Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillors J Mein, C Morris and M Pattison.

Members are asked to consider any pecuniary and 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 1 December 2021 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Director of Corporate Services presented the report which set out the current budget position in respect of the 2021/22 revenue and capital budgets and performance against savings targets.

The overall position at the end of January was an underspend of £0.3m, with a forecast outturn position of an underspend of £0.2m. Both were a combination of the level of staffing vacancies, the slow return to business-as-usual spending activities, less the funding gap identified at budget setting and the unbudgeted pay awards.

The year to date and forecast positions within individual departments were set out in the report with major variances relating to non-pay spends and variances on the pay budget being shown separately in the table below: -

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented the Digital Strategy 2022 – 2027.  This was an enabling document that supported other strategies for Prevention, Protection, Response, People and Finance which all underpinned the Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP). 

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer drew Members’ attention to page 32 of the agenda pack which set out the Service’s key principles (these would support the delivery of a digital Fire and Rescue Service through our culture and provide the best services to our communities); page 36 set out 7 key digital themes (to help deliver the strategy over the next 5 years) and page 41 set out how the strategy aligned with the other major strategies to support the delivery of the CRMP.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer introduced Roger Stone, Head of Digital Transformation who gave a presentation on the digital approach to the delivery of the strategy.

The Head of Digital Transformation advised that the Service’s published key strategies had been analysed and digital horizon scanning undertaken to develop the strategy.  Seven key themes had been identified.  These focussed on automation and efficiencies and aligned with the other key strategies, with security inherently built into the solutions.  The Government’s directive was ‘digital by default, cloud first’ and the Service was therefore largely aligning itself to that.  The ‘cloud’ was an off-site solution that was a lot bigger, better, and resilient with more security, control and investment.  This helped the Service to capitalise on trillions of dollars of investment that cloud organisations put into their systems in terms of security, collaboration and accessibility.  He confirmed that the Service focused on European and UK territories and with GDPR regulations data was hosted on UK shores.

The Head of Digital Transformation advised that there were over 40 digital transformation projects ongoing with only a relatively small team.  The team was made up of a Digital Transformation Team (a team of professionals who worked on custom integration with 3^rd party solutions), Delivery Partners (provided external expertise) and Business Developers.  This role was a key element as a lot of the strategy focussed on self-service which aimed to empower our workforce to generate the solutions themselves.  A video example was shown of the business fires safety check mobile app which had been developed (with tools available to the workforce) to turn a paper form into a digital one.  In addition, one of the key things the Service was doing was trying to make all its data accessible centrally.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Woollam regarding whether the Service’s security systems were adequately protected and up-to-date, the Head of Digital Transformation reassured Members that there was a dedicated security team that looked after ‘on premises’ and ‘cloud’ security models.  He advised that the Service took advice from the National Cyber Security Centre and the Home Office.  Guidance and advice had been provided on how to minimise increasing threats from certain territories and globally.  Weekly security meetings were held to discuss those  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45-20/21

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 6 July 2022 in Washington Hall, Service Training Centre, Euxton.

Further meetings are:    scheduled for 28 September 2022 and 30 November 2022

                                           proposed for 29 March 2023

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Wednesday, 6 July 2022 at 1000 hours in Washington Hall, Service Training Centre, Euxton.

Further meeting dates were noted for 28 September 2022 and 30 November 2022 and agreed for 29 March 2023.

The Committee 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.

(Paragraph 3)

Members considered a report that outlined the outcome of re-financing of the senior debt within the PFI contract.

RESOLVED: - That the recommendation be noted.

(Paragraph 3)

Members considered a report that provided an update on all contracts for one-off purchases valued in excess of £100,000 and high value procurement projects in excess of £100,000 including: new contract awards, progress of ongoing projects and details of new projects.

RESOLVED:  That the Committee noted and endorsed the report.

(Verbal report)

(Paragraph 4)

The Director of People and Development provided a verbal update on the arrangement for the recognition of trade unions.  It was noted that a report would be presented to the next full Authority meeting in April.

RESOLVED: - That the report be noted.

(Paragraphs 4 and 5)

Members considered an update report on the current position regarding pension schemes that applied to the uniformed members of the Fire Sector.

RESOLVED: - That the recommendation be noted.

(Paragraph 1)

Members considered a report from the Director of People and Development regarding a Stage 2 application under the Internal Disputes Resolution Procedure.  He explained the procedure to Members and the report outlined the facts of the case.

RESOLVED:- That the Committee declined the application.