Agenda and minutes

Councillor Mike Pringle (substituted by Cllr Brian Grocock)

None.

To approve the minutes of the meeting on 22 April 2016

The minutes of the meeting held on 22 April were agreed and signed as a true record by the Chair.

Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Tracy Crump, Head of People and Organisational Development at Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) updated Members on key Human Resources metrics for the period 1 April -30 June 2016.

The following points were highlighted:

(a)  recruitment to posts is ongoing, so the figures within the report will change in due course;

(b)  paragraph 2.5 within the report contains an error – whole-time establishment currently stands at 483, not 493;

(c)  NFRS is committed to increasing its retained workforce, with a close to continual recruitment program;

(d)  there has been no recruitment to whole time firefighting roles since 2012, and this accounts for the equality figures not moving substantially.  Around 97% of the operational workforce is men.  It is proving difficult to recruit more women into the service, but this is being tackled by using open days, and other avenues to try and develop an interest in joining NFRS amongst women;

(e)  it is positive to see more people aged under 25 coming into NFRS, mainly due to recruitment in the retained section.  Clearly there are more people at NFRS closer to retirement age – NFRS need to make sure that succession planning is in place for these posts;

(f)  employees will declare any disabilities that they have – in addition to this, questions around disability and reasonable adjustments are asked at interview.  There are also employees that might redefine as non-disabled – this could be due to a reasonable adjustment being made at work, or simply a temporary issue that has been resolved;

(g)  over the last 18 months an increase in declarations of diversity has been seen;

(h)  the 25 new starters are retained duty staff.  The reduction in minorities is proportionate to the overall shrinkage of the workforce.  It can prove difficult to attract women, members of the BME community and members of the LGB community to retained roles as there is the rule that retained firefighters must live 5 minutes from their station. 

  In addition to this point, there are low levels of recruitment for women nationally;

(i)  NFRS have revisited the tests that are run to encourage people to join the organisation, to see if anything can be improved on;

(j)  staff from NFRS go into colleges, universities and schools, particularly in the run up to a recruitment campaign.

RESOLVED to endorse the report, with a further report on equalities to come back to the next Human Resources Committee.

To consider excluding the public from the meeting during consideration of the remaining item in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 on the basis that, having regard to all the circumstances, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information by virtue of Paragraphs 1 and 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

RESOLVEDto exclude the public from the meeting during consideration of the remaining item in accordance with section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 on the basis that, having regard to all the circumstances, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, as defined in paragraphs 1 and 3 of Schedule 12 A to the Act.

Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Wayne Bowcock, Deputy Chief Fire Officer at NFRS presented the report on the post of Estates Manager.

RESOLVED to support the recommendations contained within the report and added to at the meeting.

Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Wayne Bowcock, Deputy Chief Fire Officer at NFRS presented the report on the regarding of posts.

RESOLVED to note the report.