Agenda item

To consider item 14

The Corporate Planning Manager advised Members that this was the regular report on the status of corporate risks that was presented to every meeting of this Committee. The report reflected any changes and updates made to the Corporate Risk Register since the last meeting on 15 March 2023. Since then, the risk register had been subject to regular review by the Performance Monitoring and Strategic Management Boards and also by Lead Members where individual risks fell within their areas of reference.

The Corporate Planning Manager advised Members that there had been some changes since the last report. In particular, to the industrial relations risk. Following the settlement of the pay dispute with the FBU earlier in the year, this had been redefined and re-assessed to relate to the potential impact of ongoing industrial action in other sectors, such as education, which, for example, could affect attendance of staff with childcare responsibilities. The broader staff availability risk had been amended to reflect the impact of recruiting at scale and pace on the ratio of inexperienced to experienced staff.

The financial sustainability risk had been re-scored and was now out of the red zone following the various improvements to revenue funding and release of provisions from reserves that were no longer needed as reported to Members earlier in the year. There was a new risk relating to national issues identified by the HMICFRS in their recent ‘Value and Culture in Fire and Rescue Services’ report. The Information security risk status was unchanged from the previous report. However, officers continued to make improvements to the cyber-security as reported in the update.

Finally, in relation to climate change, the specialist off-road appliances were now being deployed to enhance the response to any potential incidences of wildfire along with specialist training and engagement with the NFU and Forestry Commission to help assess risks and opportunities for mitigations.

A Member raised concerns that the On-Call training course in August had been cancelled due to lack of candidates, and also asked what the responses from social media versus adverts/job fairs were and the breakdown of where the Service was attracting these candidates from.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that On-Call was a national problem. With regard to the training course, officers were now liaising with other fire and rescue services to try and get enough candidates together to run the course cost effectively.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officers advised Members that a Workforce Planning Report was being drafted looking at recruitment, training and staff development.

A Member asked about the dangers of high-rise buildings and houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) and how the Service was dealing with it.

The Corporate Planning Manager advised that, as Members were aware, the Service was currently in the process of building a new Community Risk Management plan which would include a comprehensive look across all risks in the community, including new and emerging risks and certainly including high-rise buildings and HMOs would feature in that analysis.

(Councillor Fuller joined the meeting)

 RESOLVED –

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

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