Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillors M Perks and M Tomlinson.

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 15 March 2018 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Chairman, CC Holgate introduced Group Manager Frank Robinson, Community Protection Manager (Preston District) who presented Members with an overview of the LFRS Operational Assurance Framework.

GM Robinson explained that Operational Assurance was the activity carried out that gave confidence that Lancashire Fire and Rescue (LFRS) personnel, equipment, policies and procedures were all working well and efficiently to deliver the best possible service to the communities of Lancashire in a safe and effective way.

The Service had undertaken Assurance activities for many years, however previous performance had not provided the depth and quality required to allow the Service to optimise learning and to share broadly. In 2015 a number of service delivery workshops were held for the 18 Service Delivery Manager’s (SDM) who had the responsibility of managing operational fire stations; and under the direction of the Assistant Chief Fire Officer a restructure exercise took place to examine the work of the SDM’s managerial responsibilities.  This allowed the Service to reduce this number from 18 to 16 to enable 2 SDM posts to be re-directed to form the core of the Operational Assurance Team.

The work of the Operational Assurance Teams covered 3 pillars of Operational activity:

Operational Preparedness – This was the ‘before’ aspect of our assurance framework, delivered through station based assurance visits conducted by the Operational Assurance Team which focused on core work that was aligned to reducing risk and our capability to respond effectively and efficiently when the need arose.

Operational Response – This was the ‘during’ aspect of our assurance framework, delivered through assurance monitoring the response phase of an incident or exercise.

Operational Learning – This was the ‘after’ aspect of our assurance framework, delivered through our debrief systems and by learning from safety events in LFRS and other Fire and Rescue Services. 

It was noted that areas of improvement and good practice were highlighted in the quarterly Safety, Health & Environment (SH&E) and Operational Assurance report.

It was agreed that AM Charters would arrange for the report to be circulated to Members outside of the meeting.

The Operational Assurance team continued to share learning externally through the National Operational Guidance website which included high profile rescues. In addition, the team continued to produce reports for the Prevention, Protection, & Road Safety Strategy Group meetings and a quarterly report was embedded in the SH&E report which included a high amount of findings and information.

On behalf of the Committee, the Chairman, County Councillor Holgate thanked GM Robinson for his interesting presentation and congratulated him on his approach and making significant progress.

In response to a question raised by the Chairman, County Councillor Holgate, GM Robinson reassured Members that with the 2 SDM’s in post there had been an improvement of assurance activities within a relatively small time frame and compared to other Fire Authorities, LFRS continued to carry out assurance activities of a very high quality and range. 

In response to a query raised by Councillor M Khan regarding the engagement of young people,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/17

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised Members that this was the 4th quarterly report for 2017/18 as detailed in the Risk Management Plan 2017-2022.

The report showed there were 3 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 – 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, rescues and hazardous materials incidents.  For these incidents there is a single response standard which measures call handling time and fire engine response time.  The response standard for the first fire engine attending a critical special call is 13 minutes.

Standard: To be met on 90% of occasions

Quarter 4 results 82.95% achieved against a target of 90%, previous year quarter 4, 85.29%.

This was a negative exception report due to critical Special Service 1^st pump response being below the standard. Overall, quarter 4 pass rate was 82.95%, with a cumulative pass rate of 83.75 which is outside of the 90% standard and 2% tolerance.

Exception report provided.

The Assistant Chief Officer advised that during this reporting period each month of quarter 4 recorded a pass rate below the standard, with the month of January recording the lowest pass rate of the quarter at 77.24%.

It was noted that whilst February and March response times were above the yearly average, the high failure rate during the colder temperatures in the New Year contributed to January recording one of the highest Road Traffic Collision counts in the year around the County, which, along with extended travel times led to January recording the second lowest pass rate over the last 12 months.

The Officer in Charge (OIC) was now required to provide a specific narrative from a set list for the failure to respond to an incident within standard  The analysis of quarter 4 implied that the travel distance involved, along with the heavy traffic, en-route, were the main reasons for missed attendance times.

Failure to book in attendance at an incident was also cited for a small number of failures.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed to Members that he had arranged a meeting with Sarah Wilson, Head of North West Fire Control (NWFC) to discuss matters relating to call handling times, the Kerslake report and the ‘Stay put’ policy which had received much focus following the Grenfell Tower.  He agreed to update Members at a future Performance Committee meeting.

It was noted that the Service had ended the year 6% short of the target and he reassured Members that the Service would continue to monitor and take improvement actions.

2.4 Fire Engine Availability – Retained Duty System

This indicator measured the availability of fire engines that were crewed by the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25/17

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 13 September 2018 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are: scheduled for 29 November 2018.

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on 13 September 2018 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood. Further meeting dates were noted for 29 November 2018.

The Authority is asked to consider whether, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, they consider that the public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, indicated under the heading to the item. 

RESOLVED: - That the press and members of the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, indicated under the heading to the item.

It was noted that arrangements were in place within the old Best Value (BV) Family Group 4 to compile an annual comparative data in respect of the two (now withdrawn) National Fire Indicators that related specifically to fire authorities.  

Data was provided for the six components which in turn made up the two explicit fire and rescue indicators in respect of: the position of each Fire and Rescue Service within the Family Group, 2016/17 – 2017/18 comparative progress/decline; percentage change in terms of actual numbers; the position of each F&RS within the comparative group for the respective indicator and a summary overview in graphical form.

Members examined each indicator in turn and noted Lancashire’s position.

National Indicator 33 – Number of deliberate (i) primary and (ii) secondary fires per 10,000 population.

NI 33 – Arson Incidents (deliberate fires) per 10,000 population

NI 33i Deliberate primary fires per 10,000 population

NI 33ii Deliberate secondary fires per 10,000 population

National Indicator 49 – Number of primary fires and related fatalities and non?fatal casualties (excluding precautionary checkups) per 100,000 population.

NI 49i Number of primary fires per 100,000 population

NI49ii Number of fatalities in primary fires per 100,000 population

NI49iii Number of non-fatal casualties in primary fires per 100,000 population

RESOLVED:-  That the Committee noted the content of the report and the comparative outcomes.