Agenda item

The Chief Fire Officer presented a report that explained the relationship of mutual benefit that existed between the Firefighters Charity and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS).

The Fire Fighters Charity, previously called the Fire Brigades National Benevolent Fund, had been in existence since 1943, with Her Majesty the Queen being Royal patron since 1953.  It was the UK’s leading provider of services that enhanced quality of life for serving and retired fire service personnel and their families.  Its services started with a dedicated free helpline, but most of the support provide was through three centres in Cumbria, Devon and West Sussex.  These provided a range of support programmes including physical rehabilitation, together with recuperative and nursing care.  They also supported emotional recuperation, which was designed to help those who had suffered injury, illness, stress or bereavement.  The Charity had more recently moved into supporting mental health issues, often these were inherent in trauma injuries. 

Although staff used all three centres, Jubilee House near Penrith was the most in demand.  It was run by a dedicated team of professionals able to cater for a diverse range of needs with intensive physiotherapy often being a key component of any recovery plan.  These residential programmes had now moved to seven day working with a variety of duration tailored to individual need.  Although it was the individual employee who requested support from the Charity, it was considered by Occupational Health as an additional tool to aid recovery and support early return to work.  Significant numbers of staff benefitted from the services of the Charity.  Their residential interventions assisted with early return to full duties, with the vast majority of these requiring the more intensive therapy programmes.

It was difficult to quantify the benefit this brought to the individuals or LFRS but the continued strong performance on relatively low rates of absence, despite what was challenging times, were testimony to the fact that the current approach worked.

There was no cost to LFRS for the Charity’s services and only a nominal cost to the individual on some occasions.  The Charity received no regular government funding.  It had, however, benefitted from the charitable distribution of fines levied due to fixing of LIBOR rates in the City.  The Charity was dependent on donations from the fire community and members of the public.  Currently, the main ways of fundraising were through ‘regular giving’ deducted from wages, a Charity lottery and fundraising events, the most pronounced of which were the car washes that took place in March and September each year.  Support for all Charity activities was purely on a volunteering basis with individuals using their own time, which was the same arrangement as all other charities.

Given the benefit the Charity provided to the Service there was some discretion regarding the involvement of on duty staff in fundraising activities, particularly when these were combined with a fire safety message or, for example, the offer of a Home Fire Safety Check or checking the safety of vehicle tyres during car washes.

In addition to car washes there were other annual fundraisers, for example the Burnley and Chorley 10k runs, a Fireworks display and fundraisers organised by recruits and UCLan students at the Service Training Centre.  These events did much to enhance the reputation of LFRS as a more outward looking, altruistic service, volunteering to support charitable causes.  Monies raised were sometimes split 50:50 with local charities.  It was important that we supported and promoted such activities that were an important tool in raising morale.

More recently, following the fire at Grenfell Tower, the Fire Fighters Charity provided emotional support in the form of mental health programmes to personnel requesting it.  Some of these were arranged so that whole watches could attend together.  This level of support and capacity could not be overestimated.  It was similar to having a health insurance policy you hoped to never had to use.

The Fire Fighters Charity had also been used by the Service to incentivise responses to the most recent staff survey. After having low levels of returns to previous initiatives, it was hoped that the Service offering to donate £1 for every completed survey would  increase submissions and give the Service a clearer picture of the views of its staff.

The efforts and commitment of LFRS was recognised by the Charity. LFRS was highly regarded for its commitment to the Fire Fighters Charity.  In the last national Spirit of Fire Awards held in 2015 Lancashire was one of three Fire and Rescue Services to be nominated as Service of the Year.  Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful on that occasion.  The national awards have been reintroduced this year and LFRS had again been nominated in the Service of the Year Category.  We also had two further nominations. 

RESOLVED: - That the Authority noted the report an endorsed the current approach.