Information

Welcome and introductions.

 

Attendees:

PFCC Danielle Stone (DS)

Jonny Bugg (JB)

Vaughan Ashcroft (VA)

Louise Sheridan (LS)

Stuart McCartney (SMc)

Paul Bullen (PB)

Nick Alexander (NA)

CFO Nikki Watson (NW)

DCFO Simon Tuhill (ST)

ACFO Rob Porter (RP)

ACFO Phil Pells (PP)

Scott Richards (SR)

Sarah Crampton (SC)

 

Apologies:

Paul Fell

 

 

Minutes and decisions of previous meeting

 

• DS welcomed everyone to the meeting.
• Minutes of the previous meeting were circulated with the meeting papers.
• A new model for the accountability board going forwards was discussed.
• One meeting will be focused on scrutiny, the next will be a business/strategy discussion.
• Meetings will be shortened to 90 minutes and will be moved to the second Wednesday of each month as soon as diaries can accommodate the change.

 

 

Performance update.

 

The Commissioner requires a report of the performance against the measures and metrics contained within the CRMP and internal NFRS performance framework to the end of Quarter 4 for 2023/2024.

 

• The report provided in advance of the meeting was taken as read with Sarah providing additional commentary.
• One third of NFRS total demand is for fires. The remainder can be attributed to ‘other incidents’; a high proportion of which were false alarms.
• There were 303 accidental dwelling fires, a reduction on previous year.
• HFSVs are focussed on the most vulnerable people in the county. This targeted prevention work correlates with the reduction in accidental dwelling fires.
• Better data is helping to improving victim and location profiles to inform and target prevention work.

Standards of Response & Appliance availability.

 

• Response times have a 10-minute SLA. The average response time is 10:06.
• There have been notable improvements in responses to RTCs and Fires with Fires well below the 10-minute standard.
• 4% of the time there are more than 14 appliances available to respond and there is good contingency in place when this occurs.
• NFRS was able to maintain 14 appliances for 98.4% of the time when including flexi resources.
• It was noted that improvements have also been made to the decision-making process in deciding what appliances to attend.
• In addition, there was also recognition for the work of NA and VA. Overtime has been reduced from £1.1m to £400k which has enabled the Service to increase firefighter establishment.
• The result is NFRS are mobilising appliances to incidents faster and spending money more wisely.
• Pinch point remains the start and end of the day when on-call go to work and wholetime shifts haven’t started.

Discussion on crewing and use of On-call will form part of ECR.

 

Fires attended all

 

• Total fires are now showing a -16.3% reduction in the last 12 months (this still includes the summer peak in the previous year)
• Whilst NFRS is not inundated with fires, other Services have seen a higher reduction.
• Some exploratory work is underway to understand the reason for this and may be down to how buildings are classified.
• Deliberate fires overall are stable.
• There is a joint QLIK app which holds arson taskforce, ASB and fire data identifying some consistent locations in Northampton, Wellingborough and Corby.
• Improved data means NRFS can understand the risk and target those areas with the police and other local partners.

False alarms

• False alarms are still showing an upwards trend.
• These incidents have been reported as fires/smoke alarms but upon attendance may already be out or genuine false alarms.
• Over half of FA’s are Good intent which have increased by 3%

• Despite the slight increase NFRS have some of the lowest rates of false alarms apparatus per 1000 population.
• Malicious FA’s remain very low.
• Fire control are good at call challenging, ensuring only mobilising to events of significant risk.

HFSVs

• Over 80% of HFSV’s target high risk and most vulnerable groups.
• There was a discussion about the complexity of high-risk cases which typically involve a number of agencies including social services, health, pest control etc.
• Not just one single problem and no one individual owns it.
• The Commissioner raised concerns about HMO’s particularly in areas where there are so many of them.
• The DCFO advised that HMO’s would be discussed in more detail in agenda item 5.

 

 

Assurance Statement:

The Commissioner received the update and raised the issue of HMOs and requested that further work was undertaken to better understand the data.

 The Commissioner also raised the importance of working in partnership to better understand the underlying causes of such demand.

 Overall, the Commissioner was assured with the current level of performance and looked forward to seeing ongoing improvements.

 

 

Strategic outcomes requirements letter update

 

As part of the budget setting process for 2024/2025, the Commissioner and Chief Fire Officer agreed a set of strategic outcome requirements outlining areas that were to be delivered in the financial year 2024/2025.

 

The Commissioner requires a paper demonstrating the progress made to date, on the delivery of these agreed outcomes and measures.

 

• The report provided in advance of the meeting was taken as read.
• The Service is working actively with the OPFCC to shape the fire priorities in the Commissioners new Police, Fire and Crime Plan.
• The draft report from the recent HMICFRS inspection has been received.
• The Service has an action plan to send to HMI specifically around EDI.
• The DCFO anticipates that the CfC work will be inspected again in 6 months by HMICFRS and there will have been more progress.
• Work on the 41 recommendations contained in the ECR continues. (19 have started and 2 are complete).
• A business case has been produced to support the resourcing required for the transformation work. (3 additional staff for a 6 and 3 year period)
• VA confirmed that he needs to discuss this with JB and the Commissioner.

Action – VA to discuss ECR business case for additional resource with JB and DS

 

• Serving with Pride is progressing well with good work from the culture team.
• Some elements of the programme will take longer to deliver.
• It has been difficult to recruit Change Allies and a new approach is now being considered.
• There are 50 actions arising from Serving with Pride and these have all been given a RAG status.
• Between 6 and 8 of these are being delivered straight away, other, lower-level actions will take longer to progress.
• The People and Culture Board oversee see progress and are content that good progress is being made on actions that have been graded as high priority.
• PB confirmed that there is not one size fits all solution. The Service is somite dot running a follow up Serving with Pride 2 survey to understand progress and also what other issues may have emerged.
• JB commented that from both an internal staff and HMICFRS perspective, the leadership team need to be able to explain what they are doing, how they are delivering against the actions and how far advanced progress actually is.

 

 

Assurance statement:

The Commissioner was assured of the work being undertaken and noted the importance of Emergency Cover review and the Serving with Pride project.

 The Commissioner agreed it was important that both the service and the OPFCC work together in relation to new Police, Fire and Crime Plan and the CRMP to deliver synergy in relation to both consultation and outcomes.

 

 

Risk-based inspection programme.

The Commissioner requires a report or presentation from the Chief Fire Officer outlining progress against the current risk-based inspection programme. The report or presentation should outline the basis for the RBIP, progress against the programme and should highlight any particular successes, risks or barriers to delivery.

 

• Scott Richards provided additional commentary to the report which was taken as read.
• In 2019 NFRS moved to 3-year inspection programme on higher and highest risk premises.
• 1,456 premises in the county have been identified and include care homes, sleeping premises such as hotel, flats over 3 storeys, Schools with SEN provision and major public venues.
• There was a discussion about addressing HMICFRS’s recommendations from 2022 which considered NFRS to be over-reliant on the professional judgement of experienced protection officers.
• SR explained that protection officers provide guidance and advice, issue enforcement notices and serve prohibition and restriction notices.

• The team have developed CFRMIS to help manage the inspection cycle. Low risk are reviewed less often than high risk which are reviewed more regularly.
• There was a discussion about places of worship.
• SR confirmed he is doing a specific piece of work on places of worship to understand occupancy and construction (old churches versus new temples)
• The website is a valuable resource which includes a free e-learning facility.
• Visits to the website have increased from around two thousand hits to over 22 thousand in the past 4 years.
• There was a discussion on visit to care premises between 2010 – 23.
• SR advised that by visiting regularly and addressing low-level issues, less enforcement action is required.
• The same approach has been applied to hotels. Short but frequent visits have been impactful.
• Legislation is being used to help and engage rather than enforce and close down. However, the team will take action where there is continued or blatant noncompliance.
• Three additional fire safety advisors have been recruited from Hom grant funding with a focus on lower-risk areas.
• There was a discussion about HMOs. The Commissioner was keen to understand how fire risk is mitigated.
• SR explained that it depends on occupancy and whether the tenants live as a family or if rooms are let to workers or professionals who live there for a few days during the week.
• Interaction is the key element to determining the risk.
• There was a discussion about providing smoke alarms.
• SR explained when this would be appropriate and when not.
• The key risk with HMOs is those premises which are not registered or be compliant with fire protection legislation.
• There is a Fire protection officer on call 24/7.
• There was a discussion on Local authority days of action – don’t have them anymore.
• The Commissioner confirmed that she is keen to see these reinstated and will raise with the relevant Chief Executives.

Action – DS to write to partner CEX’s about reinvigorating days of action.

 

• SR confirmed his team target highest risk with station crews supporting with lower risk.
• Currently upskilling crews to do checks in licenced premises and larger shopping centres using Home Office protection money.
• There was a discussion about the future of grants and how they will be used and prioritised.
• JB advised that the Commissioner will be the APCC lead for Fire and can lobby the APCC Fire Board to influence them measuring impact rather than spend.
• SR highlighted a developing risk with sleeping accommodation, explaining that hotels are easy to find, as are B&Bs.
• However, Airbnb are more difficult to identify as are short term lets in private dwellings.

• Assisted living premises can also pose a risk, where relatives bring in person to live. There is no requirement to register this arrangement.
• The Commissioner also flagged supported housing citing cases where trafficking and modern slavery offences had been identified.

Action – SR to provide further information about the risk associated with Supported Housing and Assisted Living Premises so that she could raise the concerns at a national level.

 

Assurance statement:

 The Commissioner received a comprehensive briefing and was assured that a great deal of excellent work was being undertaken, however she raised the issue of places of worship and HMOs are areas of concern.  The Commissioner also stressed the value of undertaking days of action in partnership with the local authorities and she would raise this with the Chief Executives as a lot of community intelligence can be gained through such work as well as increased safeguarding.

 The Commissioner also agreed to raise the issue of funding nationally and suggested that the service publish all the best practice that has been delivered.

 The Commissioner sought some assurance on the issue of Supported Housing and modern slavery. The Service explained that discussions were ongoing with the Care Commission, and the Commissioner requested a further briefing to enable her to raise this issue nationally.

 

 

A.O.B

No further business was raised.