Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer (DCFO) presented a report on the Service's Strategic Assessment of Risk for 2023/24.

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 the Strategic Assessment of Risk (SAoR) which was refreshed annually and was also informed by the Lancashire Resilience Forum Community Risk Register and the services Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological and Infrastructure, Environmental, Legislative and Organisational (PESTELO) analysis. Through its risk management framework, the Service continually assessed changing risk and prioritised its response framework. 

The Strategic Assessment of Risk reflected the knowledge and experience of a variety of specialist departments and utilised Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) Incident Recording System (IRS) data to derive a data driven methodology that highlighted the incident types that posed the greatest risk to the county of Lancashire and the individuals who lived and worked within it. 

This year’s document built on previous iterations as LFRS sought to continually improve its risk management processes. Pages 36 – 52 of the agenda pack detailed a number of risks including;

• Political

o   UK Government Fire Reform White Paper

o   Wars, conflicts and political unrest

·         Economic

o   Deprivation

o   Inflation/ Cost of living

o   Fuel Poverty

·         Socio-Cultural

o   Population changes

o   Dwellings and households

o   Cultural Diversity

o   Health and Wellbeing

·         Technological (and Infrastructure)

o   Emerging Technology – Electrical vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems

o   Emerging Technology – Hydrogen

o   Artificial Intelligence/ Robotics/ Autonomous Vehicles

o   Infrastructure

·         Environment

o   Climate change – wildfires

o   Climate change – flooding

o   Built environment

·         Legal

o   The Building Safety Act 2022

o   The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022

o   The Fire Safety Act 2021

o   Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023

·         Organisational

o   Risk that service funding over the medium term was insufficient to achieve 2022-27 CRMP objectives

o   LFRS resilience issues e.g. staff availability, recruitment, retention, loss of key staff

o   Impact of public inquiries e.g. Grenfell and Manchester Arena

Pages 57- 83 of the agenda pack detailed the risk associated against the 32 incident types which had resulted in some movement in the ranking of the highest risk incident types. 

The Chair remarked that the DCFO was the chair of the Lancashire Resilience Forum and that LFRS was the national lead in relation to drones and the service’s Digital Team worked closely with the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) lead.

In response to a question from County Councillor N Hennessy in relation to the dissemination of risk information, the DCFO confirmed that each district had a district plan which identified risks in each area, this information informed individual officer appraisals to ensure all staff knew how they were contributing to keeping Lancashire safer. In response to a further question the DCFO confirmed that each station was aware of their district plan and the service was developing its use of Power BI to allow each station to display their progress and contribution to a safer Lancashire.

Resolved: That the Planning Committee noted and endorsed the Strategic Assessment of Risk for publication.