Agenda item

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised Members that this was the 3rd quarterly report for 2018/19 as detailed in the Risk Management Plan 2017-2022.  The report showed there were 6 negative KPI Exception Reports. An exception report was provided which detailed the reasons for the exception, analysis of the issue and actions being taken to improve performance. 

 

Members focussed on the indicators where an exception report was presented and examined each indicator in turn as follows:-

 

1.3      Accidental Dwelling Fires

 

This indicator reported the number of primary fires where a dwelling had been affected and the cause of the fire had been recorded as 'Accidental' or 'Not known'.

 

Quarter 3 activity 226, previous year quarter 3 activity 264, a decrease of 15%.

 

Total number of Accidental Dwelling Fires – Year to Date, 632.

 

This was a negative exception report due to Accidental Dwelling Fires (ADF’s) having a single point in December above the upper control limit.

 

It was noted that December was always a challenging month for the Service, a recording of 105 ADF’s against a limit of 98.  The months of October and November both recorded below average activity levels.  However, encouragingly, the cumulative number of incidents to date was the lowest over the previous 10 years at 632.  This was 10% fewer than the same position last year and 31% than 10 years ago. 

 

In response to a question raised by the Chairman, County Councillor Holgate, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed that the main cause of ADF’s during the month of December was seasonal which related to cooking incidents and people heating their homes.  In terms of actions being taken by the Service in relation to cooking and fires the Winter Safety campaign, ‘Keep it clean, keep it clear’ was continuing and Community Fire Safety teams had shared campaign leaflets and promotional material with Partner agencies to highlight best practice and offer of Home Fire Safety Checks to those most vulnerable.  This had proved to be a successful campaign across Lancashire.

 

In addition, there was a significant amount of work which continued to take place which includes: safety initiatives and collaboration with partners continued around the county with: Student Safe, Dementia cafes and work with Community groups which were all ongoing during the Winter period.

 

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Perks, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer reported that primarily cooking related incidents were the largest proportion of incidents.  In addition, the problematic groups were discussed and it was confirmed that the Service continued to target and raise awareness within those vulnerable groups.

 

In response to a question raised by Councillor Dave Smith, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed that the majority of the incidents were reported during the festival period and towards the end of December.

 

2.1.1   Emergency Response Standards - Critical Fires – 1st Fire Engine Attendance

 

This indicator reported the ‘Time of Call’ (TOC) and ‘Time in Attendance’ (TIA) of the first fire engine arriving at the incident in less than the relevant response standard.

 

The response standards included call handling and fire engine response time for the first fire engine attending a critical fire, these were as follows:-

 

·        Very high risk area = 6 minutes

·        High risk area = 8 minutes

·        Medium risk area = 10 minutes

·        Low risk area = 12 minutes

 

The response standards were determined by the risk map score and subsequent risk grade for the location of the fire.

 

Standard: to be in attendance within response standard target on 90% of occasions.

 

Quarter 3 – 1st pump response 85.38%, previous year quarter 3 was 87.47%

 

This was a negative exception report due to critical fire 1st pump response being below the standard. Overall, quarter 3 pass rate was 84.67%, which was outside of the 90% standard and 2% tolerance.

 

Members noted that over 50% of the critical fire incidents during December were to residential dwelling buildings.  This coincided with December recording the second largest number of critical fire incidents over the last 12 months and due to the nature of such incidents, in respect of the time spent at the scene and the pre-determined attendance was for 2 pumps, contributed to fewer resources being available during a busy month.

 

This correlated with the narratives received from the officer in charge (OIC) where analysis of quarter 3 indicated that the ‘Extended travel distances to incident’, which accounted for 40% of returns, was the main reason for missed attendance times.

 

It was reported that the reduced performance in quarter 3 could not be accounted for by policy decisions or actions which affected call handling or crew reaction times and so were more likely to be accounted for in the phase when appliances were driving to incidents.

 

In terms of actions being taken,  Service Delivery Managers (SDM) would continue to monitor Wholetime (WT) crew reaction times, instigating local improvements where required and highlight the importance of ensuring the appliance had been booked in to attendance upon arrival.  In addition, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that the Service had considered a technology solution which would auto recognise a fire appliance in attendance during an incident as the Service was still experiencing a number of incidents where the OIC had failed to press the button to book the fire appliance at an incident. However, due to competing priorities at North West Fire Control (NWFC) to improve mobilising the implementation of this technology would be some time away.

 

AM Morgan reassured Members that during meetings with their management team they continued to recognise the importance of ensuring the fire appliance had been booked in attendance upon arrival at incidents and work was continuing to improve this issue.

 

AM Charters advised that during adverse weather and different environmental conditions the Service drivers would drive differently to incidents which could slightly affect their attendance times.

 

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that the Home Office had released a report which ranked the 45 Fire Rescue Service’s in England by the fastest response times.   Lancashire had continued to hold its performance and was ranked 7th across all incident types.  It was noted that the Home Office report would be presented to a future Performance Committee.

 

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Tomlinson with regards to the standard figures, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed that he would be working with the 2 Heads of Service Delivery to look at the standards the Service employed across all our KPI’s and also to challenge the Service in terms of how we would present the future reports which would provide the Service with a performance framework that was fit for purpose and achievable to take us through the next 2 to 3 years.  Any changes would be presented to the Planning Committee with the prior approval of the Chairman of the Performance Committee.

 

In response to a query raised by County Councillor Clarke, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer reassured Members that the risk areas (very high, high, medium and low) were not set nationally.   He explained that every fire authority across the country set its own emergency response standards. It was reported that Lancashire had generally set the most challenging emergency response times by any fire authority in the country. 

 

In addition, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer confirmed to Members that the Service had been credited by Her Majesty’s Inspector’s  for implementing risk based standards and they had recognised that it was very difficult to compare 1 Service with another Service without reverting back to national standards.

 

2.1.2   Critical Fire Response – 2^nd Fire Engine Attendance

 

This indicator reported the time taken for the second fire engine to attend a critical fire incident measured from the time between the second fire engine arriving and the time it was sent to the incident. The target is determined by the risk map score and subsequent risk grade for the location of the fire.

 

Standard: to be in attendance within response standard target on 85% of occasions.

 

Quarter 3 – 2^nd pump response 80.98%, previous year quarter 3 was 86.92%

 

This was a negative exception report due to critical fire 2^nd pump response being below the standard.  Overall, the cumulative quarter 3 pass rate was 82.49%, which was outside the 85% standard and 2% tolerance.

 

The findings highlighted in the 1st pump critical fires were mirrored here for the 2^nd pump, with 37% of the critical fire responses during December being to residential dwelling buildings. This coincided with December recording the second largest number of critical fire incidents over the last 12 months and due to the nature of such incidents, in respect of the time spent at scene and the pre-determined attendance was for 2 pumps, contributed to fewer resources being available during a busy month.

 

This correlated with the narratives received from the officer in charge (OIC) where analysis of quarter 3 narratives indicated that the ‘Extended travel distances to incident’, which accounted for 30% of returns, was the main reason for missed attendance times.

 

2.3       Fire Engine Availability – Wholetime, Day Crewing and Day Crewing Plus

 

This indicator measured the availability of fire engines that were crewed by Wholetime, day crewing and day crewing plus shifts. It was measured as the percentage of time a fire engine was available to respond compared to the total time in the period.

 

Fire engines were designated as unavailable for the following reasons:

 

•      Mechanical	•      Lack of equipment
•      Crew deficient	•      Miscellaneous
•      Engineer working on station	•      Unavailable
•      Appliance change over	•      Welfare
•      Debrief

 

Annual Standard: Above 99.5%

 

Quarter 3 availability 99.39%, previous year quarter 3 - 99.48%

 

This was a negative exception report due to the cumulative Wholetime (WT), day Crewed (DC) and Day Crewing Plus (DCP) availability to the end of quarter 3 being below the 99.5% standard.

 

It was noted that this KPI was measured cumulatively, as such; the effect of the protracted Winter Hill incident during late June until early August was continuing to affect the standard recorded to the end of December 2018.  The decrease in availability started in June, being most pronounced in July and then improving in August.  Availability returned to above standard in September, with the months of October, November and December all being above the 99.5% standard.  If this trend continued then it was expected that this KPI would be moved out of exception before the end of quarter 4.

 

As the decrease in availability appeared to have been related to the Winter Hill incident this KPI now appeared to have returned to normal levels. 

 

This KPI would continue to be monitored and the newly implemented off the run recording practices by North West Fire Control would be included in the reporting process when available.

 

2.4       Fire Engine Availability – Retained Duty System

 

This indicator measured the availability of fire engines that were crewed by the retained duty system. It was measured as the percentage of time a fire engine was available to respond compared to the total time in the period.

 

The percentage of time that RDS crewed engines were available for quarter 3 was 89.46%, an increase of 4.57% over the previous quarters 84.89%.  The cumulative availability to the end of quarter 3 was 87.67% against the previous quarter cumulative (April to September 2018) at 86.89%.

 

Annual Standard: Above 95%.

 

This was a negative exception report due to the cumulative RDS availability to the end of quarter 3 being below the standard and outside of the 2% percent tolerance.

Quarter 3 recorded an improvement over both quarter 1 and quarter 2, with November recording the highest RDS availability of the year to date, at 90.74%, the highest overall percentage since February 2018. Quarter 3 also recorded the same availability as quarter 3 of the previous year.

 

Local level monitoring continued with additional analysis at pump level showing that just 6 stations continued to account for the largest proportion of off the run hours, with these stations accounting for 52% of the total for the quarter.

 

The amount of RDS stations that were in exception had dropped from 12 to 9 in this quarter, increasing availability and reducing the need for exception reporting.   In addition, 2 RDS initial Breathing Apparatus (BA) courses were scheduled and fully crewed for spring resulting in newly BA qualified staff throughout the RDS service.

 

The appointment of a new Southern Retained Support Officer (RSO), who had taken up his post, was already having a positive effect on the Southern RDS stations.  Dual contract staff within LFRS had increased again this quarter. The positives a dual contract member of staff could bring to an RDS station could be immense, benefits included: knowledge of IT systems, operational experience, mentoring and increasing WT understanding of RDS units.

 

This quarter, 6 of our RDS stations had all seen availability rises of 10% or more since the last quarter, while some of this could be attributed to holiday periods a strong recruitment campaign should start to show rewards.

 

December reported that 4 RDS stations attained 100% availability, a number of which demonstrated the advantages of having increased numbers of crews on relatively low contract hours against the historical RDS model of low numbered crews on high contracted hours.

 

This model gave resilience to the unit, lessoning issues of sickness and annual leave; it made drill pre planning and Safe to Command development easier and gave the crew family/work/on-call flexibility.

 

In terms of actions being taken to improve performance AM Morgan recommended that for stations running below their optimum establishment of contracted hours the Service would focus on recruitment, look at existing contract alignment and ensure staff were fulfilling existing contracts.

 

Ongoing issues with stations which lacked drivers and Officers in Charge (OIC) should diminish over time as the recruitment of new crew members developed and gained driving and safe to command skills. Current RDS staff were being looked at service wide to assess future OIC/driver upskilling.

 

Local action plans for Stations with availability of less than 85% were continuing to be produced in conjunction with Station District Managers, Unit Managers and Retained Support Officers to tailor the support required to each unit.

 

In addition to the above recommendations, further input from the Retained Support Officer (RSO) role had seen great strides in firefighter/officer development, and the greatest numbers of recruits applying to join the RDS ever seen. As these changes took effect over the course of the next 12 months it was predicted that availability would subsequently increase.

 

In addition, AM Charters reported that alongside recruitment the Service continued to focus on the retention of staff which continued to remain a challenging issue for the Service.  It was reported that over the last 2 years there had been a turnover of 50% new RDS entrants who had terminated their contract due to changes with their primarily employer, location and family circumstances.  However, Members were reassured that the Service had invested in additional RSO’s who would continue to support staff at each unit.

 

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that at the recent LGA Fire Conference the Lead HMICFRS had indicated they were shaping up the key theme areas for the next round of inspections and it looked like we would be inspected again in 2020.  One area of focus was RDS availability.  To put our performance into context, our standard was above 95% availability when compared against the national picture that had really poor availability; we would be the top or very near top performer across the country.

 

In response to a query raised by County Councillor Beavers, AM Charters confirmed that over recent years the Service had tried to move away from 160 hours over 7 days per week to much more realistic reduced contracts which increased our numbers, however this gave the Service challenges in other areas in terms of  development, training and maintaining competencies.

 

2.4.1   Fire Engine Availability – Retained Duty System (without Wholetime detachments)

            Subset of KP1 2.4 and provided for information only

 

This indicator measured the availability of fire engines that were crewed by the retained duty system (RDS) when Wholetime detachments were not used to support availability. It was measured by calculating the percentage of time a fire engine was available to respond compared to the total time in the period.

 

Fire engines were designated as unavailable (off-the-run) for the following reasons:

 

•      Manager deficient

•      Crew deficient

•      Not enough BA wearers

•      No driver

 

The percentage of time that RDS crewed engines were available for quarter 3 was 85.89%.  This excluded the WT detachments shown in KPI 2.4.

 

4.2.1 Staff Absence – Excluding Retained Duty System

 

This indicator measured the cumulative number of shifts (days) lost due to sickness for all Wholetime, day crewing plus, day crewing and support staff divided by the total number of staff.

 

Annual Standard: Not more than 5 shifts lost

Cumulative total number of monthly shifts lost 4.437

Quarter 3 results indicated the number of shifts lost through absence per employee being above the Service target for 3 months during quarter 3.

 

During quarter three October 2018 - December 2018, absence statistics showed above target for all 3 months. Shifts lost showed a monthly increase from October through to December for uniformed personnel, however they still remained under the target for absence. Non-uniformed personnel were considerably above the target over all 3 months. The main reasons were cases of muscular-skeletal and mental health, there were 10 cases of long term absence which spanned over the 3 months and 1 left the Service on ill health retirement.

 

At the end of December the cumulative totals showed that non-uniformed staff absence was above target at 6.1 shifts lost per employee and for whole-time, staff absence was just above target at 3.8 shifts lost per employee. Overall absence for all staff (except Retained Duty System) was 4.4 shifts lost which was above the Service target of 3.75 shifts lost for this quarter.

 

Members noted that action taken continued to be early intervention by the Occupational Health Unit (OHU) and where appropriate, issues around capability due to health issues were reviewed and addressed; the Service would continue to run leadership conferences to assist future managers to understand policy which included absence management; in addition, OHU to organise health checks for individuals on a voluntary basis, new actions had commenced which included support from the Service Fitness Advisors / Personal Trainers Instructors, promotion of health, fitness and wellbeing via the routine bulletin and employees were encouraged to make use of the Employee Assistance Programme provider and The Firefighters Charity.

 

Members then examined each indicator in turn as follows:-

 

KPI 1 – Preventing and Protecting

 

1.1         Risk Map Score

 

This indicator measured the risk level in each neighbourhood (Super Output Area) determined using fire activity over the previous three fiscal years along with a range of demographic data.

 

The County risk map score was updated annually, before the end of the first quarter. An improvement was shown by a year on year decreasing ‘score’ value.

 

Score for 2015-2018 – 32,114, previous year score 32,398.

No exception report required.

 

1.2         Overall Activity

 

This indicator measured the number of incidents that the Service attended with one or more pumping appliances.

 

Quarter 3 activity 4,070, previous year quarter 3 activity 4,162, a decrease of 2.21%.

 

Included within this KPI was the incident type ‘Gaining Entry’. This was where LFRS had attended on behalf of the North West Ambulance Service. During quarter 3 we were asked to attend on 351 occasions, of which 202 resulted in the use of tools to gain entry to a property.

No exception report required.

 

1.3.1   Accidental Dwelling Fires – Extent of Damage

 

This indicator reported the number of primary fires where a dwelling had been affected and the cause of the fire had been recorded as ‘Accidental or Not known’ presented as a percentage extent of fire and heat damage.

 

Extent of fire and heat damage was limited to: Item ignited first, limited to room of origin, limited to floor of origin and spread beyond floor of origin.

 

The ADF activity count was limited to only those ADF’s which had an extent of damage shown above. An improvement was shown if the total percentage of ‘Item first ignited’ and ‘Room of origin’ was greater than the comparable quarter of the previous year.

 

Percentage of accidental dwelling fires limited to item 1st ignited in quarter 3, 26%, quarter 3 of previous year 20%. Percentage limited to room of origin in quarter 3, 61%, quarter 3 previous year 69%, limited to floor of origin in quarter 3, 11%, quarter 3 previous year 5% and spread beyond floor 2%, previous year 6%.

No exception report required.

 

1.3.2   Accidental Dwelling Fires – Number of Incidents where occupants have received a Home Fire Safety Check

 

This indicator reported the number of primary fires where a dwelling had been affected and the cause of fire had been recorded as ‘Accidental or Not known’ by the extent of the fire and heat damage. The HFSC must be a completed job (i.e. not a refusal) carried out by LFRS personnel or partner agency. The HFSC must have been carried out within 12 months prior of the fire occurring.

 

	2018/19		2017/18
	ADF’s with previous HFSC	% of ADF’s with previous HFSC	ADF’s with previous HFSC	% of ADF’s with previous HFSC
Q1	21	10%	15	6%
Q2	17	9%	20	10%
Q3	24	11%	15	6%
Q4			18	8%

 

Of the 24 accidental dwelling fire incidents that had received a HFSC within the previous 12 months, 13 had ‘Heat and smoke damage only’, 4 resulted in damage ‘limited to item first ignited’ and 6 ‘limited to room or origin and 1 incident had damaged ‘Limited to floor of origin’.

No exception report required

 

1.4          Accidental Dwelling Fire Casualties

 

This indicator reported the number of fire related fatalities, slight and serious injuries at primary fires where a dwelling had been affected and the cause of fire had been recorded as ‘Accidental or Not known’. A slight injury was defined as; a person attending hospital as an outpatient (not precautionary check). A serious injury was defined as; at least an overnight stay in hospital as an in-patient.

 

Casualty Status	2018/19 Quarter 3	2017/18 Quarter 3
Fatal	4	0
Victim went to hospital visit, injuries appeared Serious	3	2
Victim went to hospital visit, injuries appeared Slight	10	8
TOTAL	17	10

No exception report required.

 

1.5         Accidental Building Fires (Non-Dwellings)

 

This indicator reported number of primary fires where the property type was ‘Building’ and the property sub type did not equal ‘Dwelling’ and the cause of fire had been recorded as ‘Accidental’ or ‘Not known’.

 

Total number of incidents	2018/19 Quarter 3	2017/18 Quarter 3
	102	90

No exception report required.

 

1.5.1   Accidental Building Fires (Non-Dwellings) – Extent of Damage

 

This indicator reported the number of primary fires where the property type was a building and the property sub-type was not a dwelling and the cause of fire had been recorded as ‘Accidental or Not known’ presented as a percentage extent of fire and heat damage.

 

This indicator showed the total number of Accidental Building Fires where damage was limited to room of origin, limited to floor of origin and spread beyond floor of origin.

The ABF activity count was limited to only those ABF’s which had an extent of damage shown above.

 

An improvement was shown if the total percentage of ‘Item first ignited’ and ‘Room of origin’ was greater than the comparable quarter of the previous year.

 

Quarter 3 Accidental Building Fires activity, 86: -

 

	2018/19					2017/18
	ADF activity	Item 1st ignited	Room of origin	Floor of origin	Spread beyond floor of origin	Item 1st ignited	Room of origin	Floor of origin	Spread beyond floor of origin
Q1	99	3%	32%	14%	51%	18%	30%	13%	39%
Q2	78	13%	26%	18%	44%	31%	34%	12%	23%
Q3	86	22%	33%	15%	30%	21%	42%	15%	22%
Q4						20%	41%	14%	26%

No exception report required.

 

1.6         Deliberate Fires

 

This indicator reported the number of primary and secondary fires where the cause of fire had been recorded as 'Deliberate'.  Secondary fires were the majority of outdoor fires including grassland and refuse fires unless they involved casualties or rescues, property loss or 5 or more appliances attended. They included fires in single derelict buildings.

 

Deliberate Fire Type	2018/19 Quarter 3	2017/18 Quarter 3
1.6.1 Deliberate Fires – Anti-Social Behaviour	410	436
1.6.2 Deliberate Fires – Dwellings	35	27
1.6.3 Deliberate Fires – Non-Dwellings	37	30

No exception report required.

 

1.7       High / Very High Risk Home Fire Safety Checks

 

This indicator reported the percentage of completed Home Fire Safety Checks (HFSC), excluding refusals, carried out where the risk score had been determined to be either high or very high.

 

	2018/19	2017/18
	% of High and Very High HFSC outcomes	% of High and Very High HFSC outcomes
Q1	66%	68%
Q2	67%	72%
Q3	64%	68%
Q4		71%

No exception report required.

 

County Councillor Perks stated that although the figures showed a decline they did not include details to evidence the quality of the visit.  He requested a lot more background information be included and would like to see a footnote in future reports that explained why the numbers had declined and to include more detail on what was involved on the visit such as: how many HFSCs had been undertaken in a high risk super output area; whether it was possible to identify visits to someone suffering from dementia and include the links we had with partners.  The Assistant Chief Fire Officer noted these comments and confirmed that he was currently looking at a refresh of the standards which would need to be agreed by the Planning Committee.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer also added that it would be more comprehensive to include reference to the number of people who self-assessed.

 

1.8       Road Safety Education Evaluation

 

This indicator reported the percentage of participants of the Wasted Lives and RoadSense education packages that showed a positive change to less risky behaviour following the programme; based on comparing the overall responses to an evaluation question before and after the course.

 

The crashed car displays were shown at 29 different events during quarter 3.

 

There were a total of 4,630 participants during quarter 3, with a percentage of positive influence on participants’ behaviour for the current year to date of 85%.

 

	2017/18 (cumulative)		2017/18 (cumulative)
	Total participants	% positive influence on participants’ behaviour	Total participants	% positive influence on participants’ behaviour
Q1	5002	85%	1441	85%
Q2	5893	85%	2259	85%
Q3	10613	85%	3938	85%
Q4			10228	85%

No exception report required.

 

1.9.1   Fire Safety Enforcement – Known Risk

 

This indicator reported on the percentage of premises that have had a Fire Safety Audit as a percentage of the number of all known premises in Lancashire to which The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applied.

 

Number of premises	Number of premises audited to date	% of all premises audited Year end: 2018/19	% of all premises audited Year end: 2017/18
34192	18476	54%	55%

No exception report required.

 

1.9.2   Fire Safety Enforcement – Risk Reduction

 

This indicator reported the percentage of Fire Safety Audits carried out within the period resulting in enforcement action. Enforcement action was defined as one or more of the following: notification of deficiencies, action plan, enforcement notice, alterations notice or prohibition notice.

 

Period	Satisfactory audits 2018/19	Requiring formal activity – 2018/19	Requiring informal activity – 2018/19
Q1	24%	4%	70%
Q2	30%	10%	56%
Q3	25%	7%	60%
Q4

No exception report required.

 

KPI 2 – Responding to Emergencies

 

2.2.1   Critical Special Service – 1^st Fire Engine Attendance

 

This indicator measured how long it took the first fire engine to respond to critical non-fire incidents such as road traffic collisions, rescues and hazardous materials incidents.  For those incidents there was a single response standard which measured call handling time and fire engine response time.  The response standard for the first fire engine attending a critical special call is 13 minutes.

 

Standard: To be met on 90% of occasions

Quarter 3 results 89.50% achieved against a target of 90%, previous year quarter 3, 78.10%.

No exception report required.

 

2.5       Staff Accidents

 

This indicator measured the number of staff accidents.

Total number of staff accidents 2018/19 – Year to Date, 49

Quarter 3 results indicate percentage pass within standard

No exception report required.

 

KPI 3 – Delivering Value for Money

 

3.1       Progress Against Savings Programme

 

Annual budget for 2018/19 - £54.8m

Budget to end of December 2018 as reported to Resources Committee - £40.2m

Spend for the period to date was £40.2m

Overspend for the period £0.0m

Variance 0.00%

No exception report required.

 

3.2 Overall User Satisfaction

 

Total responses 2033; number satisfied 2012

% satisfied 98.97 against a standard of 97.50

Variance 1.50%

 

There had been 2,033 people surveyed since April 2012.

 

In quarter 3 of 2018/19 – 78 people were surveyed.  76 responded that they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the service they received.

No exception report required.

 

KPI 4 – Engaging With Our Staff

 

4.1 Overall Staff Engagement

 

This indicator measured overall staff engagement. The engagement index score was derived from the answers given by staff that related to how engaged they felt with the Service.

 

A comprehensive survey was undertaken during April/May 2018 on topics including internal communications, working for LFRS, organisational values, leadership and management, training and development and recognition.  The survey also covered feelings of pride, advocacy, attachment, inspiration and motivation – factors that are understood to be important features shared by staff who were engaged with the organisation.  These questions mirrored those asked in the Civil Service People Survey.

 

An improvement was shown if the percentage engagement index was greater than the previous survey.

 

	Period		Change
	2018/19	2016/17* * Period 3, 2016/17
Number of Replies	489	141	247%
Engagement Index	70.13%	64%	6.13%

No exception report required

 

4.2.2   Staff Absence – Retained Duty System

 

This indicator measured the percentage of contracted hours lost due to sickness for all retained duty staff.

 

Annual Standard: Not more than 2.5% lost as % of available hours of cover

Quarter 3 results indicate percentage pass within standard

Cumulative retained absence (as % of available hours cover) 0.90%

No exception report required.

 

The Chairman, County Councillor Holgate informed Members that he had recently attended the LGA Annual Fire Conference.  He asked the Deputy Chief Fire Officer to update Members given he had been invited to talk on Lancashire’s HMICFRS inspection result. 

 

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that he had tried to present in a respectful way particularly on how the journey to change the culture of the organisation had taken time.  He felt the presentation had been received well and had received good feedback.  The future direction of the HMI programme was that services underperforming would have interventions; a key for our journey towards outstanding would be evaluation and making sure we shared it freely ie: it was noted by the HMI that we had a debriefing app from incidents which asked what did you learn and what were the issues. Therefore we captured learning in a new way now that we had not been able to before.  Our view was we were happy to share this good practice with other Services across the country.

 

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that he had been asked at the conference to be the NFCC Lead for Wellbeing.

 

RESOLVED:- That the Performance Committee endorsed the quarter 3 measuring progress report and noted the contents including the 6 negative key performance indicator exception reports.