Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillors P Britcliffe and M Tomlinson and Councillor Z Khan.

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 7 June 2018 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

In response to a question raised by the Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Members confirmed that representatives from the North West Fire Control Centre should continue to be invited to attend the meetings in June (quarter 4) and November (quarter 2) to provide update reports. 

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised Members that this was the 1st quarterly report for 2018/19 as detailed in the Risk Management Plan 2017-2022.

The report showed there were 5 negative Key Performance Indicator 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:-

1.2       Overall Activity

This indicator measured the number of incidents that the Service attended with one or more pumping appliances.

Quarter 1 activity 4,637, previous year quarter 1 activity 4,217 an increase of 9.96%.

Included within this KPI was the incident type ‘Gaining Entry’. This was where LFRS had attended on behalf of the North West Ambulance Service. During quarter 1 we were asked to attend on 343 occasions, of which 173 resulted in the use of tools to gain entry to a property.

This was a negative exception report due to a single monthly point of the XmR chart being beyond the upper control limit.

Activity during June was the main cause of the exception with 1,927 incidents recorded; the highest single monthly activity since April 2010.  Members noted that the highest daily count was on 27 June at 114 pump attended incidents; the day prior to the initial call to Winter Hill.  Although all incident types saw an increase in activity, it was secondary fires which accounted for the largest rise.  Both accidental and deliberate causes increased during the period with accidental causes recording the largest increase.  It was probable that the prolonged warm and dry weather contributed to the increase in secondary incidents.  June recorded the lowest June monthly rainfall in the North West region since 1975 and the highest June temperatures since 1940.  These two casual factors would have had an effect on the conditions which increased the likelihood of fire and the probability of people being in situations that could of led to a fire incident.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that the dry weather had continued into July and August which meant that activity remained high and the likely consequence was this indicator would again be in exception in quarter 2.

Media communication enforced the ‘carelessness causes fires’ message, along with the high profile Winter Hill incident which increased public awareness.  It was expected that this, combined with the change in the weather will lead to a reduction in secondary fires.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Perks who had visited winter hill with another local councillor to see the devastation first hand, Area Manager Morgan confirmed that the Service was working with the Police to support them  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4/18

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 29 November 2018 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are proposed for: 14 March 2019, 27 June 2019 and 19 September 2019.

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Thursday, 29 November 2018 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were agreed for 14 March 2019, 27 June 2019 and 19 September 2019.