Agenda item

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer presented the report.  He advised that further to scrutiny of key performance indicators (KPI) by Members of the CFA Performance Committee, the Service was asked to reflect upon the ongoing suitability of the current ‘Fire Engine Availability’ KPI’s in particular with reference to the on-call measurement. 

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) currently had one of the most challenging targets for availability of on-call fire engines of any fire and rescue service in the country and, whilst having a high aspirational target maintained focus on securing on-call fire engine availability, for some time now the Service had fallen short of delivering against this highly ambitious target. 

Work had been undertaken to compare our KPI’s with those used in other Services, with the ambition being to provide Members of the Performance Committee with a suitable KPI which would better reflect holistic fire cover across the county of Lancashire, considering both wholetime and on-call availability.

The Service had 3 KPI measurements pertaining to appliance availability across the entire fleet:

i)       KPI 3.3 for Total Fire Engine Availability (which combined wholetime and on-call and was for information only);

ii)      KPI 3.3.1 for Fire Engine Availability – Wholetime Shift System (which had a target of 99.5%); and

iii)    KPI 3.3.2 for Fire Engine Availability – On-Call Shift System (which had an aspirational target of 95%).

The On-Call appliance availability target was a demanding 95% and whilst having such a high aspirational target maintained on-call availability as a continuing Service priority, setting unrealistic targets could have a negative impact on performance and could fail to recognise the improvements that some stations were making to availability, as overall they continued to fall short of the objective.

Members noted that 32 of the 58 LFRS pumps were crewed by on-call firefighters.  Many of these appliances provided fire cover in lower-risk, rural areas, whilst others provide a secondary layer of response to that provided by wholetime crews in urban areas of the county.  The Service presently measured the availability of on-call appliances against the same 95% aspirational target across the county, irrespective of demand, risk levels or a wholetime resource being within that station area.

Nationally, on-call availability continued to be a challenge as highlighted by the National Fire Chiefs Council and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and extensive work was ongoing both locally and nationally to address some of the key issues.  Within the Service, a significant volume of work was ongoing which aimed to improve recruitment, training and development, retention, and broadening the utilisation of on-call staff; all balanced against realistic role expectations given the limitations on available training hours each week.

Having considered a number of options, a proposal for Service KPI change was presented which would provide the right balance of oversight and ambition for fire engines crewed by both wholetime and on-call firefighters, supplemented by further internal KPI’s for use by local managers to drive contractual performance and ensure value for money.

The proposal was to measure the ‘First Fire Engine Availability (wholetime and on-call)’ across the 39 risk areas within Lancashire.  It was noted that the dynamic cover tool software enabled LFRS to dynamically move resources according to risk and demand, optimising ability to meet published response times.  Where operational incidents arose and mobilised appliances created gaps in fire cover, the system managed cover across the county based on the known risk. 

The proposal sought to report performance based on how effectively fire cover was provided across the 39 fire stations (risk areas) at a fire station level, rather than by each of the 58 fire engines.  It would report on the combined availability of the primary asset at each of the 39 locations in percentage terms, whether that be a wholetime or on?call appliance.  This aligned with the Response Standard KPI approach which measured first pump response times and gave a true indication of the speed of response and first intervention provided across the 39 risk areas.

Based on the last 4 full years’ data, KPI 3.3 (combined wholetime and on?call availability) would be represented as:

Overall 2019/20, 95.77% (wholetime, 99.51% and on-call, 90.93%)

Overall 2020/21, 96.51% (wholetime, 99.35% and on-call, 92.83%)

Overall 2021/22, 91.65% (wholetime, 99.34% and on-call, 81.71%)

Overall 2022/23, 89.60% (wholetime, 99.35% and on-call, 76.97%)

The deterioration in performance was largely as a result of declining on-call availability.  Going forward, the Service would continue to apply focus to recruitment activities centred around all on-call units, not just those which comprised the basis of the KPI calculation and to underpin the proposed Service level KPI, an incremental 2% per annum approach to increasing on?call availability would be implemented on a local level, starting from the current baseline position.

In response to a question raised by Cllr Hugo regarding whether analysis of data pre-covid would change the pattern of availability the Assistant Chief Fire Officer explained that availability was higher than now but not as high as during covid (given at that time people were working from home and / or were furloughed from their primary employment and were therefore more available).  He added that the target was aspirational and not realistic at the present time and the Service would be measured against the targets set.

Cllr Hugo commented that she understood the reasoning for lowering the target and queried how a 90% target compared against other Services.  In response the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that research indicated typical levels for other Services ranged between 85% to 90%.

CC O’Toole queried the main reason for the lack of on-call availability.  In response, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that if an on-call firefighter left the organisation the impact was felt straight away.  Availability hinged then on attracting, training and introducing new people to become safe, competent firefighters which took time.  After recruitment, it could be 6 months before breathing apparatus training was undertaken and to then go onto driving appliance training or becoming an officer in charge could take years.  These were the types of issues that the Service was focussed on improving.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer added that nationally over the last decade on-call firefighters had reduced by 25%.  LFRS staff had declined by 11% from 444 firefighters to just short of 400 however it was the amount of hours those staff gave that was 25% less because people wanted a better work-life balance.  CC O’Toole was pleased the lack of availability was not due to mechanical issues with fire appliances.

CC Hennessy stated that she would much sooner aim high to achieve high and asked what the views of staff were.  In response the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that Station, Group and Unit Managers were working exceptionally hard to maintain availability however, despite all their efforts it was unhelpful that the KPI was consistently in exception which could have a negative and de?motivational psychological effect.  A lot of work was being done to support on-call availability.  The Service was looking at every facet of the duty system to make it more efficient and improved but the numbers demonstrated the level of exception in recent years and that ultimately the Service would be measured by how successfully it achieved the targets it set itself.

CC Hennessy queried whether lowering the target to 92.5% would be a better target as it remained aspirational.  In response the Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that no other Service had a target of 95%.  The ACFO stated that the proposal for the 90% overall target was more achievable and would be supplemented by a local 2% in?year target increase for on-call units where low availability featured.  As such that the KPI could be reviewed annually with a view to an upward increase.

CC Rigby thanked officers for making Members aware of the challenges currently faced.

CC Singleton MOVED the recommendation in the report and proposed that the new indicator be reviewed annually.  This was SECONDED by CC Shedwick who commented that Members were well placed in their communities to assist raising awareness of the on-call firefighter role.

At the request of the Chair of the Committee, CC Clarke, the meeting Clerk held a recorded vote and the names of Members who voted for or against the Motion and those who abstained are set out below:

For (7)

S Clarke, J Singleton, G Baker, J Hugo, D O’Toole, P Rigby and J Shedwick

Against (1)

N Hennessy

Abstained (1)

M Dad

The motion was therefore CARRIED and it was:

Resolved: That the Planning Committee

i)       approved a combined KPI for first pump availability of wholetime and on-call fire engines across the 39 stations in Lancashire with a revised overall availability target of 90%, which would be reviewed annually; and

ii)      approved the removal of sub-indicators 3.3.1 and 3.3.2 which would be encompassed in the above new KPI acknowledging that monitoring would continue locally by Service Delivery Managers.