Agenda item

4.1       The Committee received the March 2018 Emergency Services sector update from RSM.

4.2       The Assistant Chief Officer referred to the questions set out for the Committee’s consideration and responses were provided as follows:

4.3       Have you considered the resource requirements of the new inspection arrangements?

4.4       The Assistant Chief Officer advised that the Service had allocated an Area Manager as the Service Liaison Lead, with one middle manager providing dedicated support and a consultant with contracted hours to support the process.

4.5       Indications from other Fire and Rescue Services that had already been inspected had been that the inspection required over 500 hours of Officer support and was an extremely intensive process. The Strategic Briefing would be held on 18 July 2018, with the full inspection commencing in the first week of August 2018.

4.6       What plans do you have in place to collate the information that will be requested?

4.7       The Officers mentioned above would be responsible for collating the information requested.

4.8       Have you talked to police colleagues about how they deal with the inspections?

4.9       Discussions had been held with police colleagues to support organisational learning.

4.10     Do you have effective or automated mechanisms to track the actions that arise from the inspection?

4.11     Monitoring of the actions arising from the inspections would be incorporated into the current processes tracking actions arising from Internal Audits and would be regularly reported.

4.12     Have you revised your integrated risk management plan in line with the framework and are you covering all the priorities above?

4.13     It had been agreed at the full FRA that the Service’s Community Risk Management Plan would be developed throughout 2018.

4.14     Will you have the revised plan approved and in place from April 2018?

4.15     The Plan was currently in progress and it was anticipated that it would be published in 2019.

4.16     How do you compare (in relation to response times)?

4.17     Are there any outliers for your FRS that need further investigation and action?

4.18     In relation to these two questions, benchmarking information was considered by the Service Delivery Policy and Challenge Group when the performance targets for the forthcoming year were set.

4.19     The Chair suggested that the Service Delivery Policy and Challenge Group be requested to consider this information and any reporting requirements.

4.20     Do you have clear policies and procedures for firefighters to be aware of for dealing with attacks on firefighters?

4.21     The Assistant Chief Officer reported that there were only a small number of cases locally and primarily related to displays of aggressive behaviour. Processes such as lone working and reporting policies were in place.  

4.22     These statistics were not currently reported to the Human Resources Policy and Challenge Group. It was agreed that the number of attacks on firefighters should be reported to that Policy and Challenge Group as part of health and safety reporting so that Members could maintain an oversight.

RESOLVED:

1.         That the communication be received.

2.         That the Service Delivery Policy and Challenge Group consider the benchmarking information in relation to response times and any reporting requirements.

3.         That the number of attacks on firefighters be reported to the Human Resources Policy and Challenge Group as part of the health and safety reporting so that Members can maintain an oversight.