Agenda item

Report of the Director of Finance & Corporate Services (Treasurer) (PC/24/1) attached.

The Committee received for information a report of the Director of Finance & Corporate Services (Treasurer) (PC/24/1) detailing performance as at Quarter 3 of 2023-24 against those Key Performance Indicators agreed by the Committee for measuring progress against the following three strategic priorities as approved by the Authority:

3(a).   Ensure that the workforce is highly trained and has the capability and capacity to deliver services professionally, safely and effectively;

3(b).   Increase the diversity of the workforce to better reflect the communities we serve, promoting inclusion and developing strong and effective leaders who ensure that we have a fair place to work where our organisational values are a lived experience; and

3(c).   Recognise and maximise the value of all employees, particularly the commitment of on-call firefighters, improving recruitment and retention.

In particular, the report provided information on performance against each of the following key measures:

·         operational core competence skills (beathing apparatus; incident command; water rescue; safety when working at heights or in confined spaces; maritime; driving; and casualty care);

·         health and safety (a general overview of the work undertaken on station audits and the risk from contaminants, accidents [including near misses]; personal injuries; vehicle incidents (together with the correlation to appliance mobilisation) and reporting against the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR));

·         sickness and absence (including mental health) for wholetime, on-call, support, Control and casual staff, types of sickness absence, details of the health and wellbeing support offered by the Service. The report also provided comparisons with national fire service data and featured benchmarking for sickness absence against comparable, neighbouring fire and rescue services;

·         fitness testing (including support offered for red and amber groups);

·         diversity, with a particular emphasis on the work being undertaken on promoting inclusion and developing strong leaders within the organisation;

·         strategic workforce planning including details of staff turnover in all categories of the workforce; and

·         an overview of the People Services Systems project.

 Attention was drawn at the meeting to the following points:

·       The performance on operational core competence skills was updated at the meeting as follows:

§  Breathing Apparatus – 99%;

§  Incident command – 98.9%;

§  Maritime – 97.1%;

§  Water Rescue – 96%; and

§  SHACS – 92.9% (amber).

45% of staff were booked in for courses under the new system so good progress was being made.

·       Fitness - 1520 staff had been tested to date, meeting the required standard with 27 staff failing to meet the required fitness;        

·       Accidents - there had been a decrease in the overall trend for accidents during 2023. The quarter 3 accident numbers were up by 9 on the previous quarter and up 5 for the same quarter in 2022-23. Vehicle related safety events remained the greater proportion of safety events though when vehicle related safety events (34) wee compared to vehicle mobilisations (8386) over quarter 3, only 0.4% resulted in a vehicle related safety event.

·       There were 12 near misses in Quarter 3 of 2023-24, a 14% (2 events) reduction on reporting from the previous quarter. The benefits of near miss reporting continue to be communicated by the Health and Safety Team.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

·       Personal injuries – these figures remained low with the trend showing a decrease over the 12 month period form quarter 4 of 2022-23 to the end of quarter 3 in 2023-24.  Quarter 3 of 2023-24 showed an increase on one event on the previous quarter;

·       Vehicle accidents – there were 34 vehicle incidents in quarter 3, the same number as in quarter 2.  The Organisational Road Risk Group continued to meet monthly to monitor the position and to increase communication proactively to raise awareness of the areas where vehicle accidents were occurring;

·       RIDDOR – there had been 4 reports during quarter 3 of 2023-24.  The incidents were all being investigated further.

It was noted that total sickness had increased marginally in the last quarter of 2023-24 (6.9 days/shifts lost in December 2023) primarily relating to long term absence with short term absence decreasing in comparison to this (2.2 days uncertified and 1.6 days certified).  Total sickness for the year to date (to December 2023) was 8.04 days.  Musculoskeletal injuries were still high but not as high as mental health absence which remained the main causes of absence.  It was noted that the Service continued to promote the support available to staff in such circumstances.

The Committee was apprised of the work being undertaken to address capability, disciplinary and grievance cases within the Service.  In 2023 (January to December), there had been 18 formal capability cases, 23 disciplinary cases and 19 grievances.  The report provided further information in respect of the type of cases and an overview of the outcomes.

The report also set out details of the work being undertaken on diversity and inclusion issues within the Service with an update on strategic workforce planning issues.

The Committee made reference to issues that had been picked up via station visits by Members on training and estates matters.  The Director of Service Delivery Support advised that she would pick up these issues outside of thi meeting.