Agenda item

To consider item 13

The Director of Legal and Governance advised Members that it was with great pleasure that he presented this report to the Authority, recommending that it sign up to the Charter for Families Bereaved Through Public Tragedy. The proposals for adoption, which had been planned to take to the Authority in 2020 before the disruption of the Covid pandemic  and changes of membership on the Authority, were reinvigorated by the attendance of the Right Reverend James Jones at a conference of the National Fire Chiefs Council at the end of November in 2022. Coincidentally, after this item had been added to today’s agenda, the National Police Chiefs Council announced on 31 January its formal response to the Right Reverend James Jones report which was published in 2017 and was referenced in the executive summary. This also led to the matter of bringing into legal effect some aspects of the Right Reverend James Jones’s report being raised again in Parliament with cross-party back bench support. The impact on the Authority would be minimal and would be underpinned in the employee’s Code of Conduct and the Complaints procedure. For Members information, the local FBU representative had seen a copy of the draft report, and fully endorsed its proposals, and would be happy for a joint statement to be issued via the Authority’s website.

The Chief Fire Officer advised Members that it was with mixed emotions that this report was brought here today, as from a personal perspective, a member of his family was killed at Hillsborough and his whole family went through the issues of Hillsborough and the trauma of that over decades.

The Chief Fire Officer advised Members that when they went through the hearings and the final court hearings and found out how his family member had died. It was not until 30 years later that the family, for the first time, realised that there was actually somebody with him when he died. A police officer who tried his best to save his life. The family never got a chance to thank that police officer for his actions and that police officer never knew the person he tried to help.

The Chief Fire Officer advised Members that this paper encouraged authorities, to be open, honest, and transparent and think about the families of those who were bereaved in tragedies that effect the public. From a personal perspective he hoped the Authority accept and endorse this approach moving forward.

The Chairman thanked the Chief Fire Officer for sharing this, as he knew it would not have been easy for him, but he appreciated him doing so.

The Chairman also asked that the Authority not just signed the Charter, but Officers made sure it was embedded in the way the Authority operated and how it thought about things.

The Chairman would also like it to be sufficiently reflected, where needed, through the Authority’s policies and procedures, and also to remind everyone about the expectations that signing the Charter placed upon the Authority, so it does not get signed and forgotten.

RESOLVED –

That ‘The Charter for Families Bereaved through Public Tragedy’ be adopted and be attested by the signatures of the Chairman and the Chief Fire Officer.