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 agreed.  The current Member Champions and their areas of responsibility were:

·         Community Safety – Councillor Jean Rigby

·         Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – Councillor Zamir Khan;

·         Health and Wellbeing – County Councillor Andrea Kay;

·         Road Safety – County Councillor Ron Woollam.

Reports relating to the activity of the Member Champions were provided on a regular basis to the Authority.  This report related to activity for the period June – August 2021.  During this period all had undertaken their respective role in accordance with the defined terms of reference.

County Councillor Kay, Health and Wellbeing Champion added that wellbeing dogs were being introduced to support staff to assist communication.  They made it easy to show affection and empathy, helped create a compassionate environment and to reduce stress, blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety.

In addition, Councillor Kay advised that she had spoken with Lancashire Youth Council and 2 schools regarding climate change to ask the views of young people on whether any services could be changed and a report was awaited.

County Councillor Mirfin referred to the road safety education evaluation on page 17 of the agenda pack as another aspect of the work of the Fire Service.  He advised that at the launch of the Lancashire Crime Plan the Police and Crime Commissioner confirmed additional investment in speed and CCTV cameras.  Councillor Mirfin encouraged the Service to use its knowledge about road traffic collisions to work in partnership to help identify which stretches of road required the greatest attention for speed reduction / traffic calming measures.  In response, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that the Service was a long-standing member of the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership with one of its Area Managers being the national fire chiefs lead for road safety who also chaired the practitioners’ group, which considered the detail of the delivery of the road safety partnership and Councillor Jackson from Blackpool was a recent attendee.  The governance was therefore not necessarily directly from the Fire Authority but included political membership from the unitarities and County Council to scrutinise proposals by the analyst which were data led.  County Councillor Howarth commented that the data collected was not necessarily making roads safer it was tackling incidents of fatality or serious injury.  It was noted that this was within the jurisdiction of the police.  County Councillor Mirfin considered that the data should be disaggregated to help formulate policy going forward.  He agreed that typically, data was recorded only when there was a very serious accident and there was a need therefore to collect a much wider variety of data and use it much more intuitively, particularly to effect changes to improve road safety.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Howarth, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer confirmed that Biker Down was open to all members of the public to put themselves forward to attend the course.

County Councillor Mein queried whether the two road safety education programmes being delivered to school children could be rolled out quicker.  In response, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that the Service invited all primary and secondary schools in the county to access the education programmes, this was not part of the national curriculum.  Those schools who wished to access the training could choose for the programme to be delivered digitally or face to face.  Of those responding, 80% had asked for face-to-face delivery but unfortunately this had been paused until pandemic arrangements changed.  Members offered their support as required to engage with schools in their districts.

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