Meeting documents

To consider Item 10

The Corporate Planning Manager advised Members that the report provided an update on the current status of identified corporate risks. At the Strategic Management Board (SMB) meeting on 15 January 2019 the following changes to the Risk Register were agreed:

1. Progress in addressing the Pager Service risk, and its continued green RAG status, indicated that it was appropriate to remove it from the Corporate Risk Register.

2. Central Government had instructed public service providers to undertake contingency planning for a scenario in which the UK leaves the EU without a formal withdrawal agreement on 29 March 2019. In light of this, the potential short-term risks had been scoped and evaluated and were shown at page 8 of Annex C. Given the imminence of the potential EU withdrawal date, it was agreed that this risk be added to the Corporate Risk Register. It was also recommended that any longer term financial risks arising from this scenario be addressed in the funding and savings risk when more was known and the exit scenario clarified.

The Corporate Planning Manager advised Members that officers were also currently considering any potential risks to the Authority that may arise from the Court of Appeal’s recent decision regarding the Fire Brigades Union’s 2015 firefighters’ pension scheme age discrimination case against the Government.

The Corporate Planning Manager had reviewed the individual risks as follows:

Staff Availability: Although staff retention remained an issue, good progress was being made with the apprenticeship recruitment programme and another 16 apprentices were due to start this month. The Authority was also attempting to capitalise on the recent national awareness campaign to attract more interest in on call staff and was also working to identify potential existing staff to step into leadership roles and meet the succession and resilience planning requirements via the Development Centre Programme.

Funding & Savings: Although the Authority had agreed a balanced budget for the period 2019/20 – 2021/22 the risk score and RAG status remained unchanged at Red as this had been achieved at the expense of the Authority’s capital reserves which if continued would leave the Authority with no capital reserves by 2024/25. There were also other factors that may come into play, such as from Brexit that were, as yet, unknown.

Information Security: There had been no major intrusions or disruption to information systems from malware since the last report to Members in November. Members would note from the latest entry on the risk register that the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) had been gathering information on behalf of the Home Office regarding cloud hosting of fire and rescue services data outside the UK. The Authority was able to provide a nil return as none of its data was held outside of UK hosted sites.

No Deal Brexit Scenario: The overall assessment of this, drawing on input from the NFCC and the Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum (TVLRF), was that the likely short term physical impacts of a withdrawal from the EU without a comprehensive exit agreement were low/medium in nature but with a high likelihood of occurrence under a no deal scenario.

A Member asked a question regarding fuel supply and was advised that the Authority had a fuel plan in place. This ensured that the Authority could continue to mobilise to emergency incidents in the event of a contingency arising that could disrupt fuel supplies on a local or national scale.

A Member asked a question regarding the balanced budget and this leaving the Authority with no capital reserves by the end of 2024-25 and was advised that as there were so many uncertainties around future funding that was the worst case scenario. Obviously, once the Authority knows what the future funding would be, action would be taken to ensure that reserves did not run out. It may mean that some difficult decisions would need to be made.

RESOLVED –

1. That the status report on identified corporate risks at Annex C be reviewed and approved;

2. That comments to officers for consideration and attention in future updates/report be provided.