Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed members to the meeting.

Apologies were received from:

Cllr Jan Curtice and CFO Chris Davies, Cllr Tony Taylor, CFO Neil Odin, Cllr Janet Willis, Cllr Paul Kirton, Cllr John Riddle, Cllr Nick Rushton, Cllr Nick Worth, Cllr Peter Hogarth, Cllr Jayne McCoy, Cllr Francesco de Molfetta and Cllr Peter Lewis.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Chair welcomed the new Minister of State for Building Safety, Fire & Communities – Lord Stephen Greenhalgh to the meeting.

The Minister introduced himself to the Commission and spoke about his background as Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council and Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime at the London Assembly.

He then spoke about the HMICFRS Inspection process, the State of Fire & Rescue report and the 3 pillars – prevention, protection and response. The inspection process had found that the response pillar was generally very good in most services but that in a significant number, the prevention and protection pillars were not up to the required standard. He said that he had written to Chairs of FRAs, CFOs and other stakeholders (including the LGA) requesting a formal response to the State of Fire & Rescue recommendations and was awaiting these with interest.

The Minister said that in his view, 2017 had been an annus horribilis for the sector with the Grenfell Tower fire and the Manchester Arena bombing. Lessons needed to be learned from these incidents and sensible reforms implemented. He spoke briefly about the Government’s building safety reform agenda and the £1.6 billion that had been allocated to remediate unsafe cladding.

The Minister then outlined his 3 priorities for positive change in the fire and rescue sector:

1.     Professionalism – he stated that he wanted to see the changes that had taken place in policing 6 years ago to be introduced in the fire & rescue sector through the Executive Leadership Programme.

2.     People – lots of different areas of expertise were needed in the sector, particularly in order to adopt best practice on prevention. Therefore, services needed to think about the talents of individual employees and make best use of them.

3.     Governance – he stated that police governance reform had worked well, particularly in London. Reform of fire and rescue governance needed to learn from the police model but not lose local government expertise. He added that better use needed to be made of the fire estate.

The Minister finished by emphasising the importance of joining up reform of fire and building safety and his job role and remit reflected that.

Following the Minister’s address, members raised the following points and questions:

·       The sector was considered to be in the shadow of the police in terms of profile and needed more support and vision. The HMICFRS process was a positive step for reform and members were positive about working with the new Minister to implement this. The joint post between MHCLG and the Home Office was also welcomed. The Minister said that he would be looking closely at the data and formulating a plan for reform which he hoped all political parties would get behind. He added that the challenge to the sector from 10 Downing Street was that firefighters needed to be active when not responding to incidents.

·       How in practice could reform of building safety and fire be linked together and made to work? The Minister said that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

The Chair invited Peter Baker, Director - Building Safety and Construction at the Health & Safety Executive, to give his presentation.

Peter thanked the Commission for inviting him to outline the HSE’s role in the transition to the new building safety regime and what the future role of Fire & Rescue Services and their governing bodies would be.

Peter explained that the detail of the new system would be contained within a new Building Safety Bill which would be laid before Parliament in draft form before the summer recess with the aim of receiving Royal Assent by the middle of 2021.

Peter explained that the new Building Safety Regulator would have 3 specific roles:

•       Implementing the new regulatory regime for high-risk buildings

•       Oversight of the safety and performance of all buildings, including advising Ministers of potential risks

•       Promoting competence across industry and within building control

Peter said that the new system would clearly define ‘duty holders’ who would have to demonstrate to the new national regulator how they intended to manage risks throughout the whole life cycle of their building, and this process would need to be carried out every 5 years. There would be 3 ‘gateways’ for high-risk residential buildings – Planning; Pre-construction; and Building Completion – which would all need to be signed off before the building could be occupied.

Peter then spoke about a model of how the new system could operate in relation to the existing regulatory system but emphasised that this was only one option and there was an opportunity for stakeholders to influence it.

Peter finished by saying that the Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, had decided that the new regulator would be established within the Health and Safety Executive and that ahead of the new legislation, would initially be in shadow form. Dame Judith Hackitt would be chairing a board to oversee the transition to this new regime.

The Chair thanked Peter for his presentation and invited members of the Commission to comment and ask questions:

·       Concern was expressed about being able to control risk after a high-rise building had been occupied, in particular tracking responsibility if the building changed ownership. Peter said that this was a real concern as ownership of buildings was not clear cut in a lot of cases. However, he reassured members that there would be a statutory duty placed on building owners to notify the regulator of the identity of the duty holder and the consequences would be serious if this wasn’t done. Owners and duty holders would therefore, be obliged to have a system in place to manage risk and to ensure that residents were properly protected.

·       An example was given of a new student accommodation block that had been granted planning permission without the need to install sprinklers. Would the new regulator be able to mandate sprinkler installation? Peter said that he couldn’t comment on this specific case but in the future, developers would need to have a very strong evidence base against installing sprinklers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The Chair invited Roy Wilsher, NFCC Chair, to introduce his report.

Roy highlighted several points from the report to members:

·       The structure put in place by the NFCC with a gold group providing overarching support and leadership to the sector during the crisis had worked very well.

·       The fact that it had been a national approach, with the tri-partite agreement, was very important.

·       The NFCC had linked in effectively with other professional organisations such as the National Police Chief’s Council and Public Health England.

·       Daily calls were taking place with key Home Office officials.

·       NFCC secured early recognition of all Fire and Rescue staff as ‘key workers’ to enable access to school places and allow travel to work where necessary.

·       Workforce absence had remained remarkably low at 5.4%.

·       The NFCC was now looking at the transition to recovery and returning to business as usual but also being prepared for a possible second wave.

Following the introduction, members raised the following points and questions:

·       Members thanked Roy for his role in putting together the tripartite agreement.

·       What impact had Covid-19 had on the day to day work of services and also on the NFCC’s wider work around reform? Roy said that the new duties were adopted on the understanding that normal day to day responses to situations would continue. He added that work on wider reforms continued.

·       Had any entire watches been struck down by Covid-19? Roy said that none had been.

·       Could a report be put together on what the sector had been doing during the crisis over and above their normal work? Roy agreed that this was important and could bolster the sector’s case for future spending rounds.

·       Could some of the new responsibilities drawn up as part of the tripartite agreement be adopted permanently by services? Roy said that they would need to have the agreement of the FBU to extend the current agreement past 26 June when it was due to be reviewed, but he felt that the new responsibilities would be important in making FRS’s more central to emergency response planning in the future.

The Chair then made two requests:

1.     That he write to each FRA and CFO on behalf of FSMC thanking them for their support during the crisis.

2.     That FRA chairs provide evidence of what their services had been doing during the crisis to inform a report to the next meeting of the FSMC in June.

These requests were both agreed.

Decision

Members of the Fire Commission noted the update.

Decision

Members of the Fire Commission noted the update.

Decision

Members of the Fire Commission noted the update.

Decision

Members of the Fire Commission noted the update.

Decision

The minutes of the meeting held on 20 September 2019 were agreed.

Decision

The minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2020 were agreed.