Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented the report.  Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) was required to review its emergency response arrangements periodically to ensure that provision remained effective and consummate with the dynamic risk profile. This process was a robust assessment of historic data and emergent risk and was delivered in the format of an Emergency Cover Review (ECR).

The Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) for 2022–27 would be presented for approval at the next Combined Fire Authority meeting and within this Plan were a series of organisational commitments associated with LFRS’ capabilities including the emergency response provision.

The Service sought to deliver high standards of operational response and in doing so prepared and planned for emergencies so that when an emergency happened and the Service had to respond, it was done quickly, with the right fire appliances, the right specialist vehicles and the right crewing arrangements to deal with the incident effectively and safely.

As part of the ECR, the Service would be considering revised crewing arrangements at all 11 Day Crewing Plus (DCP) stations following the recent decision? by the Authority to withdraw the duty system. 

The aims of the ECR were to:

1.     Ensure LRFS always provided an effective response to fire and other emergencies.

2.     Ensure LFRS crewing arrangements were fit for purpose to meet the risk levels of the community.

3.     Ensure the DCP duty system was phased out and replaced with crewing arrangements that provided efficient and effective resources across the whole of Lancashire. 

The community of Lancashire changed dynamically through commercial and residential growth and retraction, new road and other infrastructure provision and these along with many other factors may create a differing emergency response requirement from LFRS. To ensure that response arrangements remained appropriate and effective, to validate current provision and to identify any appropriate proposals for change in response provision it was recommended that LFRS undertake an ECR process in 2022 and that within the methodology three key elements focussed upon would be:

1. Risk and Demand (Performance Data and Risk in Lancashire).

2. Process (Mobilising criteria).

3. Resource Provision (Location, Configuration and Weight of attack).

In order to validate the current response arrangements and to test predictive impacts, LFRS planned to draw on the services of an external specialist organisation to provide third party objective data analysis. This would enable the use of predictive modelling software to determine and subsequently validate the potential impact of any changes to the number, type, location and crewing arrangements of emergency resources across the county.

It was recommended that the scope of the ECR included:

A)   Validating the deliverables, outcomes and actual performance.

B)   Developing a subsequent Baseline Model for 2022 inclusive of the above.

C)   Determining the potential impact of a series of changes to the number, location, response capabilities and crewing arrangements of emergency resources across the county. More specifically but not exclusively:

1)    Replacement of the Day Crewing Plus (DCP) duty system

2)    Enhancement of our response to climate change

3)    Enhancement of our emergency cover in rural parts of the county

It was noted that a review of the Strategic Assessment of Risk for Lancashire would be completed and used to support the ECR proposals and that the timeline for the ECR was aligned with our annual planning cycle:

To ensure that the Service fully considered the most suitable and appropriate arrangements for the replacement of DCP, staff (especially current / permanent DCP staff) had been invited to express their interest in supporting ECR working groups, which would look at options for future crewing systems through to April 2022.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Hennessy regarding the cost to undertake specialist fire data analysis, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised the cost was contained within existing departmental budgets.  He advised that austerity measures over many years had reduced back-office support staff in order to protect the front line.  In addition, using an external company would provide third party analysis and transparency of our data, thereby providing external scrutiny.

RESOLVED: - That the Planning Committee noted and endorsed the report to commission the production of an ECR in line with the timeline agreed.