Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillors Peter Britcliffe, Hasina Khan and Matthew Salter.

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 06 March 2024 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

County Councillor Frank De Molfetta introduced himself as the new Chair of the Performance Committee and welcomed new Member County Councillor Mark Clifford, and County Councillor David O’Toole to the meeting.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer presented a comprehensive report to the Performance Committee. This was the 4th quarterly report for 2023/24 as detailed in the Community Risk Management Plan 2022-2027.

This quarter, four Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), 1.2.3 Staff Absence Greenbook, 2.3 Accidental Dwelling Fires (ADF), 2.3.1 ADF – Harm to people: Casualties, and 2.9 Business Fire Safety Checks were shown in positive exception and two Key Performance Indicators were shown in negative exception. These were 1.2.1 Staff Absence Wholetime (WT), 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 January to March 2024, three station visits were carried out by principal officers as part of the service-wide engagement programme. Six station visits involving the HR department had also taken place to engage with members of staff affected by duty system changes as part of the emergency cover review.

Sixty-four wellbeing interactions were undertaken ranging from coffee and chat sessions with crews, to support dog interactions. The Service also engaged with staff over several property projects which included improvements at Preston, Blackpool, and Bacup fire stations, and consultation on body worn cameras continued.

The staff focus group was consulted on employee recognition to gain further insight into feedback on the topic, received in the staff survey and on-call communications.

As reported in the previous quarter: A comprehensive staff survey was undertaken periodically to gain insight from all staff on a range of topics which included leadership, training and development, health and wellbeing, and equality, diversity, and inclusion. The feedback was used to shape future activity and bring about improvements and new ideas. The survey included a staff engagement index which was a measure of overall staff engagement based on levels of pride, advocacy, attachment, inspiration, and motivation. The current staff engagement score index was 74% (2023).

The engagement index was calculated based on five questions that measured pride, advocacy, attachment, inspiration, and motivation; factors that were understood to be important features shared by staff who were engaged with the organisation.

For each respondent, an engagement score was calculated as the average score across the five questions, where strongly disagree was equivalent to 0, disagree was equivalent to 25, neither agree nor disagree was equivalent to 50, agree was equivalent to 75 and strongly agree was equivalent to 100. The engagement index was then calculated as the average engagement score in the organisation. This approach meant that a score of 100 was equivalent to all respondents saying strongly agree to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4/24

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 4 (January – March 2024).

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).

Emergency Calls in to NWFC

NWFC received 27,937 in quarter 4 compared to 26,849 for the same quarter of 2022/23. For the year to date, NWFC had received 127,789 emergency calls compared to 135,452 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.

There had been a low number of calls in February, which had resulted in a positive exception, as explained in LFRS’s Performance Management Report.

Emergency Calls for LFRS

A total of 5,783 emergency calls were received in quarter 4 for LFRS, compared to 6,036 for the same quarter of the previous year. For the year to date, NWFC had received 29,759 emergency calls for LFRS, compared to 33,446 for the same period of the previous year.

Admin Calls in to NWFC 

NWFC had received a total of 25,383 admin calls in quarter 4, compared to 25,917 in quarter 4 of the previous year. The number of calls for the year to date was 113,328, compared to 115,299 for the same period of the previous year.

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 4, a total of 5,637 admin calls were received for Lancashire Fire and Rescue (LFRS), compared to 5,873 in quarter 4 of the previous year. For the year to date, NWFC had received 26,272 admin calls for LFRS compared to 26,385 calls for the same period of the previous year.

It was noted that interactions during extended incidents, such as SupaSkips in December, resulted in spikes in activity on the graph between LFRS and NWFC.

Calls Challenged Resulting in No Mobilisation

In quarter 4, the percentage of calls challenged and not mobilised to was 48%, compared to 42% 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, 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, 48% 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 5/24

The Chair thanked County Councillor Woollam for his work as the Member Champion for Road Safety and welcomed Councillor Fred Jackson to the role.

Area Manager, Matt Hamer, provided the meeting with an annual report regarding Road Safety Intervention Activity which explained the Service’s core prevention offer and also the challenges on Lancashire’s roads.

Members noted that, through the previous Integrated Risk Management Plan 2017-2022 (IRMP), prevention and protection services and the structure for delivery were reviewed to ensure that the Service was delivering appropriate services in line with the changing operating environment. As a result, working practices had changed with a strategic focus on the quality of the services that continued to be delivered. The services were delivered around key themes: helping people to start safe, live safe, age safe and be safe on our roads with a focus on working collaboratively with other organisations. To ensure constant improvement in all parts of prevention delivery, the Service had dedicated thematic groups whose priorities aligned to the more recent Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) 2022-2027 and the Prevention Strategy.

Road Safe Thematic Group

The Thematic Road Safety Group continued to meet every quarter during 2023-2024 with an option of in-person and virtual meetings. Area Manager, Matt Hamer, was currently the Chair of the group and membership came from all areas of the county and was a mix of Community Safety and Operational Staff. Road Safety Champion, County Councillor Ron Woollam, had close links with the group and was in regular communication with Clare Burscough, the Prevention Support Officer for Road Safety.

An annual plan aligned to the terms of reference had been developed alongside a priority work programme which supported the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership (LRSP) ‘Towards Zero’ strategy. An ambition of the group was to improve communication between strategic and practitioner levels and also to send clear messages out to Service Areas with key road safety priorities. The Service sought to deliver focused activities in areas identified as having issues and evaluate effectiveness.

Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Service had developed new ways of working and some of those working practices had been adopted as business as usual and offered a greater choice of delivery methods for the community, improving the Service’s reach and efficacy. The offer of virtual delivery remained part of the service’s plan and continued to be selected by schools as a delivery method across the county.

Lancashire Road Safety Partnership (LRSP)

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service continued to be a proactive member of LRSP and had representatives at both Strategic and Operational group level.The partners worked closely with each other and delivered the partnership strategy ‘Towards Zero’ Lancashire: Road Safety Strategy for Lancashire 2016 – 2026’, in an attempt to reduce those killed or seriously injured on Lancashire’s roads.

LFRS played an active role on the Children and Young People workstream and the Powered 2 Wheelers Workstream. The Joint Operations Group (JOG) brought partners together to look at what was currently delivered, what  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6/24

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer presented the report on the annual review of the Fire Engine Availability Key Performance Indicator (KPI) 3.3.

At a resolution of the Planning Committee of 17 July 2023 (08/23), the decision was taken to adjust the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) relating to overall fire engine availability, to report against how effectively fire cover was provided across the 39 fire stations (risk areas) of the county. 

The decision approved the proposal to report on the combined availability of the primary asset at each of the 39 stations in percentage terms, whether that be a wholetime or retained duty system fire appliance, with a revised overall target of 90%. Furthermore, that this target would be reviewed annually aligned to the continued work being delivered to strengthen on call appliance availability.

Work took place over the summer of 2023 to make the relevant system changes to support the provision of information under the revised KPI, which was implemented into the Measuring Progress Report from quarter 2 onwards.

Under the resolution approved at Planning Committee, the KPI change would be subject to annual review with an intention to incrementally increase the standard, if and when appliance availability performance was sustained above the agreed standard. The Service deemed the business year-end to be the most suitable point to conduct this exercise each year and, as such, the report formed the basis of the 2024 review.

Since introduction of the 90% target, Service performance had seen a gradual but sustained improvement, reporting 87.84% availability in Quarter 2, 88.46% in Quarter 3 and most recently, 88.88% in Quarter 4. As wholetime appliance availability remained exceptionally high, the work delivered through the On Call Improvement Programme was the key mechanism through which overall appliance availability could be improved. Each of the stations had a bespoke Action Plan which considered current staffing establishments, retirement/leaver forecasting, skills matrix (for both skills held and planned for acquisition by staff) and intended recruitment and selection activities to support improvement in appliance availability.

Since current performance remained in pursuance of the 90% standard and sustained investment and focus towards strengthening on call appliance availability were yielding steady progress, the Service proposed a no change position to the KPI for 2024/25 with a further review to be undertaken at the next business year end.

Resolved: - That the Performance Committee endorsed no changes to KPI 3.3 further to the year-end review of the standard.

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 04 September 2024 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are:         scheduled for 04 December 2024

                                              proposed for 05 March 2025

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on 04 September 2024 at 10:00 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were noted for 04 December 2024 and agreed for 05 March 2025.