Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented a report on the Service's Annual Service Plan and Strategic Assessment of Risk for 2019/20. 

This year’s Annual Service Plan continued to provide Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service (LFRS) with the platform to highlight the priority activities that the Service intended to deliver over the upcoming year; leading improvements and innovation in the sector with some of the best firefighting equipment and training facilities in the country and a highly skilled and motivated workforce.  The year ahead would build on achievements by staying focussed on continuous improvement to make the people of Lancashire safer, particularly the most vulnerable members of our communities.  Many priorities were extensive, long-term initiatives that would transform the way we work and bring lasting benefits.

For the first time, this year’s Annual Service Plan was to be published alongside the Strategic Assessment of Risk.  First published in 2016, this document had been refreshed for the 2019/20 year and branded to mirror the Annual Service Plan document that it supported, by capturing the dynamic picture of risk in Lancashire.  The Strategic Assessment of Risk was a key part of our Risk Management Framework, where we continually assessed changing risk and prioritised our response framework.

Area Manager Norman discussed the detail of the plan.

Annual Service Plan

The Annual Service Plan was a core part of the planning framework which set out the activities intended for delivery during the next 12 months.  It was built around the Service’s four corporate priorities as detailed in the Integrated Risk Management Plan which were: -

1.   Preventing fire and other emergencies from happening and Protecting people and property when fires happen;

2.   Responding to fire and other emergencies quickly and competently;

3.   Valuing our people so they can focus on making Lancashire safer;

4.   Delivering value for money in how we use our resources.

The Annual Service Plan sat at the heart of the framework and informed activity that would be led across the Service as well as locally within district plans. Activities that were planned for delivery also informed staff performance appraisal process so that all staff understood the plans and were involved in helping to deliver key activities.

As in previous years, detailed under each corporate priority was a series of priority activities and projects with a brief description of each item to give further clarity and context. This ensured that all staff and the public were informed of the changes and activities the Service aimed to progress and how these items fitted within our priorities. This provided the opportunity for the Service to ensure that we continued to provide transparency and visibility of our plans in a clear concise format. The governance arrangements for delivery of the Annual Service Plan items would continue to be monitored through the Service's Corporate Programme Board.

As always the aim was to continually improve and refine our planning process and this year’s document aimed to add focus on achievable progress within the year, acknowledging that a significant proportion of items were continued from the 2018/19 Plan, reflecting the commitment to a number of long term projects.  Its style remained consistent with previous Annual Service Plans produced under the current IRMP period 2017 - 2022.

Strategic Assessment of Risk

Risk in Lancashire would always remain dynamic: it changed over time, differed by area and demographic, and needed different interventions to reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring or to lessen its consequences. These risks were identified in our Strategic Assessment of Risk which was refreshed annually and was also informed by the Lancashire Resilience Forum Community Risk Register. Through our risk management framework we continually assessed changing risk and prioritised our response framework.  A wider consultation had also taken place, involving District Councils, Lancashire County Council and Lancashire Constabulary, in order to gain a more complete collaborative picture of the perceived risk from the viewpoint of all organisations.

This year’s document was again built on previous iterations as we seek to continually improve our processes and risk management processes. This year we had sought to identify more clearly how LFRS responded to a number of the strategic risks identified, as well as adding new sections as the risk map for Lancashire changed with time.

The Strategic Assessment of Risk reflected the knowledge and experience of a variety of specialist departments and was consolidated each summer to allow for departmental plans to be produced and for our Service’s annual planning day. It was subsequently published as a stand-alone document to the LFRS website. This year, the document had been held back for publication alongside the Service’s Annual Service Plan due to the relationship between the two documents. Our Annual Service Plan reflected our response to identified risk and our activities this year clearly reflected a targeted approach to many items identified within the Strategic Assessment of Risk. It was intended to continue this dual approval and publication approach in future years.

Members welcomed the detail set out in this year’s plan.  The recent statement by the Chancellor of his intention to launch a 3-year spending review was discussed and it was noted that insufficient resources due to a poor funding settlement was an item on the corporate risk register and Members felt it was unlikely that the outcome of the review would be known before the end of December 2019.

CC De Molfetta referred to the total number of accidental dwelling fires shown on page 40; this had reduced by 23.7% from April 2008 to March 2018 and was a fantastic achievement for the Service.

CC Hennessy asked that the number of Road Traffic Collision casualties referred to on page 57 be made clearer in the report.  In response AM Norman confirmed that the information was drawn from a number of datasets.  Regrettably, 49 people were killed on Lancashire roads during 2016; 45 of whom were in the Lancashire County Council area and 4 within the unitary boundaries.   Councillor Jackson was very proud of the work of the Service to encourage people to be safer on the roads through its road safety prevention work with young people and through its partnership work.

RESOLVED: - That the Planning Committee noted and endorsed the report and approved both documents for publication; subject to the agreed clarification of the number of road traffic collision casualties.