18.  This year’s Annual Service Plan continued to provide LFRS with the platform to highlight the priority activities that the Service intended to deliver over the upcoming year. To maintain the strong position the Service had upheld over recent years, this year’s plan focused on addressing capability and collaboration, workforce development and operational effectiveness.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer introduced Group Manager Steve Morgan to explain the Plan in more detail. 

The Annual Service Plan was a core part of the planning framework which set out the activities intended for delivery during the next 12 months.  It was built around the Service’s four corporate priorities as detailed in the Integrated Risk Management Plan which were: -

1.    Preventing fire and other emergencies from happening and Protecting people and property when fires happen;

2.    Responding to fire and other emergencies quickly and competently;

3.    Valuing our people so they can focus on making Lancashire safer;

4.    Delivering value for money in how we use our resources.

The Annual Service Plan sat at the heart of the framework and informed activity that would be led across the Service as well as locally within district plans. Activities that were planned for delivery also informed staff performance appraisal so that all staff understood the plans and were involved in helping to deliver key activities.

As in previous years, detailed under each corporate priority was a series of priority activities.  This year’s plan also provided a brief description of each item to give further clarity and context. This ensured that all staff and the public were informed of the changes and activities the Service aimed to progress and how these items fit within our priorities. This provided the opportunity for the Service to ensure that we continued to provide transparency and visibility of our plans in a clear concise format. The governance arrangements for delivery of the Annual Service Plan would continue to be monitored through the Service's Corporate Programme Board.

Last year’s focus on consolidation gave time and space to reflect and embed the changes that had been made to bring about service improvements and success.  However, as reported at the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority meeting, there was now a much clearer picture of the Government’s Fire Reform programme which involved:

·        Efficiency and collaboration;

·        Transparency and accountability;

·        Workforce reform.

As a result, the action plan this year involved activities to improve in these areas.  Activities to be contained within the plan were considered by Members.

In response to a question raised by CC O’Toole, GM Morgan confirmed that PORIS was the Provision of Risk Information to Staff.  This was an electronic system which improved firefighter and community safety through the provision of site specific information available at incidents via vehicle mobile data terminals.

Following discussion regarding the Evaluation of the Water Tower, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer confirmed that this vehicle, known as the Stinger would be demonstrated to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22/16

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented Members with an update on the Emergency First Responding Pilot Project.

The Emergency First Responding (EFR) pilot had been in place from August 2015 initially involving Ormskirk and Morecambe stations.

Reponses for the initial phase were to Red 1 and Red 2 call sets which included a wide range of medical emergencies, for example:  strokes, asthmatic attacks, breathing difficulties, anaphylactic shock, cardiac arrests, fitting, etc. In these early stages the 2 stations involved responded to over 1,000 alerts.

As a result of North West Ambulance Service’s (NWAS) representative body concerns, the call sets that LFRS respond to were restricted to Red 1 Cardiac arrests only. This significantly reduced the amount of alerts that crews were being called to which now averaged just 1.5 calls per week. The most common station area affected was Morecambe. There had been notable lifesaving interventions achieved in this time at both stations.

Following the successful outcomes of the early stages of the pilot and with agreement from Fire Brigades Union (FBU), further stations were included from December 2016.

On completion of required DBS checks and EFR training, the following 5 stations went ‘live’ restricted to Red 1 cardiac arrest calls only;

·        Nelson – December 2016

·        Hyndburn – December 2016

·        Blackburn – December 2016

·        Great Harwood – January 2017

·        Darwen – January 2017

Since their inclusion in the pilot the additional stations have attended approximately 11 alerts. The reason for the low call volume was as yet unclear. NWAS and North West Fire Control were trialling a mobilising process that currently relied on a phone call from one to the other. This process was proving less effective than first considered and a resolution was being pursued.

A model for a phased rollout by area would allow the introduction of 7 further stations by June 2017, and continuing by area until January 2018 when all stations would be involved.

This further rollout was currently awaiting the outcome of the Recall Conference of the FBU on 21^st March 2017, where they would examine the report released by the National Joint Council (NJC) in January which detailed its findings on the national pilot.

Currently LFRS did not recover costs within the pilot however, an intention to do so if fully adopted was acknowledged by both parties and costs had been identified.  In addition the report produced on behalf of the NJC recognised an approximate average £10 community return for every £1 invested in Fire and Rescue Service Emergency First Responding activity.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer reassured Members that staff were well trained as Emergency First Responders and were working under NWAS clinical governance arrangements.  He confirmed that upon arrival at a medical emergency, staff would provide first aid until a paramedic arrived if the casualty was not suffering a cardiac arrest. 

RESOLVED: - That the Planning Committee noted and endorsed the report.

(Oral report)

In April 2016 a programme of work was initiated aimed at Strengthening and Improving our Retained Service. The focus was to develop a programme which would deliver tangible improvements and further build on what was already an excellent retained service in Lancashire.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that this year’s current programme of activity to strengthen and improve our Retained Service was due to complete on 31 March 2017.  Through the 6 task and finish groups, the strengthening and improving work plan had identified 26 actions of which 6 remained outstanding and would be carried forward.  A similar programme of improvement would be undertaken for the year ahead.  To facilitate this, all the Retained Duty System Unit Managers and staff were invited to provide a return which identified key areas.  A return had been received from every station and there were a number of consistent comments.  The programme would therefore be: -

1.    To embed the role of the Retained Support Officers (discussed at the Authority meeting held in February 2017; resolution 73/16 refers);

2.    To focus on operational service delivery -  to support the timely development of competent firefighters; this would help with appliance availability;

3.    To focus on operational service delivery – to improve incident command training for crew or watch managers to acquire new or consolidate skills.

RESOLVED: - Members noted the content of the report.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented a report on the requirement to review emergency response arrangements periodically to ensure that provision remained effective and consummate with our dynamic risk profile.  This process was a robust assessment of historic data and emergent risk and was delivered in the format of an Emergency Cover Review (ECR).

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer introduced AM Norman to explain the process in more detail.

The Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) for 2017–22 had recently been approved by the Combined Fire Authority and within this plan were a series of organisational commitments associated with Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s (LFRS) capabilities including the emergency response provision.

LFRS strived to deliver high standards of operational response and in doing so it prepared and planned for emergencies so that when an emergency happened and there was a need to respond, it was done quickly, with the right fire appliances, the right specialist vehicles and the right crewing arrangements to deal with the incident effectively and safely.

The community of Lancashire changed dynamically through commercial and residential growth and retraction, new road and other infrastructure provision and these along with many other factors may create a differing emergency response requirement from LFRS. To ensure that response arrangements remained appropriate and effective the Combined Fire Authority periodically commissioned an Emergency Cover Review in order to validate current provision and to identify any appropriate proposals for change in response provision.  

The last ECR undertaken in 2013 had seen quite significant change in the removal of 2 fire appliances; the splitting of the Urban Search and Rescue function and vehicles between Bamber Bridge and Chorley and a number of shift pattern changes.

It was recommended that LFRS undertook an ECR process in 2017 and that within the methodology there would be a focus on the following 3 key elements:

ii)    Demand (Performance Data, Risk in Lancashire & Response Targets);

iii)   Process (Pre-Determined Attendance’s, Time Engaged, Appliance Availability & Special Appliances);

iiii)Resources (Location, Configuration, Crewing Status & Mobilising Criteria.)

In order to validate the current response arrangements and to test predictive impacts LFRS planned to utilise the services of an external specialist organisation. This would enable the use of predictive modelling software in determining and subsequently validating the potential impact of any changes to the number, location and crewing of fire appliances across the county. This would also offer an opportunity to review the impacts of the previous 2013-17 ECR. 

It was recommended that the scope of the ECR included:

a)    Validating the deliverables / outcomes / actual performance from within the previous ECR as we operate within a business as usual period beyond the implementation.

b)    Developing a subsequent Baseline Model for 2017 inclusive of the above.

c)    Determining the theoretical potential impact of a series of changes to the number, location, response capabilities and crewing of fire appliances across the county. More specifically but not exclusively:

ii)    Realising a wider Emergency First Responding capability;

iii)   Determining a revised response to Automatic Fire  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25/16

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on Monday 17 July 2017 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

A further meeting is scheduled for 27 November 2017.              

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Monday, 17 July 2017 at 1000 hours in the main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

A further meeting was scheduled for 27 November 2017.