Agenda and minutes

of the previous meeting held on 5 November 2019 attached.

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 5 November 2019 be approved.

Report of the Director of Governance & Digital Services (HRMDC/20/1) attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Governance & Digital Services (HRMDC/20/1) that set out the Service’s performance in relation to health, safety and wellbeing issues for the period April to September 2020.

In respect of health and safety issues, the reporting was split into two key areas, namely:

·         Proactive monitoring – this involved the use of a safety management system audit together with workplace inspections and assessment.  For the period April to September 2020, the Service had 496 compliant areas with 140 areas it was working towards and 4 non- compliant.  In addition, the Service had 45% of workplace inspection and assessments overdue against a target of 0%, due largely to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic;

·         Reactive monitoring – the Service undertook monitoring via the Reporting of Injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) which required the reporting of certain types of work related safety event outcomes such as, amongst others, the death of a worker/non-worker from a work related accident and specific injures to workers .  In 2020/21 to September 2020, the Service reported 1 over 7 day injury (a decrease largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic), 3 dangerous occurrences (an increase due to breathing apparatus changes which was being monitored carefully) and 0 specified injuries.  The Service also monitored the number of personal injuries together with vehicle incidents.  To September 2020, the Service recorded 19 personal injuries compared with 48 in 2019/20 which was a decrease to date.  On vehicle incidents, the Service recorded 60 to September 2020 as compared with 105 in 2019/20 which showed an upward trend to date.

The Health and Safety Manager reported that a temporary Health & Safety Audit Officer had been appointed in March 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and had made great progress with the audits in difficult circumstances.  A gap analysis against ISO45001 had also been completed in order to assess the implications of moving across to this standard.  It was anticipated that the cost of moving to ISO45001 would be in the region of £35k which included training and external verification fees.  Adoption of this standard would being the Service into line with other fire and rescue services in this region and enable benchmarking to be undertaken.

The Committee questioned the use of a 0% target for monitoring the completion of workplace assessments and suggested that a target of 100% may be more appropriate.  The Health and Safety Manager replied that this target was for overdue assessments but he indicated that this could be adjusted in future to completed assessments which would make the target 100%.

The question was also raised as to whether the introduction into the Service of smaller vehicles such as the Rapid Intervention Vehicles and the Light Rescue Pumps would impact on the number of vehicle accidents being reported.  The Health and Safety Manager responded that vehicle accidents were a large proportion of the safety events reported but this was still low as a proportion of all of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item HRMDC/13

Report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (HRMDC/20/2) attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (HRMDC/20/2) that set out the progress being made on implementation of the People Strategy.  The report also referred to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the progress made and the response to supporting the workforce during this difficult period.

The Committee was advised upon the progress made under each strand of the People Strategy which included:

·       Leadership;

·       Inclusion;

·       Ways of working;

·       Learning and development; and

·       Wellbeing.

Reference was made in particular to the following areas of work undertaken in implementation of the Strategy:

·       A Leadership Strategy had been prepared, aligned to the National Fire Chiefs’ Council (NFCC) Leadership Framework;

·       A staff Task to Finish Group had been established to look at empowerment and decision making;

·       The key findings in the annual Recruitment & Diversity report for 2019/20 were that there had been the biggest number of female On Call new starters at 21 together with 3 new wholetime female employees resulting in the highest ever female representation within operational roles the Service at 100.  Additionally, the number of applicants with a different ethnic background was, on average, close to reflecting the Service’s community at 5.3% and applications from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community had also increased to higher than the community average of 2.2%;

·       The Service had achieved the Silver Award under the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (ENEI) following a TIDE assessment that benchmarked an organisation’s approach and progress on diversity and inclusion in areas of strategy, leadership, recruitment, training, communications and procurement which was a big step forward and a good achievement;

·       The response in the Covid-19 pandemic had meant that the Service had been able to accelerate its aspirations for more flexible ways of working under smart working principles with changes to core hours alongside working from home and many teams had reported that this provided a greater degree of work/life balance and was more family friendly although it was felt generally that a blended approach to flexible working  was preferable; and

·       People impact assessments had been utilised to gauge the effect of the pandemic on staff with action plans implemented to support the health and welling of staff.

The Committee expressed its thanks to the officers and all staff for all of the work undertaken in the Covid-19 pandemic in and in achieving this very positive progress against the People Strategy.

RESOLVED

(a)       That the progress towards achieving the aims set out in the People Strategy be considered as a standing item at the Human Resources Management & Development Committee and that the progress be updated at each meeting; and

(b)       Subject to (a) above, the report be noted.

Report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (HRMDC/20/3) attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (HRMDC/20/3) setting out a request for retirement and re-employment in accordance with the approved Pay Policy Statement for 2020/21. 

RESOLVED that the request for retirement and re-employment as set out within report HRMDC/20/3 be approved.

Report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (HRMDC/20/4) attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (HRMDC/20/4) that set out a proposed response to a government consultation on Reforming Local Government Exit Payments.

RESLOVED that the consultation response contained within report HRMDC/20/4 be submitted to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government on behalf of the Authority.