Agenda and minutes

Venue: Lecture Theatre - Fire Headquarters, Cheshire

Contact: Joanne Smith 

Items
No. Item

1.

PROCEDURAL MATTERS

1A

Record of Meeting

Members are reminded that this meeting will be audio-recorded.

Minutes:

Members were reminded that this meeting would be audio-recorded.

1B

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors A Dirir and J Saunders.

1C

Declaration of Members' Interests

Members are reminded that the Members’ Code of Conduct requires the disclosure of Statutory Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, Non-Statutory Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and Disclosable Non-Pecuniary Interests.

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations of Members’ interests.

1D

Minutes of the Performance and Overview Committee pdf icon PDF 133 KB

To confirm as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Performance and Overview Committee held on 6th September 2017.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]     the minutes of the Performance and Overview Committee held on Wednesday 6th September 2017 be confirmed as a correct record.

2.

Quarter 2 Finance Report 2017-18 pdf icon PDF 134 KB

Minutes:

The Director of Governance and Commissioning introduced the report which provided a summary of the Service’s mid-year revenue position and the status of projects in the capital programme.

 

He informed Members that the Quarter 2 Review was reporting a forecast underspend of £504k in relation to the revenue budget, with the majority of the forecast underspends resulting from estimated underspends of £240k in Service Delivery and £102k in Protection.  He highlighted an overspend of £107k in People and Development which had resulted from the additional resources required for on-going work on Blue Light Collaboration.  He also highlighted expenditure on station end mobilising equipment.

 

The Director of Governance and Commissioning drew Members’ attention to the capital programme which was forecasting an overall outturn of £30.109m against an approved budget of £30.125m.  He also informed Members that two new schemes had been identified that required in-year approval: vehicle stabilisation equipment (£48k) and a new fleet management ICT system (£45k).

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]       the Quarter 2 Finance Report 2017-18 be noted; and

 

[2]       the additional purchase of vehicle stabilisation equipment (£48,000) and a new fleet management ICT system (up to £45,000), which will both be approved by the Senior Management Team through their delegated powers and funded by in year underspends, be noted.

3.

Quarter 2 Performance Report 2017-18 pdf icon PDF 58 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Head of Protection and Organisational Performance introduced the report which provided Members with an update on the Service’s performance against the key performance indicators (KPIs) for Quarter 2 2017-18. Appendix 1 to the report contained the corporate performance scorecard reflecting the Quarter 2 position against targets set and the year-on-year direction of travel for the Service’s KPIs.

 

Members were referred to Appendix 2 of the report which contained a detailed description of each KPI, including a summary of current performance and any actions taken to improve performance.  Alongside the Head of Protection and Organisational Performance, the Head of Prevention and Head of Service Delivery provided further information on the KPIs relevant to their departments.

 

Members emphasised the importance of the Authority’s prevention work and queried how they could continue to assist the Service with improving performance.  Officers highlighted the benefit of partnership work with the police and other agencies and the continued support of the Authority with this work.  They informed Members that working with partner agencies ensured that skills and resources were deployed in the right areas.

 

A Member queried whether officers were considering targeting other groups concerning the Service’s Safe and Well programme to follow on from the Service’s current work with over 65s.  The Head of Prevention informed Members that work had been undertaken recently to identify other groups who would benefit from the Service’s prevention work.

 

A Member queried the progress the Service had made in encouraging the installation of sprinklers in high-rise buildings.  The Head of Protection and Organisational Performance informed the Committee that officers were re-engaging with housing providers/duty holders and encouraging them to install sprinklers.

 

A Member drew the Committee’s attention to the number of non-domestic premises fire safety audits completed by the end of the quarter.  Information was included in the performance summary of the KPI concerning plans which were in place to establish a new BME business group in Cheshire East to provide safety advice to the BME community when they set up a new business and fire safety advice to migrant employees.  A Member queried whether the Service would ensure that translated advice and handouts were provided for the community to ensure a full understanding of the advice the Service intended to provide.  The Head of Protection and Organisational Performance informed Members that the literature would be reviewed by the Service, but that responsibility for compliance ultimately lay with the duty holder.

 

A Member referenced the performance on average days/shifts lost to sickness and congratulated staff on how few working days were lost to sickness so far over the year.  He queried whether the Service could give a reward for good attendance performance.  The Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive informed Members that this was being looked at by officers as part of the Service’s pay and recognition policy and that he would inform Members of the outcome.

 

The Head of Service Delivery provided further details concerning the Service’s current performance for on-call availability.  A Member queried whether the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.

Quarter 2 Programme Report 2017-18 pdf icon PDF 48 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive introduced the report which provided an update on the Service’s 2017-18 Integrated Risk Management Plan programmes and projects.  He referred Members to Appendix 1 to the report which contained the health report for the second quarter of 2017-18. 

 

He informed Members of the progress made in respect of the Blue Light Collaboration Programme.  The current progress status of the programme was green due to the agreement of a temporary licence to allow initial occupation of the Fire Leadership Team Suite.  He informed Members that the Service and Cheshire Constabulary had agreed a draft underlease.  Officers were now waiting for approval from the Private Finance Initiative provider before the underlease could be completed.  He also informed Members that several teams had now transferred over to Cheshire Constabulary employment and that other teams were due to transfer in 2018, in line with the Multi Force Shared Service Fusion go-live.

 

The Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive highlighted several other updates concerning the programmes/projects within the health report for Members to note.  These included: the review of the staffing of the second appliances at Crewe and Ellesmere Port; the cardiac response programme; the nucleus (duty system) review for Birchwood, Macclesfield and Wilmslow; and the national Emergency Service Mobile Communication Programme.

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]       the Quarter 2 Programme Report 2017-18 be noted.

5.

Internal Audit Plan - Quarterly Progress Report (Q2) pdf icon PDF 78 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Kevin Lloyd (the Auditor), a representative from Mersey Internal Audit Agency (MIAA) was in attendance at the meeting to present the quarterly progress summary of the 2017-18 Internal Audit Plan (attached as Appendix 1 to the report).

 

He informed Members that the National Fraud Initiative review had been completed in this quarter.  This required the Authority to provide mandatory datasets compromising of information on creditors, payroll and pensions payroll to assist with the prevention and detection of fraud.  He informed Members that, from the work completed to date, the review had not identified any apparent fraud.

 

The Auditor highlighted current audit work which was in progress, including audits of fire safety audits, business continuity, equality and diversity recruitment, station management framework and combined financial systems.  He concluded by referring Members to Appendix B Contract Performance within Appendix 1 which provided general performance indicator information to support the Committee in assessing the performance of Internal Audit activity.

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]       the Internal Audit Plan – Quarterly Progress Report (Q2) be noted.

6.

Annual Health, Safety and Wellbeing Report 2016-17 pdf icon PDF 51 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Health, Safety and Wellbeing Manager introduced the report which provided an update on the management of health and safety in the Service.  He highlighted to Members the key achievements of the Service throughout 2016-17 and reports on both reactive and proactive measures of performance.

 

A Member queried how the Service dealt with vehicle accidents that occurred under blue lights.  The Health, Safety and Wellbeing Manager informed Members that all accidents were investigated by the Service and that policies were in place concerning driving under blue lights.  He also informed Members that it was policy for reversing guides to be used when manoeuvring an appliance.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer highlighted that the use of reversing guides ensured the safety of firefighters and prevented injuries from occurring. 

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]      the Annual Health, Safety and Wellbeing Report 2016-17 be noted.

7.

Annual Road Safety Report 2016-17 pdf icon PDF 50 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Arson Reduction and Road Safety Manager introduced the report which appended the Authority’s Annual Road Safety Report 2016-17, containing details of interventions delivered by the Service.  He highlighted the achievements of the Service at events throughout the year.

 

A Member thanked and congratulated the Prevention team for their work and their proactive commitment to road safety.

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]       the Annual Road Safety Report 2016-17 be noted.

8.

Interim Bonfire Update

A verbal interim bonfire update will be provided.

Minutes:

The Arson Reduction and Road Safety Manager provided Members with a verbal interim update on the preventative and operational activities of the Service during the bonfire period.  He confirmed that a full report would be presented to the Committee at its next meeting in February 2018.

 

He reported that there had been an increase in incidents recorded during the bonfire period of 11.8% over a 5 year period.  He highlighted that Cheshire East and Warrington had seen an increase in secondary deliberate fires during the bonfire period.

 

The Arson Reduction and Road Safety Manager informed the Committee that there had been an increase in police activity during the bonfire period and that more information on this would be provided in the full report to Members in February.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer informed the Committee that immediate community safety feedback was sought by officers following the bonfire period to target future prevention efforts.

9.

North West Fire Control - Annual Report 2016-17 pdf icon PDF 36 KB

Minutes:

The Head of North West Fire Control (NWFC) was invited to the meeting to deliver a presentation for Members on the call handling process at North West Fire Control.

 

She began by explaining the set up of the control room operators. Each operator had access to three screens displaying: an integrated communications control system (ICCS); intergraph computer-aided dispatch (ICAD); and a geographical information system (GIS).  All systems were utilised together to enable operators to enter incident details accurately and quickly to ensure the correct mobilisation of resources.  The Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive informed Members that Gartan (the Service’s staffing system for On-Call firefighters) auto-fed the live availability of crews into NWFC’s mobilising system.  It also auto-fed updates on the location, type and availability of resources.

 

A Member queried whether the system would reflect that an appliance had been mobilised prior to or after it had left to attend an incident.  The Head of North West Fire Control confirmed that both scenarios were possible.

 

A Member queried what would happen if only three individuals were available to crew an appliance.  The Head of North West Fire Control informed Members that the minimum crewing for an appliance was four firefighters.  If the crewing level at a station was below this the type of appliance changed (i.e. to a small incident unit) and that operators would be aware of this before mobilising a resource.  If an appliance was mobilised and did not meet minimum crewing requirements for an incident, officers would radio in to NWFC so that another appliance could be dispatched.

 

A Member queried how officers could be certain that staff availability data was as accurate as possible within NWFC systems.  The Head of North West Fire Control informed Members that an update was received from Gartan by NWFC every 12 seconds through the live feed to their systems which ensured that accurate mobilisations occurred.

 

The Head of North West Fire Control informed Members of the mobilising functionality and explained the process taken prior to mobilising an appliance:

 

-       Calling line identifier and enhanced information service for emergency calls to quickly identify location.

-       GIS map zoom for locations.

-       Customer rules engine for automated workflows and emergency call management prompts.

-       Common incident type sets across all fire and rescue services.

-       Fire and rescue service configurable pre-determined attendance set against common incident type set.

-       Variation in normal mobilising policy applied during spate conditions.

 

She informed Members that the creation of North West Fire Control had enabled borders to be effectively ignored between the participating fire and rescue services, improving response times as appliances could be mobilised over the border if they were closer to an incident. 

 

A Member queried what the impact would be of changes to Manchester’s fire cover model on the Service.  The Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive informed the Committee that Manchester would usually consult with the Service prior to undertaking any proposed changes to their model that could affect the Service.

 

A  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

10.

Annual Report - 'On the Streets' Youth Work 2016-17 pdf icon PDF 77 KB

Minutes:

The Fire Cadet Manager introduced the report which provided Members with an update on the work undertaken by the ‘On the Streets’ (OTS) team over the past 12 months.  She explained that the programme was delivered in areas with high levels of arson, small deliberate fires and anti-social behaviour.

 

The Fire Cadet Manager summarised the local engagement that had occurred with the OTS teams in each of the unitary areas within Cheshire.  She informed Members that working across all four unitary areas had resulted in increased community engagement. 

 

Members queried how the OTS teams responded to drug use within the communities that they engaged with.  She highlighted the importance of the OTS team working with partners and external agencies to ensure that illegal activities and safeguarding issues were referred to the appropriate organisations.  She informed Members that the OTS team offered advice where appropriate and signposted individuals to other services if they required support.

 

Members queried whether they could join the teams to observe the work they were doing in the local community.  The Fire Cadet Manager informed Members that they were welcome to join the OTS team in their local area.

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]       the Annual Report – ‘On the Streets’ Youth Work 2016-17 be noted.

11.

Forward Work Programme pdf icon PDF 85 KB

The table includes those items that have been identified/agreed to-date.  Members are asked to agree any additional items at the end of the meeting which need to be added to the programme.

 

Minutes:

The forward work programme was considered by Members and no changes were made.