Agenda item

To consider a report

Members received a summary of organisational performance at the end of the first quarter of the current financial year. These included some of the changes that had been agreed at the previous meeting of the Authority (Minute 22-23/fa/030 refers).

In response to a question on how the response standards were reported against in this report, the Chief Fire Officer advised that some amendments had been made to improve the visibility of the performance indicators relating to those standards and that the narrative had been updated to make it easier to understand. As there was a difference in how response was measured by the Service (as set out in the response standards) and by the Inspectorate, the response standards may need to be revisited in future. For example, the current response standards set a target of attending 80% of critical (primary) fires responded to within 10 minutes, measured from the time a fire appliance is alerted by Control whilst HMICFRS measure response times from the time the first 999 call is received by our Control Room. In summary, the reporting of indicators in this area were still evolving in order for them to be more reflective of the Service’s published response standards.

Prevention

As previously discussed under the Annual Report item, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer reported on the rise in arson incidents and a particular spate of events in Luton in April 2022. Given the extreme weather experienced during the summer and the corresponding increase in number of events attended, it was unlikely that a downward trend would be reported for the next quarter.

There had been a decrease in the number of Safe and Well visits conducted as staff were directed to a high volume of operational incidents. A volunteer manager had recently been appointed and it was envisaged that, in future, volunteers and third sector organisations could be trained to conduct the visits on behalf of the Service to increase capacity.  It was also recognised that the target measuring the number of Safe and Well visits delivered was a stretch target and that the Service had conducted more visits in this reporting period than in had done during the whole year of 2016/17.

Area Commander I Evans added that the community risk analysis recently undertaken had identified that those households most at risk of accidental dwelling fires, poorer pensioners, were also the group that was most likely to be the subject of Safe and Well visits.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer referred to the work of the Falls Team in identifying and supporting individuals in this cohort.

Protection

National shortages in qualified fire protection officers had impacted on the ability of the Service to recruit to vacant posts in this area. However, a recent recruitment exercise had been successful and the Service was beginning the process of training and upskilling staff to take on these roles.

Area Commander I Evans advised that four new staff, two Grey Book and two Green Book staff, had recently started in the fire safety team, with the cost funded through the grant.

To combat the increase in attendances to Automatic Fire Detectors, a greater level of call challenge and other measures had been introduced in Control.

Response

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer reported that there had been an increase in special services. This was expected to continue as the Service was supporting EEAST with a range of activities including bariatric response, falls, Emergency Medical Response and co-responding.

The increase in total incidents was also expected to continue as the extreme heat and associated incidents had fallen within the second quarter of this reporting year.

As previously mentioned, false alarm calls were being subject to greater challenge.

On call availability was affected by recruitment and retention issues and the Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that he and a small team had recently attended an On Call Improvement Working Group meeting run by the National Fire Chiefs Council in August. A new Group Commander had been appointed, with one of the job roles being to lead on on-call availability.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer reported that the Service had to take operational decisions that could impact adversely on performance against the indicator measuring whole-time global crewing enabling 9 riders on two pumps as the Service sought to maximise overall pump availability by deploying the fifth person on a two pump station to increase pump availability at other locations. This increased the number of pumps available in key strategic locations but reduced the global crewing for this specific indicator. It was hoped that the On-Call project would positively impact on performance against this target.

The view was expressed that the trial of relocating a pump to Leagrave would not improve response times as measured by the indicators, as it had been suggested that there would be an improvement to response times within Luton and the surrounding areas by 30 seconds. Most of these incidents were already responded to within 10 minutes, and this did not appear to improve response times in the rural areas so that these would be within 10 minutes.

The Chair suggested that response times would be a good topic for discussion by a Scrutiny Panel and it was agreed that a meeting to conduct a deep dive of this issue would be arranged.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the relocation of the pump would also improve response times in parts of Central Bedfordshire.

Area Commander S Auger provided assurance regarding the pilot that the project team was taking views such as those expressed at the meeting into account and that the data would be analysed to determine if there was a measurable benefit in response times and what geographical location this related to.

The Service had concerns about the performance of indicators measuring call handling. The majority of calls were from individuals who could provide an identifiable address or could use What3Words to provide their specific location to Control staff. The primary issue affecting performance related to road traffic incidents on roadways where motorists could easily provide an addressable location. In these instances, it could take 2-3 minutes to triangulate a location from the information available. In future, consideration would be given to separating out the calls without an identifiable location.

Empowering

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer reported that sickness absence remained within target levels even though COVID-19 sickness was no longer being reported separately.

Some of the training indicators could not be reported against as the Service had recently upgraded from version 3 to version 5 of PDRPro.

Training for water responding had to be cancelled during quarter one for operational reasons; these were being rescheduled later in the year for all relevant staff.  A new trauma care course was being provided for new starters.

All health and safety indicators were achieving target levels.

Utilising

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer reported that there had been one incident relating to a gearbox repair which was not completed in time due to the delay in receipt of parts from a third party supplier.

The Technical Response Unit had required a complete motor refit and this had led to it being unavailable during that time period. The repairs had been funded by the Ambulance Service as part of the partnership arrangements.

Maximising

The indicator measuring invoices paid within 30 days was amber as there were many invoices being received without a valid purchase order in place and/or delays in managers authorising invoices for payment. Work continued with budget managers to improve processes so that invoices could be processed in a timely manner.

RESOLVED:

1.         That the Service’s performance against the delivery of the Authority’s Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) at the end

of the first quarter 2022-23 be acknowledged.

2.           That a Scrutiny Panel meeting be arranged to consider a deep dive on response times.