Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillor Miles Parkinson OBE and Councillor Zamir Khan.

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 CFA held on 16 September 2019 be confirmed and signed by the Chairman.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Performance Committee held on

19 September 2019 be noted and endorsed.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Audit Committee held on

24 September 2019 be noted and endorsed.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Resources Committee held on

25 September 2019 be noted and endorsed.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Strategy Group held on

4 November 2019 be noted and endorsed.

The Chairman of the Working Group, Councillor Smith advised that consideration had been given to the role descriptions for Member Champions at the last meeting.  He confirmed that the Community Safety Champion role had been amended to include responsibility for safeguarding.  He advised that the role description for Health and Wellbeing could be extended to include climate change as referenced in the Planning Committee Minutes later on the agenda.

County Councillor Hennessy encouraged Members to attend the 2-day Leadership Essentials event which was run by the LGA twice a year as this was an informative event, particularly for new Members.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Member Training and Development Group held on 6 November 2019 be noted and endorsed and the Health and Wellbeing Champion role be extended to include climate change.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Planning Committee held on

25 November 2019 be noted and endorsed.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Resources Committee held on

27 November 2019 be noted and endorsed.

RESOLVED: - That the proceedings of the Performance Committee held on

28 November 2019 be noted and endorsed.

Verbal report.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer provided a verbal update for Members. 

It was noted that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) was due to publish the following day a summary report of their findings from tranche 3 inspections of fire and rescue services across England. This would enable the Service to draw comparisons against its own performance which had been the achievement of an outstanding rating along with good in all other areas with no areas requiring improvement.It was expected that a complete report would be provided in the New Year by Sir Tom Winsor on all the findings from the first year of inspections.

As noted and agreed at the last Planning Committee meeting, LFRS was required to provide quarterly data set returns to HMICFRS and CC Hennessy had requested an overview be presented to the next Planning Committee meeting.  The data returns did generate additional work within each department to collate the relevant information and in speaking with colleagues in the Police who had undergone this inspection process some years ago they advised their internal systems had been changed to automatically generate the required information.

The Service was waiting for information on the new HMICFRS Service Liaison Lead (formerly Mr David Dryburgh).

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed that LFRS was preparing for its next inspection which was expected to be in the first trance during late spring / early summer 2020. 

RESOLVED: - That the report be noted and endorsed.

The Chief Fire Officer presented the report. The Fire and Rescue National Framework for England (2018) set out the Government’s high level expectations, priorities and objectives for Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRA’s) in England.  Included within the framework was the requirement on all FRA’s to provide assurance on financial, governance and operational matters.

The Statement of Assurance was considered by Members. It aimed to provide the required accountability and transparency to our communities and the Government that Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service continued to deliver efficient, effective value for money services.

This statement sat alongside the Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP), Statement of Accounts, the Annual Governance Statement, the Annual Service Plan and Annual Progress Report.  It detailed what measures were in place to assure that the Combined Fire Authority’s performance was efficient, economic, and effective and provided further evidence that LFRS continued to deliver under the expectations detailed within both the National Framework and its own IRMP.

County Councillor O’Toole congratulated the Service on its community risk management which demonstrated on page 96 of the agenda pack that the risk to communities classified as very high and high fire risk were both showing a reduction in risk.

RESOLVED: - That the Authority approved the Annual Statement of Assurance 2018-19 as presented and approved the signing of this by the Chairman of the Authority and the Chief Fire Officer.

The concept of Member Champions was introduced in December 2007.  A review of the areas of focus for Member Champions was considered at the Authority meeting held in June 2017 where new areas of responsibility were agreed.  The current Member Champions and their areas of responsibility were:

·        Community Safety – Councillor Tony Williams

·        Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – Councillor Zamir Khan;

·        Health and Wellbeing – County Councillor Hasina Khan;

·        Road Safety – Councillor Fred Jackson.

Reports relating to the activity of the Member Champions were provided on a regular basis to the Authority and those Members present reported on their areas.  This report related to activity for the period up to 16 December  2019.  During this period all had undertaken their respective role in accordance with the defined terms of reference.

County Councillor Hennessy suggested that future Champion reports also included other information Members wished to share including key topics discussed in other forums such as Local Government Association meetings.  The Chairman agreed to consider the best way to facilitate such feedback in future reports.

RESOLVED: - That the Authority noted the report and acknowledged the work of the respective Champions.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer presented the report which detailed prosecutions in respect of fire safety management failures and arson related incidents within the period 1 September 2019 to 30 November 2019.  There were 2 successfully completed prosecution(s) and 6 pending prosecutions under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

Fire protection and business support information was provided and Members noted that there were 8 arson convictions during the period.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Holgate, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed that suspicious incidents were investigated by multi-disciplinary teams which included Fire Service Incident Intelligence Officers; ultimately the decision to hold anyone in custody rested with the Police.

RESOLVED: - That the Authority noted and endorsed the report.

This report included information for the 2 Unitary and 12 District Authorities relating to Fire Safety Initiatives and Fires and Incidents of particular interest.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer introduced:

·        Caroline Hooson and Louise Rainford, Youth Engagement Co-ordinators who gave a presentation on the Prince’s Trust programme.  The programme enabled those aged16-25 to develop confidence, motivation and skills through a 12-week course.  The course content included relevant key issues such as: education on knife crime, safeguarding and health & wellbeing (ie: the delivery of the wasted lives young driver education programme).  Details of: funding, structure and the areas from which the Service delivered the programme were presented.  It was noted that people who were referred onto the programme included those who were educationally disengaged, homeless or had offending behaviour, substance misuse or mental health needs. 

LFRS had been a delivery partner since 2001 and during that time had delivered fire safety education directly to 6,000 people. Outcomes were measured both in terms of hard outcomes (people who successfully achieved further qualifications) and softer outcomes (people who were better able to deal with the future challenges they faced). A number of case study examples of positive multi-agency working were presented.

The Authority congratulated all Prince’s Trust staff for their hard work and dedication.  Members who had not yet attended a Prince’s Trust presentation were urged to do so; particularly as the presentations given by the young people on the programme at the end of the 12 weeks told of their inspirational and heartfelt experiences.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer then introduced:

·        Lee Cook and Lee Garnett, Incident Intelligence Officers who gave a presentation on the benefits of the use of the drone at incidents.  It was noted that LFRS had six Incident Intelligence Officers providing 24-hour cover to support any significant fire investigation and all were trained (and appropriately licensed) to pilot the drone which was of a high specification (this included the ability for authorised remote access to live footage). 

In addition to major incidents, the drone was mobilised to leaking pipelines, collapsed structures, explosions and rescues from various types of incident including assisting the Police with wide-area searches for missing persons.  It was also noted that should the drone be used out of the county, a second drone was used with resilience arrangements provided through collaboration with Lancashire Police and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service.

Members were advised that the drone would be on route to an incident at the same time as the fire engine and that over 2000 flights (for both drones) had been completed since September 2016 of which 350 incidents had been attended this year.  Footage from various incidents was shown to demonstrate the benefit of access to the footage from the incident ground.  The drone supported incidents by:

o   Clearly showing the extent of the fire spread;

o   Aiding the positioning of fire breaks;

o   Highlighting the use of compartmentation;

o   The use of thermal imagery;

o   Assisting in planning wide-area searches;

o   Vital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52/19

Standing item.

The Monitoring Officer confirmed that there had been no complaints since the last meeting.

RESOLVED: - That the current position be noted.

The next meeting of the Authority will be held on Monday 24 February 2020 at 1000 hours at Washington Hall Training Centre, Euxton.

The next meeting of the Authority would be held on Monday 24 February 2020 at 10:00am at the Training Centre, Euxton.