Agenda and minutes

This was the last meeting which would be attended by Mr Keith Mattinson as Director of Corporate Services and Treasurer to the Authority. 

Mr Mattinson advised that the new Director of Corporate Services was Mr Steven Brown who, following a hand over period during March would be formally starting in the role from 3 April 2023.

On behalf of the Committee, the Chairman thanked Mr Mattinson for all his hard work over the years and wished him well in his retirement.

Apologies were received from County Councillors Lorraine Beavers and Sean Serridge.

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 30 November 2022 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 2022/23 revenue and capital budgets.

The overall position at the end of January was an overspend of £1.3m, largely as a result of unfunded pay awards and inflationary pressures.

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 ICT Plan for Member consideration and introduced Jack Johnson, Interim Head of ICT who was covering the post due to long-term sickness and who had prepared the report. 

The ICT Plan supported the Data and Digital Strategy.  It set out the programme of investment, which underpinned the business strategies that formed the Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) 2022-27.

Data and Digital information were essential for Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) to improve fire response, prevention and protection services to the public given a huge amount of activity was dependent on effective use of data and information.  It was acknowledged that best practice guidelines from central Government, together with other partner agency collaborations, would be considered wherever possible. The Service would also look to align itself with established and accepted best practices and working patterns from across the technology sector.

Key objectives set within the ICT Plan aimed to support the creation of a positive, inclusive culture that encouraged innovation and continuous improvement. Achieving the right culture enabled the delivery of the best services and supported LFRS to be an outstanding fire and rescue service for our communities and visitors.

The ICT Plan focussed on ensuring that the workforce: i) could make effective use of technology to communicate, safely store and share information; ii) could work effectively from anywhere using the most appropriate device for their role, intrinsically increasing efficiency; iii) had easy access to data and intelligence relevant to their role and that the information was current to help increase safety and reduce risk; iv) was digitally engaged in the organisation and champion a digital first culture; and v) technology solutions were secure, but still allowed the workforce to work effectively and efficiently.

The report contained a glossary of technical terms and acronyms to support understanding.  Key elements of the ICT Plan were:

·         Service Support kept operations running smoothly as well as taking ICT service requests via the Helpdesk; 

·         Ongoing partnership work with the Prince’s Trust was through the delivery of WiFi, printing, iPads, projectors, and computers/monitors for all Prince’s Trust students;

·         Network Connectivity provided a robust and reliable network infrastructure that connected services across fire stations essential for effective and efficient service delivery.  Network links connected the Service’s 39 stations to central data centres located at Headquarters, North West Fire Control, Service Training Centre, Lancashire County Council for collaboration and delivery of the service’s financial systems and to the Internet.

·         Storage to protect data from unauthorised access, modification, or deletion.

·         Virtualisation - The strategic direction across UK Government was now ‘Digital by Default, Cloud First’ which required public sector organisations to consider and fully evaluate cloud solutions first before considering other options.  The term ‘virtualisation’ meant that software was used to create an abstraction layer over computer hardware which allowed the hardware elements of a single computer processor, memory, storage and more to be divided into multiple virtual computers, commonly called virtual machines each running its  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44/22

The Director of People and Development presented the report which provided an update on the Lancashire Fire Local Pension Board for the period 1 April 2021 ? 31 March 2023. 

Members noted that the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 introduced the requirement to have a Local Pension Board to assist in the governance of the Scheme. The Board had no remit as a decision-making body but was established to assist the Scheme Manager to fulfil functions which covered all aspects of governance and administration of the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme.   The Authority was the Pension Scheme Manager and this responsibility had been delegated to the Director of People and Development.  The Board’s Terms of Reference required that it met approximately twice a year and the Chair of the Board could call additional meetings as required. It was noted that there were two meetings held per year during the period as planned.

Membership

Three new members were appointed to the Board during the year 2021-22, a Chair, one employer and one employee representative.  All changes were carried out in accordance with the Board’s Terms of Reference.  There were no further changes to the Board membership in 2022-23.

Work Programme during 2021/22

During the period 2021/23, the hard work and commitment of everyone who had contributed to the work activities involved in fire pensions, meant that key activities continued to be delivered and projects progressed. The focus had been on the following 3 major projects: i) the implementation and backdating of pensionable allowances within LFRS e.g., Day Crewing Plus Allowance; ii) the Sargeant/McCloud judgement relating to age discrimination; and iii) Matthews’s judgement affecting on-call members commonly referred to as the ‘Second Options Exercise’.

The implementation of pensionable allowances within LFRS commenced in June 2020 when certain allowances were deemed pensionable for future payments.  Around April 2021 significant and complex work commenced on arrangements for backdating contributions for existing and former employees.  Knowledge and capacity to undertake this project was initially sought via two existing members of the Human Resources Team.  However, in September 2021 a Temporary Pensions Coordinator was appointed to assist with this workload. Over 350 individual calculations were undertaken to ensure employee pension contributions for the whole of the backdating period (1/6/2015 – 31/5/2020) were corrected, with repayment arrangements put into place where appropriate.  In addition, LFRS worked with its pension administrators, the Local Pensions Partnership (LPPA) to ensure backdated pension payments to retired members.  In March 2022, a Temporary Pensions Advisor was also appointed, with a focus on delivering the requirements of the Sergeant/McCloud and Matthews cases.  Although complex, Officers worked with key stakeholders to gain understanding and establish the workloads involved, to successfully process the relevant pensions once the regulations are in place. Significant work had already taken place and was continuing. The Board had received and considered update reports at key project milestones.

The Board had also been informed about a number of complex cases which had been dealt with over this period, including through the Internal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45/22

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 12 July 2023 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are:    scheduled for 27 September 2023 and 29 November 2023

                                           proposed for  27 March 2024

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Wednesday, 12 July 2023 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were noted for 27 September 2023 and 29 November 2023 and agreed for 27 March 2024.

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.

(Paragraphs 4 and 5)

(Paragraphs 4 and 5)

Members considered a report that provided an update on the various issues which had arisen in respect of the changes to the pension schemes applying to the uniformed members of the Fire Sector.

Resolved: that the report be noted.

(Paragraphs 1, 4 and 5)

(Paragraphs 1, 4 and 5)

Members considered a report regarding an IDRP Stage 2 application under the Internal Disputes Resolution Procedure.  The report outlined the facts of the case.

Resolved: That the Committee declined the application presented.

(Paragraph 3)

(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.