Agenda and draft minutes

Councillor Tom Hollis (personal)

None.

Minutes of the meeting held on 8 November 2024, for confirmation.

The minutes of meeting held 8 November 2024 were confirmed as a true record and signed by the Chair.

Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Leila Berry, Area Manager, presented the report which updates the committee on the progress of the Service in implementing the recommendations made by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies and Fire and Rescue Services Standard of Behaviour report.

Highlighted points included the following:

a)  the 4 areas of recommendation are:

  i.  Cultures in the Fire and Rescue Services;

  ii.  The extent to which Services identify misconduct;

  iii.  The effectiveness of the misconduct processes;

  iv.  Understanding misconduct and sharing lessons learned;

b)  a summary of the total of 15 recommendations is attached as Appendix A to the report, with timescales for implementation, it being noted that 2 recommendations require national action so are not wholly within the control of this Service;

c)  to date, all 6 recommendations relating to Cultures have been completed and closed;

d)  of the 3 recommendations relating to ‘the extent to which Services identify misconduct’, 2 are now complete, with work to meet the recommendation ‘Services should create of have access to a dedicated professional standards function to oversee the investigation of concerns and manage complex cases directly’ ongoing and progressing, as outlined in the report;

e)  one of the 7 recommendations for ‘the effectiveness of the misconduct processes’ has been completed, with the remaining ongoing with completion scheduled between 1 February and 1 November 2025;

f)  both of the recommendations regarding ‘understanding misconduct and sharing lessons learned’ are outstanding but scheduled to be completed between 1 February and 1 November 2025;

g)  national reporting will inform national collation of anonymised data which will be shared with workforces to help raise awareness.  The Fire Chief’s Council is considering how this can most effectively be achieved.

Members’ questions were responded to as follows:

h)  the Service does look more broadly at culture when dealing with misconduct and bad behaviour, but these count for a small proportion of issues reported;

i)  the Service does provide a variety of welfare provision for those experiencing trauma, with both internal and external help and support available for colleagues, and where issues do arise, members are assured that investigators are trained and processes designed to enable issues such as trauma to be raised as part of any investigation;

j)  the Professional Standards recommendation with a timescale implementation of 1 February 2025 will not be fully met as there is still much conversation nationally between Services, as there appears to be a range of models with differing approaches varying from Service to Service, so this is proving complex. However, it is recognised that the relationship between HR and the Professional Standards Team does need to be clearly defined. Work is still ongoing and does have budgetary implications. Nationally it has been a challenge in interpreting the recommendation, so NFRS has engaged an external consultant who is already working with multiple emergency services, and who is advising NFRS on their specific circumstances on how best to complete the recommendation whilst maintaining the desired relationship with the workforce. Recently guidance issued by HMICFRS has been welcomed;

k)  it is anticipated that the Committee will be informed of the progress and timescales for completion of all outstanding recommendations at the next meeting;

l)  care will be taken on specifying who can access the nationally gathered sensitive information, possibly single named officers, even if information is anonymised;

m)  there’s a balance to be had with sharing information with the workforce and the learning from an incident with the aim to improve the Service, particularly for small Services where there is a risk of identifying individuals. It is also recognised that accessing some types of information could trigger trauma responses in some staff;

n)  the HMI assessment was a thematic review which was then applied to all Services. NFRS was not one of the 10 Services assessed but is expected to apply the Police’s model solution at a local level.

Members’ comments included:

o)  new independent national research is currently taking place which is investigating how trauma impacts on individuals, including on a long term basis.  So far it has proved that those who have experienced trauma will have a higher effect rate of outbursts, destructive and concerning behaviour and alcohol and drug abuse. We know frontline staff within the Service will experience trauma. We need to be sure that unacceptable behaviours are not as a result of trauma experienced in their role whilst doing their job, and that the Service doesn’t punish staff for something that is in effect caused as a result for working for the Service. Trauma responses can occur 20 years plus after the traumatic event, so recognising historic traumatic events also needs to be taken into consideration, and support provided. At the very least, trauma needs to be recorded on individuals’ files in case related issues surface in future years; 

p)  members welcomed the achievements to date and commented that with regard to the Professional Standards, working cultures varied significantly across the Emergency Services and so a one-size-fits-all approach is not always successful at a local level;

q)  the Committee and officers welcomed the offer for Councillor Johno Lee to share the trauma research information with committee members and officers as soon as it is available;

r)  having a Professional Standards Team separate from HR does create a separate culture and hasn’t been especially effective for the Police working culture.

s)  language and cultural barriers aren’t always obvious, and can include generationally embedded language, but also recognising that some languages and cultures don’t have words for ‘upset’ or ‘depressed’ as they don’t recognised feelings and behaviours as we accept them. This is why it is vital that training and guidance are ongoing.

Resolved to:

1)  note the progress made against the recommendations;

2)  agree to receive a further update on progress in 3 months.

Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Mick Sharman, Assistant Chief Fire Officer, presented the report which informs the committee of the updated arrangements for the Service to host the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) Secretariat with Nottinghamshire Police.

The arrangements are set out in the report and were summarised as follows:

a)  the Service is a statutory partner of the LRF and a category 1 responder member of the multi-agency Forum;

b)  under current administrative arrangements, the secretariat alternates between the city and the county, but following a Central Government review and a further review commissioned by the Chief Constable, these new arrangements are proposed to be implemented with a partner funded secretariat;

c)  both the Police and Fire Service support a joint hosted approach, with NFRS acting as the sole employer, recruiting 4 individuals to undertake the secretariat duties;

d)  the partner funded financial arrangements are valued at a cost of £17k per annum to the Fire and Rescue Service;

e)  an evaluation of the arrangements will be undertaken after 12 months, but the exact method of evaluation is yet to be confirmed.

Resolved to support the approach of the Chief Fire Officer in hosting the Local Resilience Forum Secretariat.