Agenda item

To consider a report

53.1     The Assistant Chief Officer provided a report in regards to the outcome of the 2017/18 Review of the Fire and Rescue Authority’s Effectiveness, which had included any identified areas for improvement and agreed actions for the coming year, together with a record of Members’ attendance at meetings. She reported that the Fire and Rescue Authority’s three Policy and Challenge Groups, and this Committee had each conducted a review of their own effectiveness against their Terms of Reference (TOR) and that three overarching questions were considered and included:

i.      Did the Group consider that they had been effective and discharged their responsibility in regard to the Group’s TOR.

ii.     Having taken into consideration the Group’s TOR were there any areas that had not been considered and should have been addressed.

iii.    Did the Group consider any training and development which would have assisted them with the areas of work of the Group.

53.2     She referred Members of the Committee to points 2.2.1 to 2.2.4 of the report which outlined discussions that had taken place by the Groups, and reported that where recommendations were put forward these had been incorporated into the action plan. 

53.3     In regards to Members’ attendance to meetings, the Assistant Chief Officer stated that the station visit due to take place in Woburn had been scheduled for 10 April 2018. A Member of the Committee raised concerns with regards to the late notification of the Woburn Station visit and inquired as to why this had occurred. The Assistant Chief Officer advised that she was not aware of why this visit had not been set and was to find out why late notice had been given to Members as plenty of time was usually given. She further stated that a lot of work was conducted by Democratic Services to ascertain dates for visits and to provide notification of these visits working alongside diary commitments for neighbouring Authorities. However, she recognised that there could be occurrences when dates would need to be rescheduled.

53.4     In addition, at the bottom of page 140 of the Record of Member Attendance for Station Visits 2017/18 report it stated that “Confirmation of attendance at Harrold and Biggleswade Station visits was not received by Democratic Services, therefore it has been assumed Members attended unless apologies were received prior to the visit”. Members of the Committee felt that this note should be removed as it potentially provided misleading information. It was believed that if attendance was not known the relevant section was to be left blank. The Assistant Chief Officer was to look into this matter further to ascertain why attendance could not be identified. 

RESOLVED:

1.      That the 2017/18 Review of Effectiveness and associated action plan be received and be approved, including its incorporation into the Annual Governance Statement.   

2.      That the Assistant Chief Officer be requested to look into why Members were notified about the Woburn Station visit at a late stage, as well as put in place procedures to ensure Members of this Committee were notified of forthcoming visits within a timely manner.

3.        That the Assistant Chief Officer be requested to establish why Member attendance to the Harrold and Biggleswade Station visits could not be wholly identified.