LGA Governance


Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Bevin Hall, Ground Floor, 18 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HZ. View directions

Contact: Thomas French  07584271128 / Email: thomas.french@local.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Welcome, apologies and Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

Cllr Stephens introduced members to meeting.

 

2.

Home Office's Fire Reform Agenda - Luke Edwards, Director Fire & Resilience

Minutes:

Luke Edwards gave a presentation on current work in the Home Office. He focused on the progress of the Fire Reform programme, where services were and preparing for the Spending Review.

Luke outlined the three pillars of the Fire Reform programme: Efficiency and Collaboration; Accountability and Transparency; and Workforce Reform. Luke highlighted successes so far including £22 million of commercial savings and that national contracts are now in place. He stressed that benchmarking is needed across the sector to monitor progress and acknowledged there are still significant challenges across the sector, including:

·         Learning from Grenfell and new requirements around building safety

·         Delivery or renewal of national capabilities: Emergency Services Network, National Resilience and information systems

·         Understanding future demand, technology and its implications for capability and skills

·         Capacity to respond to major incidents

·         Leadership, diversity and workforce reform

Luke then outlined the work of the Senior Sector Group and expectations of the Spending Review:

·         Health spending commitments have taken up any extra available funding within government, other departments are therefore likely to have settlements going forward as any increase would cause a deficit in other areas.

·         There is a need to continue delivering more outputs with the same staffing levels as currently exist.

·         The aim is to submit a case to Treasury by the end of June to argue the case for funding for the sector as part of the Review.

·         In order to mitigate the flat-rate settlement the sector need to be looking at what efficiencies could be made such as further improvements in procurement so for example capacity could be built into protection.

Members made the following comments:

·         On the duty to collaborate, the fire service has worked with the police, but the sector has not seen the same collaboration with the NHS in all areas. Matt Hancock, Minister for Health and Social Care, is behind this work, the Home Office needs to be equally supportive in terms of resource.

·         Discussions around the Spending Review need to factor in county council fire budgets are not ring-fenced and so their budgets are particularly vulnerable. Any business case also needs to be clear about the differences between urban and rural services and differing needs which are poorly understood now.

·         National recruitment, particularly of on-call firefighters, is really important, but does the Minister recognise there is problem with the fairness of on-call pay?

·         The Home Office may need to be willing to highlight to the Treasury that reductions and efficiencies in the fire sector may have been bottomed out.

·         The Home Office needs to consider the unions in their plans to broaden any role or strengthening collaboration.

·         Climate change is starting to create challenges for emergency services in the UK. How does the Home Office see that affecting the firefighter’s role?

Luke Edwards responded:

·         There have been examples of collaboration across the NHS with the fire service, but a lot more can be done with the support of the Home Office.

·         The Home Office is keen to continue working to understand the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

3.

Local Government Association and National Fire Chiefs Council Fire & Rescue peer support offer pdf icon PDF 290 KB

Minutes:

Gary Hughes and Jess Norman gave an update to Fire Commission on the LGA and National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) peer support offer, including elements currently under review.

 

Jess Norman gave an overview of the Masterclasses on Culture, Inclusion and Diversity across 2019/20 and requested authorities to volunteer their services as venues for these training days.

 

Decision

 

Members agreed to disseminate information on the new Leadership Essentials programme and consider whether their authority would be willing to host a Masterclass.

 

Action

 

Contact Greater Manchester to host a master class.

 

4.

Workforce update pdf icon PDF 109 KB

Minutes:

Gill Gittins & Clair Alcock gave updates to Fire Commission on matters in relation to fire services industrial relations and pensions matters at present.

 

Decision

 

Members noted the report.

 

Action

 

The report to come a presentation to a future Fire Commission.

 

5.

Building Safety pdf icon PDF 115 KB

Minutes:

Charles Loft gave an update to Fire Commission on the LGA’s building safety related work, including progress with implementing the recommendations from the Hackitt Review.

 

Members comments:

  • Member commented that if new results on different types of cladding are expected by the end of June the sector needs to be prepared to manage ones that fail.

 

Decision

 

Members noted the report.

 

6.

NFCC: Central Programme Office Update pdf icon PDF 167 KB

Minutes:

Phil Loach reported on the current work of the National Fire Chiefs Council Central Programme Office.

 

Members made the following comments:

  • There should be a NFCC update on the On Call project and the community risk program.
  • What is the impact of the delay of the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme for the sector as a whole, in individual services procurement of new equipment has been delayed.
  • The sector has had a lot of discussion on Health and Wellbeing and it would be important to hear more from the NFCC in this.

 

Phil Loach responded

  • NFCC is more than happy to present any details the FSMC and Fire Commission would need to hear about.
  • Ann Millington supports NFCC on wellbeing and can bring an update to a future meeting.

 

Decision

 

Members noted the report.

 

7.

Fire Commission and outside bodies update DOTX 134 KB

Minutes:

Jess Norman outlined issues of interest to the Commission not covered under the other items on the agenda.

 

Decision

 

Members noted the report.

 

8.

Notes from the previous meeting pdf icon PDF 171 KB

Minutes:

Members agreed the minutes of the previous meeting.