Agenda item

The Temporary Head of Operational Policy and Assurance introduced the report, which provided an update on the Service’s Quarter 1, 2024-25 performance for each of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The Temporary Head advised Members that a number of changes had been introduced for the 2024/25 reporting year including the new 10-minute response standard agreed as part of CRMP 2024-2028 and a new minimum standard of fire cover designed to support this. He provided further context on the KPIs where targets had not been achieved, or were performance was particularly positive:

•         The figure for the number of Deaths in Primary Fires was 0 for Quarter 1 against a figure of 3 for Quarter 1 in 2023/4. The number of Injuries in Primary Fires was also reduced to 1 for Quarter 1 against a figure of 2 for Quarter 1 in 2023/4;

•         The number of Accidental Dwelling Fires was 82 incidents against a target of 85 for Quarter 1. The primary cause was kitchen fires where an item had been left on or close to the cooker hob. The occupancy profile for the fires was highest in lone person properties. This affirms that the current targeting of Safe and Well visits continues to be appropriate in capturing those most at risk;

•         The number of deliberate primary fires recorded at the end of Quarter 1 was 52, against a target of 55. The station areas with the highest number of incidents were Crewe 10, Warrington 6 and Widnes 4;

•         The number of Safe and Well visits was 6656 visits against a target of 6875. The new structure for the Prevention department came into effect on 1st July 2024, which would provide improved resource to meet the target going forward;

•         The figure for Fires in Non-Domestic Premises was green for the first time in 5 quarters with 33 reported against a target of 43;

•         The figure for Automatic Fire Alarms in Non-Domestic Premises was at 143 against a target of 112. There was a range of reasons for the higher number of actuations, with a faulty alarm being the most common, followed by activation by steam;

•         The figure for Time Taken to Mobilise to a primary fires was green with 82 seconds against a target of 90 seconds;

•         To support the revised response standard a new metric, Minimum Fire Cover Standard was introduced to ensure that the appropriate number of fire engines were available. The Minimum Fire Cover Standard was split into two response levels, Critical and Optimum, both figures were green; and

•         The target for On-Call fire engines had been amended to provide a more proportionate and achievable target, designed to allow the Service to meet the ‘Resilience Level’ of fire cover described in the Minimum Fire Cover Standard; this results in an overall target of 51%. On-call fire engine availability at the end of Quarter 1 was 51% (crew of four) which was slightly higher than the same quarter in 2023/24 (50%).

A Member questioned the approach to call challenging for Automatic Fire Alarms in Non-Domestic Premises. The Chief Fire Officer outlined that this was to reduce the number of times fire engines were mobilising to false alarms. He stated that this approach was only used for commercial premises where there was no one sleeping on the premises. He noted that this metric did not indicate the actual number of properties, and this could be looked at for future performance reports.

A Member asked if cases were investigated where the response standard had not been achieved. The Chief Fire Officer confirmed that every mobilisation to a primary fire that exceeded the 10 minute Response Standard was sent to the Area Manager to investigate and drill down into the reasons. He expected the operational changes being delivered in the CRMP 2024-28 to reduce the number of times the metric was exceeded.

RESOLVED: That

[1]      the Performance Report – Quarter 1, 2024-25 be noted.