Information

Welcome and introductions.

 

Attendees:

PFCC Danielle Stone (DS)

Marianne Kimani (MK)

Jonny Bugg (JB)

Vaughan Ashcroft (VA)

Louise Sheridan (LS)

Paul Fell (PF)

Nick Alexander (NA)

CFO Nikki Watson (NW)

DCFO Simon Tuhill (ST)

ACFO Phil Pells (PP)

 

Guest attendees:

 

Harry Palmer- Randall – APCC

Eddie Smithwick – APCC

 

 

Minutes and decisions of previous meeting

 

• DS welcomed everyone to the meeting.
• Apologies were accepted from ACFO Rob Porter and ACO Paul Bullen
• Minutes of the previous meeting were circulated with the meeting papers.

 

 

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 1 for 2024/2025.

 The performance paper provided was taken as read.

• The Commissioner requested that direction of travel arrows be added to future reports so that she can more easily see if the change in performance is positive or negative.
• DCFO Tuhill provided an overview of the Q1 highlights.
• In Q1, for 97% of time there were 14+ appliances available.
• The average time to respond to all incidents was 10:06 however to confirmed fires, attendance was 9:48
• This was confirmed as the best attendance time for a number of years and the result of hard work by finance , service delivery and workforce planning to provide for an increased establishment.
• More deployable staff means there are more pumps available.
• The increase in establishment has had no impact on costs as was using overtime previously which is more expensive.
• In addition, some technical solutions are also assisting with faster response times.
• There was a discussion about response times in urban areas. ST confirmed in Northampton and Wellingborough these will typically be sub 6 minutes due to the location of fire stations.
• There was a discussion about how Home Office response time data is broken down. (time taken to answer the call, time taken to mobilise the appliance and then the time it takes to drive to the incident).
• Northants has positive story to tell and is performing better than similar fire services within its family group.
• The Commissioner suggested it would be a good idea to provide the context of response times so that people understood them – urban versus rural and then response by incident type Fire versus RTC an animal rescue.
• The Commissioner was also pleased about appliance availability.
• She asked if progress was being made on driver training so that there was less reliance on overtime for this role.
• PP confirmed that a business case for investment for an additional trainer has been approved.
• The Commissioner asked about the crewing policy.
• ST confirmed the standard is five with an average of four.
• Flexible crewing is also used.
• The minimum crew would always be four accepting that for certain incidents less than four could be the most appropriate use of resource.
• On All Incidents Attended, demand is stable. The summer period was cooler and wetter so there has been no repeat of spate conditions associated with additional fires experienced in the summer period the previous year.
• There was a discussion about ‘Fires in other buildings’ which are notably increasing for NFRS when peers are showing much smaller changes.
• This is largely attributed to fires in HMP 5 Wells (38) and HMP Olney (13). Whilst the position is improving it remains an issue.
• Fire fatalities across the county remain low but have increased in the last 12 months.
• Prevention teams are reviewing victim profiles to see what interventions can be introduced in the profiles identified.
• ST will bring this information to the next meeting.
• The Commissioner is keen to share the risk profiles with partners to see what other prevention strategies/support can be implemented.
• There was a discussion on road fatalities.
• Local authorities to not have the budgets to implement the engineering works that are needed on the County’s highways.
• The aspiration has to be to make our road network as safe as possible.
• There are roughly 35 – 40 road fatalities every year. This far exceeds the number of fire fatalities and murders.
• There was a discussion about Road safety being included in the Commissioners new Safe and Sound Plan and an example of how Cambridgeshire review all road deaths within 7 days.
• Lisa Bryan and Paul Fell are looking at this approach to see how it could be implemented in Northamptonshire.
• There was a discussion on operational response standards.
• ST confirmed that there are nine wholetime pumps available on weekdays and seven at the weekend.
• The option of day crewing to 7 days rather than 5 is one part of the Your Future Service (ECR) considerations.
• On training and firefighter skill sets. PP confirmed that he is in discussion with EMAS on how they can support each other throughout the year.
• There was a discussion about specialisms – floodings, RTC’s and animal rescue.
• PP advised that this is part of horizons scanning to identify the risks in the County.
• For example, the requirement for more training in water rescue and a requirement for deep water dry suits for firefighters as opposed to training to handle outboard motors which are expensive and rarely used.
• Climate change is covered in the CRMP – flooding incidents are occurring more regularly.
• There was a discussion about the financial implications of climate change.
• NA confirmed they are working through assumptions and doing best they can with resources.
• The Commissioner asked about the timescales for issuing drysuits.
• PP confirmed the Service is uplifting provisions to be fit for purpose and sized correctly.
• Wellingborough, Mereway and Corby will be the first stations as they are assessed as most in need due to their roles and demands.
• There was a discussion about call handling and whether staffing numbers are able to be increased/decreased subject to seasonal fluctuations in demand.
• ST confirmed that these is a small cadre of people in fire control.
• Resilience is provided by Warwickshire if the Service was unable to answer 999 calls.
• Fire Service only has 999 calls. Only police adopted 101 as an alternative even though it was intended to be a multi-agency service when the concept was first introduced.
• It was agreed that fire control and mobilisation would be a good topic for a future problem-solving meeting given that it is a small number of people answering a small number of calls.
• However, it is a highly specialised working environment, and it takes 3 – 4 months to complete the training required to be competent.

 

Assurance statement:

The Commissioner thanked the Chief Fire Officer and team for the presentation of the paper stating it was simple and clear and allowed effective examination of the NFRS performance, in several areas. She welcomed the ongoing improved response times to fire related incidents, these being some of the higher risk incidents.

It was acknowledged that November will see a new style of assurance and accountability meetings and there will be some areas of performance that will require detailed explanations. At this time the Commissioner was not concerned in relation to the high-risk areas of business but in future meetings would want to explore matters like community engagement of fire fighters and further details of the identified at risk groups for fire.

 

 

Budget Monitoring Report

 

The Commissioner requires a budget monitoring report from the Chief Fire Officer in relation to the delegated budget to Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue for 2024/2025 to this point in the financial year.

 

• The Budget Monitoring Report was taken as read with Nick Alexander providing additional commentary on any highlights or concerns.
• Volatility in the area of business rate collection continues to present challenges around the certainty of future funding.
• This is why they have Reserves.
• Pay awards were slightly above the budgetary assumption but had a 1% contingency which will be transferred to the relevant budget line to cover pay award pressures.
• It is likely that fire staff pay award will mirror the police staff pay award of 4.75%.
• There has been an overspend on Response wholetime pay. This is due to the timings of recruitments with assumptions around retirement currently being prudent.
• If retirements do occur as expected the current overspend position will improve towards the end of the year.
• If retirements don’t happen as expected it will put pressure on budget and the workforce plans will need to be re-worked.
• The Commissioner asked if there was a retirement age or maximum length of service.
• ST confirmed that it used to be 30 years, but pension changes and the pension remedy challenge means there will now be a mixture of people that retire between the ages of 50 and 60. Or move back into different pension scheme and retire earlier (pension challenge).
• Have to plan for the likelihood of retirement however if people don’t retire will have to slow recruitment next year.
• ST also flagged a potential risk of changes to tax relief on lump sums. This could also impact the retirement profile of the Service.
• There was a discussion about staff on modified duties and levels of absence.
• It was agreed to add a workforce discussion to a future problem-solving meeting.
• On Grants – NA confirmed the Service are continuing to deliver on their planned expenditure and expect to receive the full Protection Grant allocation for 2024/25.
• This is good news given that the level of unspent grants held by Fire nationally continue to be a key concern of the Home Office.
• It was agreed that the Protection Grant and how this has been spent would make a good case study. Harry and Eddie, attending from the APCC, to meet with Scott Richards after the meeting for the information.
• The Commissioner highlighted the £824k carbonisation grant that is available.
• NA confirmed that he is aware of it and there is a good case for police and fire to apply.
• The next round of the decarbonation scheme opens tomorrow (10 October)
• PF agreed to send the link to apply to NA.

Action – PF to send the link to apply for the decarbonisation grant to NA.

• There was a discussion about a College of Fire, this will be a challenge as there is not a lot of money in the Home Office for Fire.
• The Commissioner asked about General Reserve.
• NA advised that this Reserve is stable with little movement of fluctuation.
• The Funding Reserve is the smoothing one. It is £2m. higher than it used to be but it is still not high enough to move out to ear marked reserves.
• VA added that Reserves this year are likely to be £1m more than they thought they would be.
• £7m is earmarked and general reserves.
• The Commissioner thought this was really interesting and that there was a definite case to take forward to Ministers.

 

Assurance statement:

 The Commissioner welcomed the relatively positive position as shown and demonstrated in the paper received.

The Commissioner was satisfied that there were effective financial management processes in place and that at this point the Chief Fire Officer Team were well sighted on any financial risks and were able to manage those.

 

A.O.B

•  The Deputy Commissioner updated that she has been visiting fire stations across the county and was please to see that morale is really high.
• No further business was raised.