Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor J Hugo, and County Councillors A Blake, M Clifford, G Mirfin, and M Ritson.

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 03 December 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer (ACFO) presented a comprehensive report to the Performance Committee. This was the 3rd quarterly report for 2025/26 as detailed in the Community Risk Management Plan 2022-2027.

In quarter 3, two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), 1.2.3 Staff Absence Greenbook, and 2.9 Business Fire Safety Checks were shown in positive exception and one KPI was shown in negative exception, 1.2.1 Staff Wholetime Absence Wholetime (WT).

Members examined each indicator in turn focusing on those KPIs in exception as follows:

KPI 1 – Valuing our people so that they can focus on making Lancashire safer

1.1  Overall Staff Engagement

Members received an update on how staff were engaged during the period.

From October to December 2025, 27 station visits were carried out by Principal Officers and Area Managers as part of the service-wide engagement programme.

Forty-seven wellbeing interactions were undertaken ranging from workshops with crews to wellbeing support dog interactions.

In November, the Service held its annual Celebration of our People event to recognise dedication and achievements across the organisation. More than 50 people were honoured with Long Service Good Conduct Awards, Star Awards, Chief Fire Officer’s Commendations, Bravery Awards, Academic Achievements and Humanitarian Medals. One Hundred and thirty-six submissions were received from members of staff nominating their colleagues for a Star Award.

Engagement took place with operational staff regarding several improvements to Tarleton, Preston, and Fulwood fire stations and a staff poll was conducted to ascertain interest levels in a salary sacrifice scheme.

The Service’s new Modern Ways of Working Forum was launched and promoted which encouraged staff across the Service to submit ideas for smarter ways of working using technology that would lead to improvements in efficiency and productivity.

A new regular Watch Managers’ Forum was also established to keep wholetime and functional watch managers informed of what was happening in service delivery and give them the opportunity to share feedback and be involved in changes.

The latest staff survey was launched on 2 July 2025 and ran for eight and a half weeks until 29 August 2025. An independent research service coordinated the survey. It was delivered online and via paper copies which were sent to all stations.

The survey was supported by 51 visits to on-call and wholetime crews on station by the Communications Team. Three focus groups with on-call staff, wholetime supervisory managers, and support staff were also held to gain qualitative feedback to complement the survey data. In total, 511 responses to the survey were received (equating to 44% of staff).

The responses reflected good representation across different roles, ranks, and geographical areas of the Service.

The engagement index was calculated based on five questions that measured pride, advocacy, attachment, inspiration, and motivation; factors that were understood to be important features shared by staff who were engaged with the organisation.

For each respondent, an engagement score was calculated as the average score across the five questions, where strongly disagree was equivalent to 0, disagree was equivalent to 25, neither agree nor disagree  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4-25/26

The paper supported the presentation to the Committee and provided an overview of lithium battery-related Accidental Dwelling Fires (ADFs) in Lancashire, including scale, trends, product types, locations, casualty impact, and the implications for prevention and risk management activity.

Area Manager, Matt Hamer informed Members that the increasing prevalence of consumer products powered by lithium-ion batteries presented an emerging and distinct fire risk within domestic settings. Those products were widely used, frequently charged within living spaces, and were often associated with poor charging practices, battery degradation, or non-compliant devices. The presentation summarised Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s (LFRS) analysis of lithium battery-related ADFs using enhances incident recording and retrospective data interrogation.

A custom incident recording question set was introduced into the Incident Recording System (IRS) in June 2023 to improve identification of lithium battery-related fires. To ensure earlier incidents were captured, keyword searches of free-text fields were also applied, recognising that many lithium-powered products were described inconsistently (e.g. vapes, e-cigarettes, electronic cigarettes). The combined approach strengthened confidence that lithium battery-related incidents were being consistently identified across the dataset.

Over the most recent three-year period, LFRS attended 93 lithium battery-related accidental dwelling fires. Incident levels had remained broadly static, averaging 31 incidents per year. During the same period, LFRS attended 2,123 accidental dwelling fires in total, meaning lithium battery-related fires accounted for 4.4% of all ADFs.

In 58% of incidents (54 fires), the product involved was recorded generically as lithium-ion batteries, reflecting limitations in the information available at incident level. Other identified product types included:

-        E-Bikes,

-        E-Scooters,

-        E-appliance chargers,

-        E-cigarette and similar devices,

-        Portable electronic equipment.

This indicated risk across a wide range of consumer products, not limited to any single category.

The most common locations for fire ignition were:

-        Bedrooms – 23.7% (22 incidents),

-        Living rooms – 19.4% (18 incidents),

-        Kitchens – 16.1% (15 incidents).

These findings demonstrated that lithium battery fires most frequently originated in occupied living and sleeping areas which increased the potential for life risk.

In terms of Geographic Distribution, the three highest incident districts together accounted for 45.2% of all lithium battery-related ADFs.

There were 13 recorded casualties from 8 incidents:

-        61.5% (8) resulted in slight injuries,

-        23.1% (3) resulted in serious injuries,

-        15.4% (2) resulted in fatalities.

Although the overall number of incidents was relatively modest, the proportion of serious injury and fatal outcomes indicated that lithium battery fires could have severe consequences, particularly when fires developed rapidly in domestic settings.

Analysis highlighted several important risk characteristics:

-        Lithium battery fires were consistently occurring year-on-year rather than emerging as a short-term spike.

-        Incidents predominantly occurred in habitable rooms, increasing life risk.

-        A wide range of everyday consumer products were involved, many of which were used and charged without formal safety oversight.

The findings reinforced the importance of:

-        Targeted public safety messaging on safe charging, storage, and disposal of lithium battery products,

-        Integration of lithium battery risk into home fire safety check  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5-25/26

The report supported the presentation to Performance Committee and provided an overview of Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s (LFRS) risk-based approach to managing the risk in Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), including the scale of the risk, recent fire and enforcement data, emerging pressures, and the collaborative arrangements in place with Local Housing Authorities.

Area Manager, Matt Hamer informed Members that HMOs represented a complex area of risk due to high occupancy levels, shared facilities, and often, the vulnerability of residents. While Local Housing Authorities (LHAs) were the lead regulator for most HMOs, LFRS retained responsibility under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for higher-risk and more complex premises, including taller buildings and mixed-use accommodation.

Lancashire had over 68,000 regulated premises, with HMOs forming a significant and growing component of residential risk. The current three-year Risk Based Inspection Programme (RBIP) identified 5,085 high and very high-risk premises. A fully established Protection establishment (Level 4 competent staff) provided capacity for up to 3,000 audits per year. To maintain a three-year intervention cycle, the Service aimed to complete 1,500 high-risk audits per annum, prioritising premises that presented the greatest life risk.

A HMO was defined as a property occupied by three or more tenants forming more than one household, sharing basic facilities. Larger HMOs were those with five or more tenants. Local Housing Authorities were the lead regulator for most HMOs, including licensed and unlicensed properties. LFRS acted as the enforcing authority for higher-risk premises, such as:

-        HMOs within mixed-use buildings,

-        Taller and more complex residential layouts,

-        Hostels, hotels, and accommodation managed by local authorities.

The dual-regulatory framework required strong coordination to ensure that risk was effectively managed without duplication.

Local authority data indicated several hundred known HMOs across Lancashire, with the majority being below three storeys, but a smaller number of 3-6 storey HMOs that presented elevated risk. Between 2021 and 2025, LFRS attended 125 primary fires in HMOs:

-        63% occurred in licensed HMOs,

-        33% where licensing status was unknown,

-        4% in known unlicensed HMOs.

Since 2021, LFRS had undertaken significant regulatory activity within HMOs, including audits, enforcement notices, alterations, and prohibitions. Enforcement action had been used proportionately to address serious deficiencies and manage risk where compliance could not be achieved through advice or informal measures.

Emerging risk pressures were:

-        Rapid growth in small (3-4 person) HMOs that fell outside licensing schemes, reducing visibility and oversight.

-        Increased investor ownership, often by individuals based outside the area, making engagement and compliance more challenging.

-        Growing use of HMOs as supported accommodation, housing residents with increased vulnerability, which elevated life risk and complexity.

LFRS worked closely with all Lancashire Local Housing Authorities through:

-        A formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU),

-        Selective licensing and joint initiatives targeting higher-risk HMOs and rogue landlords.

-        Information sharing and coordinated enforcement activity,

-        Attendance at pan-Lancashire housing leads forum,

-        Continual safeguarding and signposting through prevention pathways (e.g. Home Fire Safety Check (HFSC) / Business Fire Safety  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6-25/26

The report as the same as that reported to the Performance Committee in December and summarised special service incidents related to flooding incidents recorded by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS), between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2025. The Analysis covered flooding due to surface water, rising river levels, high tide, or reservoir, and the recorded causes (heavy rainfall, obstruction/blockage, structural failure). Incidents involving burst pipes etc., were excluded. Fiscal years were used to align with seasonal effects and included the most recent 2025 data.

Area Manager, Phil Jones explained that there had been 881 flood related incidents over the ten-year period. Activity peaked in 2015/16 due to storm Desmond and Eva, both of which occurred in December 2015, with activity generally trending downward since then. The most recent year recorded 67 incidents, equating to 74.1% fewer incidents than the 259 recorded in 2015/16, and 31.5% fewer incidents than the ten-year average.

Over the first half of the analysis period, activity typically followed an alternating peak and through pattern, however, activity over the most recent 2 years had been static.

Overall, the winter months accounted for 41.7%, autumn 31.1%, summer 24.1%, with the lowest activity months being the spring season at 3.2%. However, incidents occurred most frequently in the individual months of December (26.1%) and November (18.8%), which combined, accounted for 44.9% of activity.

Whilst the source of a flooding incident may have been due to surface water for example, the actual cause of the incident could be due to an event such as heavy rainfall, obstruction or blockage, or structural failure. For instance, the large-scale flooding seen in the village of St Michaels on Wyre during Storm Desmond in December 2015 was due to rising river levels and a structural failure i.e. embankment. Structural failure was a relatively rare event and accounted for just 1.1% of the 881 incidents. Overall, heavy rainfall accounted for 90.60% of the causes, with an obstruction or blockage accounting for just 7.5%. An obstruction or blockage could be caused by drainage issues (blocked roadside drains, culvert etc).

Over the last 10-year period, Lancaster district accounted for the largest number of flooding incidents, recording 190 (21.6% of the total). This was quite distantly followed by West Lancashire with 90 (10.2%) and 87 occurring in Wyre (9.9%). The top four districts Lancaster, West Lancashire, Wyre, and Rossendale accounted for almost 50% of the incidents. Lancaster districts accounted for the largest amount of surface water, rising river levels, and high tide incidents. The high tide incidents were mainly around the Glasson Docks area. There were five reservoir incidents within Chorley district which were from the area north of Anglezarke reservoir.

There were large variations of activity with each district between the years. Lancaster recorded almost 50% (93 incidents) of its activity in 2015/16, with another peak in 2017/18 accounting for an additional 32%. All districts but three had a decreasing trend, with only Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley, and Fylde recording a small increasing trend. During  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7-25/26

The report and the attached six-month evaluation of Dynamic Resource Management (DRM) focused on its application, frequency, and effects across operational and financial areas. Also provided, was a review of the impact of DRM on response standards, availability, prevention and prevention activities, and impacts on mobilisations. Members were provided with assurance that the DRM had provided the required efficiency savings whilst maintaining excellent operational response performance within the standards set by the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) over the first six months of implementation.

Area Manager, Tom Powell informed Members that Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) had robust systems in place to monitor, manage, and dynamically deploy fire engines and firefighters to respond to emergencies across Lancashire. There were 58 fire engines and a number of specialist appliances in the county, however some were often unavailable due to many reasons: ongoing incidents; training; maintenance, leave or sickness absence; unavailability of on-call staff; and other operational reasons.

Dynamic resource management had introduced smarter and more efficient deployment of firefighters based on county-wide risk and was used for advance planning. There were 39 fire stations across Lancashire: 22 of these had at least one wholetime crewed fire engine and 17 had at least one on-call fire engine. Additional wholetime, day-crewed or on-call fire engines were also available at some of those stations which meant they had two fire engines.

There were four fire stations with two wholetime crewed fire engines in the county: Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and Preston. All four also had other fire stations close by, with additional fire engines ready to respond. Previous policy was that when one of the two fire engines at the four stations with two wholetime engines was unavailable due to training or maintenance, it was not replaced or backfilled. However, if one was unavailable due to a crewing shortage (for example, due to leave or sickness) it was kept available by bringing in firefighters from other stations (this was called detached duties), or on overtime once detached duty options had been exhausted.

On 1 July 2025, the Service changed this approach to ensure sufficient resources were available to cover all risk areas across the county, using the latest technology and data. This provides the most effective and efficient use of resources for all communities across Lancashire. On some occasions, this also reduces costs through overtime requirements. For example, firefighters at the four stations which had two wholetime fire engines could be detached, making the second engine temporarily unavailable, to maintain availability of a first fire engine somewhere else in the county. This was a methodical and strategic decision that ensure that the Service maintained a balanced, risk-based level of fire cover across the whole of Lancashire.

Before detaching firefighters from a station with two fire engines and making one temporarily unavailable, the first fire engine must be available as well as other fire engines in the area. The Service ensured a fire engine was available at every wholetime station in the county as a minimum.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8-25/26

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 08 July 2026 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are:          scheduled for 15 September 2026

                                                proposed for 09 December 2026

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on 08 July 2026 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were noted for 15 September 2026 and agreed for 09 December 2026.