Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (PC/21/7) attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (PC/21/7) on Service performance during April to June 2021 against the following strategic priorities as approved by the Authority at its ordinary meeting on 29 June 2021:

Strategic Priority 3(a): ensure that the workforce is highly trained and has the capability and capacity to deliver services professionally, safely and effectively. Key Performance Indicators associated with this strategic objective and summarised in the report were:

·         operational core competence skills (breathing apparatus; incident command; water rescue; working at height/in confined spaces; maritime; driving; and casualty care). The Committee had resolved to monitor at 95% (based on a three-month average) and to request more detail if competency against any core skill fell below this;

·         workforce planning (a six-monthly measure on the adequacy of plans to ensure the filling of vacancies with the right candidates);

·         health & safety;

·         near miss events;

·         personal injuries;

·         sickness due to accident at work (note, the Service was below average when compared to the national average);

·         vehicle incidents;

·         Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR);

·         sickness and absence, benchmarked as appropriate against other fire and rescue services and seeking to secure a reduction in quarterly absence figures for short- and long-term sickness. These measures included:

o   shift days lost by sickness for all staff types (benchmarked against other fire and rescue services); and

o   mental health (including stress interventions); and

·         fitness testing (measuring of the percentage of operational staff passing the annual fitness test and three-yearly medical).

Strategic Priority 3(b): increase the diversity of the workforce to better reflect communities served, promoting inclusion and developing strong and effective leaders who ensure the Service is a fair place to work and where organisational values are a lived experience. Key Performance Indicators associated with this strategic objective and summarised in the report were:

·         diversity. An annual measure looking to see a year-on-year increase in relation to:

o   % female staff;

o   % BAME;

o   % Female senior roles;

o   % BAME senior roles;

o   % LGBT senior roles.

·         promoting inclusion, developing strong leaders, living the values (including bullying, harassment and discrimination and grievances, capability and disciplinary actions). Associated performance measures were extracted from external (e.g. HMICFRS) and internal staff surveys, working towards a year-on-year improvement.

Strategic Priority 3(c): recognise and maximise the value of all employees, particularly the commitment of on-call firefighters, improving recruitment and retention. Key Performance Indicators associated with this strategic objective were:

·         Pay for Availability (P4A) benefits. As P4A was still to be fully implemented, it was intended to have performance metrics linked to its impact on increasing on-call recruitment in due course.

·         Employee recruitment and retention. This featured as part of the Annual Diversity report. Consequently, to avoid duplication, it was proposed that this should be removed from the performance report to this Committee.

·         Employee engagement. This would measure an increase in participation in both internal and external staff surveys. It was proposed that this should be included in future versions of the annual report.

In debating this report, the following issues were raised:

·         that, in the next report, the Committee would expect to see an improvement against water safety core competence given that this was reported at 90.9%. It was acknowledged, though, that the current report indicated the rationale for this, which was expanded on in the meeting together with information being provided on measures to address this;

·         that, in reporting near misses, it was important to encourage accurate reporting so as to improve the Service safety culture. An appropriate reporting measure for near misses could, however, be helpful;

·         that there would be benefit in having a measures to assess the impact of the introduction of smaller-type appliances on vehicle incidents;

·         that future reporting of fitness testing should include only those staff for whom a fitness test was required;

·         that a measure be developed to determine the percentage of on-call fire stations for which the Service was aiming to introduce the Pay for Availability contract. It was noted, however, that issues relating to collective agreements meant that the Service was not seeking to mandate the adoption of Pay for Availability for all stations;

·         that the RAG rating included in the table summarising all performance against the key indicators for each strategic priority was helpful but could be further improved by an additional “direction of travel” column.

RESOLVED

(a).  that future reports include an annual measure on grievance, capability and discipline;

(b).  that diversity statistics be reported, separately, in an annual report to avoid duplication;

(c).  that a measure regarding Service aspiration for the adoption of the Pay for Availability duty system be developed and reported to the next meeting;

(d).  that the Service Strategic Safety Committee be asked to consider an appropriate measure for reporting on near-misses, with the outcome to be reported to the next Committee meeting; and

(e).  that, subject to (a) to (d) above, the report be noted.