Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillor Peter Britcliffe, County Councillor Hasina Khan, County Councillor Paul Rigby, County Councillor Barrie Yates, and Councillor Jean Rigby.  

Members are asked to consider any pecuniary/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 the 13 September 2023 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer presented a comprehensive report to the Performance Committee. This was the 2nd quarterly report for 2023/24 as detailed in the Community Risk Management Plan 2022-2027.

This quarter, one Key Performance Indicator (KPI), 2.9 Business Fire Safety Checks, was shown in positive exception and three Key Performance Indicators were shown in negative exception. These were 1.2.1 Staff Absence Wholetime (WT), 1.2.3 Staff Absence Greenbook, and 3.3 Total Fire Engine Availability.

Members examined each indicator in turn focusing on those KPIs in exception as follows:

KPI 1 – Valuing our people so that they can focus on making Lancashire safer

1.1          Overall Staff Engagement

Members received an update on how staff were engaged during the period.

From July to September 2023, 29 station and department visits were carried out by principal officers, directors, and area managers as part of the service-wide engagement programme. One station visit, involving the HR department, was undertaken to engage with members of staff affected by duty system changes as part of the emergency cover review.

There were 29 wellbeing interactions undertaken ranging from wellbeing sessions with crews to support dog interactions. The Service engaged with staff over several topics relating to fleet and equipment, including facial hair coverings for use with breathing apparatus, helmet communications, and particulate flash hoods. Three focus groups were held with on-call firefighters over policy changes relating to operational response.

1.2.1   Staff Absence Wholetime

This indicator measured the cumulative number of shifts (days) lost due to sickness for all wholetime staff divided by the total average strength.

Annual Standard: Not more than 5 shifts lost.

Annual Shifts Lost ÷ 4 quarters: 1.25

Cumulative total number of shifts lost: 4.252

The negative exception report was due to the number of shifts lost through absence per employee being above the Service target for quarter 2.

During quarter 2, July to September 2023, absence statistics showed whole-time personnel absence above target for the quarter.

1,433 Wholetime absence shifts lost = 2.15 against a target of 1.25 which was 0.9 shifts over target. During the same quarter of the previous year 2.63 shifts were lost which was a decrease of 0.48 shifts lost per wholetime employee. Cases of long-term (greater than 28 days) absence over the whole quarter had increased by 0.53 shifts from the previous quarter.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that, as discussed previously, the data had been split between long-term and short-term absences.

The number of cases of long-term absence which spanned over the total of the 3 months had reduced from five cases in Q1 to three cases in Q2.

As a result of the three cases of long-term absences, 139 shifts were lost during Q2 compared to 208 shifts lost during the previous quarter. These cases accounted for 0.22 shifts lost per person over the quarter.

There were 34 other cases of long-term absence also recorded within the 3 months:

·         Mental health – 14 cases

·         Hospital/Post Operative – 6 cases

·         Musculo skeletal – 7 cases

·         Genitourinary/Gynaecological/Reproductive  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17/23

Verbal Report.

The Chair welcomed Ged Basson, Senior Operations Manager, North West Fire Control (NWFC). Mr Basson, provided the Committee with a presentation detailing the performance of NWFC during quarter 2 (July – September 2023).

Emergency Calls in to NWFC

NWFC received 26,849 in quarter 2 compared to 37,462 for the same quarter of 2022/23. For the year to date, NWFC had received 135,455 emergency calls compared to 162,590 for the same period of the previous year. Emergency calls included 999 calls from members of the public and emergency calls from Lancashire Constabulary and North West Ambulance Service.

Emergency Calls for LFRS

A total of 7,752 emergency calls were received in quarter 2 for LFRS, compared to 9,299 for the same quarter of the previous year. For the year to date, NWFC had received 16,893 emergency calls for LFRS, compared to 19,835 for the same period of the previous year.

The call pattern was below average for the time of year which could be attributed to societal issues or the weather that had resulted in different types of emergency calls.

Admin Calls in to NWFC 

NWFC had received a total of 27,740 admin calls in quarter 2, compared to 31,727 in quarter 2 of the previous year. The number of calls for the year to date was 59,607, compared to 61,452 for the same period of the previous year. Similar to emergency calls, there was missing data that was not retrievable for administrative calls for quarter 2.

Admin calls included crews and officers contacting NWFC for either guidance, or to offer advice such as notification of missing equipment, defective resources, liaising with NWFC regarding exercises or resources availability.

Admin Calls for LFRS

Within quarter 2, a total of 6,246 admin calls were received for Lancashire Fire and Rescue (LFRS), compared to 7,384 in quarter 2 of the previous year. For the year to date, NWFC had received 13,571 admin calls for LFRS compared to 14,405 calls for the same period of the previous year.

Calls for LFRS equated to 25% of the total calls for all 4 services (LFRS, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, and Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service).

Calls Challenged Resulting in No Mobilisation

In quarter 2, the percentage of calls challenged and not mobilised to was 48%, compared to 44% for the same quarter of 2022/23.

These were any calls where Control Room Operators asked additional questions provided by Fire and Rescue Services in order to determine if a response was required. Examples of these incident types were automatic fire alarms, animal rescues, bonfires and NWAS gaining entry.

NWFC continued to support Fire & Rescue Services with call challenge questions, which determined whether there were resources mobilised to incidents such as automatic fire alarms. In supporting these initiatives, 42% of calls challenged were not required to be mobilised to, and therefore these resources were available for other emergencies/duties.

Fires: Average Response to Mobilise First Resource

For NWFC, mobilising performance times for fires in quarter  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18/23

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 06 March 2024 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are:         scheduled for 26 June 2024

                                              proposed for 04 September 2024

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on 06 March 2024 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were noted for 26 June 2024 and 04 September 2024 and agreed for 04 December 2024.