Agenda item

The concept of Member Champions was introduced in December 2007.  A review of the areas of focus for member Champions was considered at the Authority meeting held in June 2017 where new areas of responsibility were discussed and agreed as follows: -

·        Community Safety – CC Mark Perks;

·        Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – Cllr Zamir Khan;

·        Health and Wellbeing – CC Tony Martin;

·        Road Safety – Cllr Fred Jackson.

Reports relating to the activity of the Member Champions were provided on a quarterly basis to the Authority.  This report related to activity for the period up to June 2018.  During this period all had undertaken their respective role in accordance with the defined terms of reference.

Community Safety

County Councillor Mark Perks had been visiting various community safety teams based at fire stations across the county to discuss their work and join them on home visits to see how each team acted on requests made to the Service.  These covered a wide range of requests from partner organisations, charities such as Alzheimer’s Society and the Stroke Association and borough councils etc.  CC Perks was impressed with the way the visits were undertaken by officers who took great pride and professionalism in their work in a very sensitive empathic approach.  CC Perks thanked staff on behalf of the Authority for their hard work and he was looking forward to continuing his visits to further stations.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Councillor Zamir Khan supported Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service (LFRS) who had joined the Stonewall Diversity Champions Programme.  Members of staff had attended Lancaster Pride in May, Blackpool in June, and Manchester in August and were also due to attend Preston in September.  A review of LFRS Human Resources policies has been completed to ensure compliance from an LGBT perspective and LFRS was currently exploring options in relation to simple visual symbols to support the LGBT community.

Guidance and information for employees and line managers had been developed to support those applying to join the Service, or who currently worked for LFRS who had dyslexia. 

County Councillor Hennessy informed Members that she had recently attended the Local Government Association Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) meeting where, with the Chairman’s approval and on behalf of Councillor Khan she had offered our facilities to hold a regional event to promote (ED&I) at the Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Training Centre.  Members from North West Fire Authorities would be invited to attend the event.

Health and Wellbeing

On the 10th September County Councillor Tony Martin supported an event at the Service Training Centre for Suicide Prevention Day. The event was held to raise awareness of mental health issues and suicide which was attended by staff who support colleagues at work. The event included presentations from:

·        MIND Matters who delivered a session on signs and symptoms and awareness of mental health issues; and

·        PTSD999 who are a charity based in the UK that supports all members of the emergency services, both serving and retired, family and friends in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Contaminants at Fires

It was noted that a project had commenced to look at the effects of contaminants at fires on firefighter’s health and how risks can be mitigated. Early work had commenced at the Service Training Centre to reduce contamination at the design stage.  The design was to be amended to improve the workflow of managing dirty Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Breathing Apparatus (BA) sets to provide dedicated areas to separate clean PPE/BA from those used during training activities.  Another benefit of these changes would be to eliminate the storage of BA sets and cylinders within the BA school classrooms, further reducing staff exposure to ‘dirty’ equipment.

RESOLVED: - That the Authority noted the report and acknowledged the work of the respective Champions.