Agenda item

“That the report and recommendation below be approved for submission to the Authority:

1. It is recommended that the Performance Management – Q1 2023/24 be noted.”

The report considered by the Executive Committee is attached at item 13(c).

The Data Intelligence Team Manager was pleased to present to Members the key performance measures report for Q1 2023/24. As Members would see, there had been a number of changes based on feedback throughout the last year. The most notable changes were an improved layout of the report which allowed for more detailed measure descriptions and increased commentary. There were also some new measures added, including prison fires, forecast-outturn, website engagements, carbon emissions and printing.

The Data Intelligence Team Manager advised Members that with regard to performance within the report, it was encouraging to see the impact of the incidents in the home and workplace were generally where they were expected to be based on the targets set. However, it would be remiss not to highlight the area detailed in the response model. This area primarily detailed the availability of appliances across the wholetime fleet and on call. As seen in the report, this area had yet to reach its expected position. In relation to wholetime figures, there were a number of reasons that attributed to these figures; however, the Service had identified the largest impact of these numbers was the skills gap within the current workforce, primarily in relation to drivers and junior officers. As mentioned within the commentary, a range of initiatives had been agreed to improve resilience of front line resources.

A Member asked how bank shifts worked, the risk of attacks on staff members and vehicle accidents.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that with bank shifts there was a direct correlation between numbers of wholetime staff and the number of bank shifts required. Now that the Service was above establishment with the current new apprentices, looking at the figures for the same period last year, the Service was 36% down on bank shifts requirements which was positive.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that with regard to the risk of attacks on staff members, thankfully the numbers were very low, and Officers engaged with the public a lot on this matter, and any attacks would always be reported to the Police. There was also a new law that had come out regarding attacks on emergency workers. A report that came out in June this year, reported attacks on firefighters had increased significantly.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the information on vehicle incidents was captured in other reports. The Health and Safety Committee drill down into every vehicle incident to see if it could have been avoided.

A Member asked around the format of the report as there were different types of targets and methods of comparison, some targets were aspirational and some were there to ensure minimum standards were met. Would it be possible to mark out clearer which were aspirational, and which were minimum standards.

The Data Intelligence Team Manager advised that this was something officers could look at.

The Chairman advised that the report was showing deteriorating availability of wholetime pumps and the on call response model was way off where it needed to be which feeds through to the issue of a serious deterioration in the over the border mobilisation from supporting services. When will the investment made in resourcing feed through into appliance availability and reduced the use of other services. When would Members start to see that and what more needs to be done to get availability where it needs to be and significantly reduce the over the border reliance.

The Data Intelligence Team Manager advised he had already started looking at Q2 and the benefits were already being seen. Response times were not good in Q1 but in Q2 were looking very good.

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that availability was improving, although there was an issue around skills, with supervisory officers and drivers, and these were being addressed in a number of ways. A new area was being trialled called a ‘safe to command’ approach, whereby firefighters who had aspirations to be Crew Commanders, could command an appliance and an incident which gives the Service greater resilience. Also, when the 25 firefighters currently at the Fire Service College, were on station, this  would be a further improvement.

RESOLVED –

That the Performance Management – Q1 2023/24 be noted