Agenda item

Area

Overspend/ (Under spend) to 30 June

Reason

£’000

Service Delivery

(68)

The underspend for the first quarter largely related to the reduced activity levels, in particular for car allowances and smoke detector purchases.

Covid-19

-

We received a further £1.1m S31 grant in May 2020, in addition to the £0.3m received in March, taking the total funding received to £1.4m.  We had spent £0.9m to date, comprising PPE, cleaning and decontamination equipment and ICT hardware/software.  The balance was held in an earmarked reserve.  

Training & Operational Review

(30)

The current underspend largely related to training courses expected to take place during the quarter, it seemed unlikely that these could be caught up before the end of the financial year.

Information Technology

(90)

In addition to the pandemic impacts on business as usual spending, savings from the phased introduction of the new Wide Area Network occurred in the quarter where the first three months service were free of charge whilst the network was fully implemented.

Property

(95)

The underspend position related to planned premises repairs and maintenance, which could not be carried out and this had continued into the second quarter.

Wholetime Pay (including associate trainers)

(50)

In anticipation of reduced staffing levels due to the pandemic 16 existing On Call staff who had been successful in the Wholetime recruitment campaign and who were initially due to commence on the recruits course in September were allowed to commence riding Wholetime appliances in May. This would cease once they commenced on the recruits course in September. The additional cost of this was offset by additional 8 early leavers since the budget was initially set.

In addition vacant posts were effectively budgeted at Firefighter rates, however there were a number of vacancies within TOR, Fire Safety and Service Development at higher grades, resulting in a further underspend.

RDS Pay

135

The overspend reflected activity related payments for the first three months, which could be attributed to several moorland fire incidents during the period, a 36% higher activity level than the corresponding quarter last year.  We would monitor the situation over the coming months and update in due course.

Support staff (less agency staff)

(51)

The underspend to date related to vacant posts across various departments, which were in excess of the vacancy factor built into the budget. Due to the cessation of recruitment activity due to the pandemic, it was unknown when these posts might be filled, however it was clear there would be an underspend by the end of the financial year. 

Note – agency staff costs to date of £16k were replacing vacant support staff roles, this accounted for less than 1% of total support staff costs.

Note – following on from November 2019 Resources Committee approval, in April we prepaid three years’ worth of LGPS employer’s contributions in order to save £36k over the three year period.  These would be spread over the three years for budget monitoring purposes.

Pumping Appliances

The budget allowed for the remaining stage payments for 7 pumping appliances for the 2018/19 programme, the phased delivery of which are anticipated between August and October. 

In addition, the budget allowed for the purchase of 3 pumping appliances for the 2019/20 programme, and 2 pumping appliances fir the 2020/21 programme, all of which had been delayed pending consideration of the specification.

Other vehicles

This budget allowed for the replacement of various operational support vehicles, the most significant of which were:

·        Two Command Support Units (CSU), the requirements are still being finalised with Service Delivery prior to undertaking a procurement exercise;

·        One Water Tower;

·        One Aerial Ladder Platform;

·        One all-terrain vehicle

In addition to these, the budget allowed for various support vehicles which were reviewed prior to replacement.

Operational Equipment/Future Firefighting

This budget allowed for completion of the kitting out of three reserve pumping appliances, in addition to providing a £50k budget for innovations in fire-fighting to be explored.

This budget also allowed for the progression of CCTV on pumping appliances.

Building Modifications

This budget allowed for:

• Provision of a new workshop, BA Recovery and Trainer facility at STC. We had completed design work and were in discussion with Chorley BC relating to planning permissions. We had selected a procurement framework and had appointed a contractor/partner to take designs forward to tender;
• Exploring with NWAS co-location at Morecambe;
• Based on the latest stock condition survey, several stations had identified upgrades to dormitory and shower facilities, the actual timing of works would vary depending on Property department capacity to deliver the works;
• We had included budgetary provision for a drill tower replacement plan, and would seek to replace a notional 2 towers per year over the 5 year programme.

IT systems

The majority of the capital budget related to the national Emergency Services Mobile Communications Project (ESMCP), to replace the Airwave wide area radio system and the replacement of the station end mobilising system. The ESMCP project budget, £1.0m, was offset by anticipated grant, however the timing of both expenditure and grant was dependent upon progress against the national project. This national project had suffered lengthy delays to date.

The balance of the budget related to the replacement of various systems, in line with the ICT asset management plan. Whilst procurement work was ongoing to facilitate the replacement of some of these systems in the current year, we were still reviewing the need to replace others. Hence further updates on progress would confirm which replacements were being actioned in the current year and anticipated spend profiles.