Agenda item

To consider a report

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented a report providing Members with information to support changes to the Service Emergency Response

Performance standards in consultation with the public and key stakeholders.

If agreed, consultation would commence on changes to the response times and ridership factor and removal of old descriptors and control measures to bring the Service in to line and facilitate benchmarking with other services.

The Authority was advised that the response measures and ridership factor had not been reviewed since 2007 and that the proposed standards had been based on five years of performance data, assessment and a benchmarking exercise.

In response to a question on whether the changes in ridership being proposed, to reduce from five to four which would increase the number of appliances operationally available, would be supported by the Fire Brigades Union, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer commented that this standard had been set in 2007 in response to the Carse Report, which recommended a minimum of nine firefighters. The Service would send a three-pump response to a house fire, which meant that, at a minimum, if the new standard was adopted, there would be twelve firefighters at the incident. This was considered to be in accordance with safe operating procedures. He emphasised that four would be the minimum, and many appliances would still have five.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer expressed the view that the union was likely to support retaining the current policy; however, Members were asked to support the change as it enabled the Service to increase its operational flexibility and improve its ability to respond to incidents.

Members sought assurance about the communications plan for the consultation, as it appeared that certain issues, such as ridership, could be quite complicated for lay people to understand.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer reported that a full communications plan had been developed, including explanatory videos, FAQs, key points and a range of other tools to engage with the public. Regular reminders to respond to the consultation would be provided, and the length of the consultation had been increased to 8 weeks in recognition of the Christmas period. The consultation could not be delayed as it was hoped to implement any changes agreed before the start of the next reporting year.

In response to a comment from Councillor Owen, the Chair mentioned a previous visit for Members to the Control Room and suggested that another visit be arranged for those Members who had been able to attend, as it would improve their understanding of call handling challenges if they were able to observe Control staff in action.

Members thanked the Deputy Chief Fire Officer and his team for their extensive work in this area and the view was expressed that the proposed changes would bring the Service’s measurement of response standards more in line with the expectations of the Inspectorate.

The Chief Fire Officer confirmed that the changes to ridership proposed would not result in a safety concern, as four was the agreed minimum standard for safe systems of work, especially as there had been improvements in technology, particularly the breathing apparatus (BA) sets.

In this respect, Stuart Auger, Head of Response advised that the new BA sets enabled live data from the BA wearers to be monitored remotely to improve safety at the incident site.

Consultation responses would be reviewed regularly by the Service’s Corporate Management Team, with a view to updating the Authority’s meeting in February 2024.

Members were advised that the communications plan included information being submitted to the constituent councils asking them to distribute to their Members and stakeholder networks.

RESOLVED:

1. That consultation be approved on the following proposed new operational response performance measures:

• Mobilise to primary fires within 120 seconds 85% of the time.

• First fire engine to arrive in 12 minutes to primary fires on 80% of occasions, measured from time of call. (incorporating the

existing time of alert measure with the new call handling measure).

• RTCs we will arrive in 15 minutes on 80% of occasions, measured from time of call. (incorporating the existing time of alert

measure with the new call handling measure).

• For secondary fires one fire engine will arrive in 20 minutes on 96% of occasions, measured from time of call.

• The removal of old descriptors that do not follow the national recording and benchmarking definitions e.g. a move from ‘critical

incidents’ to ‘primary and secondary fire’.

• The removal of the old control measure to answer 90% of 999 calls in 7 seconds or less, as this will now be superseded by the

control measure above.

• The removal of ‘5 riders’ being part of any performance measure due to the limiting nature of such a measure when

maximising the amount of fire engines available to the whole County.

2. That consultation also take place on whether the Service should publicly measure the arrival of a subsequent fire engine should the pre-determined attendance require more than one fire engine at the time of the call. If this is required, then the following measure may be applied:

• Second fire engine to arrive in 16 mins to primary fires on 80% of occasions, from time of call.

3. That an 8-week consultation period which allows for the LGA 6 weeks best practice period but is extended by two weeks due to Christmas, thus ensuring sufficient time for stakeholders to engage with the consultation, be approved, noting that the consultation will be commenced following the Authority meeting that considers the content of this paper and will be formed of the proposals that are agreed from the above recommendations.