Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillor P Britcliffe, Councillor Z Khan and County Councillor N Penney.

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 meeting held on 15 September 2016 be confirmed and signed by the Chairman.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised Members that this was the 2nd quarterly report for 2016/17 as detailed in the Risk Management Plan 2013-2017.

The report showed there were 4 negative KPI Exception Reports. An exception report was provided which detailed the reasons for the exception, analysis of the issue and actions being taken to improve performance.

Members focussed on the indicators where an exception report was presented and examined each indicator in turn as follows:-

2.2.1   Critical Special Service Response – 1^st Fire Engine Attendance

This indicator measured how long it took the first fire engine to respond to critical non-fire incidents such as road traffic collisions. The response standard for the first fire engine attending a critical special call (including call handling time KPI 2.2.2) is 13 minutes. We have achieved our standard when the time between the TOC and TIA of the first fire engine arriving at the incident is less than13 minutes.

Standard: To be met on 91.5% of occasions

Quarter 2 results 86.54% achieved against a target of 91.5%, previous year quarter 2, 91.65%, an worsening of 5.11%.

This is a negative exception report due to critical Special Service 1^st pump response being below the standard. Overall quarter 2 pass rate was 86.54%, with a cumulative pass rate of 86.73% which is outside of the 91.5% standard.

Exception report provided.

The Assistant Chief Officer advised during this reporting period each month of quarter 2 recorded a below standard pass rate, through there was an improvement towards the end of quarter 2.  However, this could be attributed to a very low activity count for the month of September.  The increasing call handling time was one factor that could affect the worsening performance with quarter 2 recording a longer median call handling time than any quarter of the previous 12 months (KPI 2.2.2).

The Officer in Charge was now required to provide a narrative for the failure to respond to the incident within standard.  Analysis of 22 narratives implied that the travel distance involved, along with incidents which occurred outside of their own station area, were the main reasons for longer travel times.

Failure to book in attendance or the Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) failing to acknowledge an attendance, still accounted for a small number of failure reasons.  This had been the subject of continued focus by the Heads of Service Delivery who were implementing and monitoring performance measures to remedy deficiencies and drive improvement.

It was hoped that on-going initiatives to address these issues would bring the cumulative standard back to within the 2% tolerance.

2.2.2   Critical Special Service Response – Call Handling

This indicator measured the time from the ‘Time of Call’ to the ‘Time of Send’ of the first appliance mobilised. A median was used to calculate the average time for the month. This excluded duplicate calls for the same incident.

The median call handling time for quarter 2 was 129 seconds, previous year quarter 2 was 107 seconds; a worsening  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9/16

(Oral report)

Area Manager, Ben Norman provided Members with a current overview of the Bright Sparx Campaign.  Bright Sparx was a well-established, multi-agency campaign which aimed to reduce injury, disorder, damage and anti-social behaviour related to the misuse of bonfires and fireworks across the county.  The campaign took place over a period of 6 weeks from 1 October to 10 November each year.

Community engagement carried out throughout the year focussed on providing education through presentations to schools, community/youth club visits; Prince’s Trust community projects were undertaken in targeted areas and safety education was provided to children and young people who had developed a fascination for fire. 

Diversionary activities during the Bright Sparx period included: the promotion of organised events, tackling the illicit sales of illegally imported and professional display fireworks and the removal of rubbish.  In addition, the Service website was used to direct people to officially-sanctioned bonfire and firework events and to provide advice on safety.  Modern communication through Social Media was also used to assist in engaging and educating young people through the targeted promotion of safety advice using graphics and short video clips.  Partnership activities included: external visual audits, joint visits to firework outlets, rubbish removal, the provision of temporary fencing and the undertaking of fire safety inspections. 

During the Bonfire weekend this year there was: an Officer based at North West Fire Control; joint Fire / Police command rooms were set up in localities and there were multi-agency intervention vehicles available to visit and assess any concerns.  A district case study was presented to Members which showed that of 30 calls made to North West Fire Control from within the case study area, 20 were assessed by the multi-agency team and 1 fire engine deployed to the scene. 

Members were pleased to note that the overall number of deliberate fires related to anti-social behaviour (which was reported regularly in the Performance Management report under key performance indicator 1.6.1), including those which occurred during the Bright Sparx period and the number of anti-social behaviour incidents at bonfires had significantly reduced as follows: -

Likewise, attacks on Firefighters had also reduced from 11 in 2012 to 2 in 2016.  It was felt that this was due both the work done prior to the Bright Sparx period and the more discreet response undertaken by the multi-agency intervention vehicles.

Members agreed that this presentation should be presented to the next Full Authority meeting in December 2016.

The next meeting of the Committee will be held on Thursday 16 March 2017 at 10:00 am in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are scheduled for: 8 June 2017, 14 September 2017 and 30 November 2017.

The next meeting of the Committee had been agreed for Thursday 16 March 2017 at 10:00 am in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were noted for: 8 June 2017, 14 September 2017 and 30 November 2017.