Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Representatives of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) submitted a question that was considered and responded to following the presentation of the report and prior to questions from Authority members.

Craig Parkin, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, introduced the report that presents the outcomes from the recent inspection by HMICFRS. A further report detailing how the Service is responding to the inspection report will be presented to the Authority at the September meeting.

Overall, the Service was assessed as ‘requires improvement’ with the following ‘good’ areas:

·  protecting the public through fire regulation;

·  responding to national risks.

Assessment findings in several areas reiterated the information that the Service had provided to inspectors, this is an acknowledgement that the Service has a good level of self-awareness.

The ‘requires improvement’ assessment of the people strand is disappointing as the Service placed great emphasis on developing the right culture, values and wellbeing within the workforce. It was stressed that the Service is not complacent and is already undertaking activities in order to strive for service improvements.

Representatives of the FBU asked the following question:

“The HMIC report highlighted several areas for improvement, one area is that the service should ensure staff are appropriately trained in safety-critical skills.

Currently Approved to Ride trainees are being used on retained appliances, these trainees have had very little training and are not trained for all types of incidents. Approved to Ride trainees are currently supernumerary on a normally crewed appliance.

The service has now been trailing the use of alternatively crewed appliances for over 6 months, crews of less than 4 are being mobilised to incidents with approved to ride trainees form part of these crews. In light of the HMIC report, does the Fire authority feel that is appropriate to be mobilising crews with Firefighters that have not completed any training for certain incident types?”

The Chair of the Authority welcomed the engagement by the FBU and responded to the question. It was stated that the arrangements had been thorough consultation with representative bodies prior to implementation of the alternative crewing trial, and that policies are subject to periodic review to ensure they are achieving the desired outcomes by appropriately serving communities. Officers welcomed continued discussion and engagement with the FBU.

Comments from members of the Authority included:

(a)  the reference within the inspection report to the monitoring of working hours, where whole-time firefighters also work at on-call fire stations and its impact on the team and public safety;

(b)  a need for an action plan to address the issues raised from the inspection which prevented the Service achieving good or outstanding. It is disappointing that such an action plan has not been submitted to this meeting, particularly as senior officers were aware of the embargoed content of the inspection report prior to its publication;

(c)  the comment of the inspectors that reliance on reserves  to keep the Service financially afloat is not sustainable, has been raised by members of the Authority  to be addressed;

(d)  reference to the need for further savings to be identified to prevent the future draw on reserves, pending future spending settlement announcements. It is vital that all elements of the Service and Authority work together to find the required savings;

(e)  the financial implications stated within the covering report as ‘none’.  It was queried as to whether this applies only to the presenting of the inspectors findings presented within this current report, as opposed to the financial impact likely to result from action required to improve assessment ratings;

(f)  whilst the new government has prioritised the Police force and provided funding for 20,000 additional officers, it is hoped that this will not be at the cost to the Fire Service, and that the value of all emergency services is recognised by Central Government.

Questions from members of the Authority were responded to as follows:

(g)  a more detailed response to the inspector’s findings and an action plan will be presented to the members of the Authority in September.  While the draft report was made available to Service Management by the HMICFRS at an earlier date, this was done so on the basis that the report remained embargoed and that it was for the checking of accuracy only.  In consultation with the Chair, it was considered appropriate to present this report to members of the Authority at the earliest opportunity but then to submit a more considered detailed response in September which would enable time for thorough consideration of the inspectors findings alongside other streams of work required from the wider reform agenda; 

(h)  With regards to the observation made by members that the financial implications within the covering report are stated as  ‘none’, this is reference to the presentation of the inspectors findings, as opposed to any financial implications that will result from improvement activity required in response to those findings;

(i)  the use of reserves not being a sustainable practice is supported and is already reflected within the budget strategy. However, reserves have been used to implement the long-term changes necessary to achieve the required savings as implementing changes to staffing cannot be done immediately. There appears to be a conflict between HMICFRS saying that reserves should not be relied upon, whilst Central Government is advising that Local Government Authorities should draw on reserves to deliver change. There needs to be further clarity on this point. Significant savings have been made including a reduction of six appliances and a substantial reduction in workforce, with the main cost to the budget being salary. Central Government, through the Framework document suggest that reserves should be 5% of the budget. The is a very challenging area and one which will be the subject of a forthcoming comprehensive spending review;

(j)  with regards to the hours worked by on-call staff, this does not specifically differentiate between those full-time firefighters with on-call roles, and on-call firefighters who have other full-time employment. There needs to be a balance of hours being monitored and care taken to ensure on-call appliance availability; 

(k)  the 10 minute response time was originally only applied to fires within domestic properties but this was broadened to include all incidents. There is an ongoing debate nationally as to what response times should be. Opinions vary particularly when budget shortfalls are taken into consideration.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  note the report;

(2)  agree to receive a report to the September Fire Authority meeting demonstrating the progress against the identified areas for improvement.