Agenda item

Deputy CFO Humberside FRS, Phil Shillito, to join

The Chair invited Lucy Ellender, LGA Senior Adviser, and Deputy CFO Phil Shillito, NFCC, to introduce the report.

Lucy informed members that current workstream around improving productivity and efficiency in the sector was borne out of the joint LGA/NFCC 2021 Spending Review submission and included the establishment of a Productivity & Efficiency Forum, chaired by the Home Office and including membership from NFCC, the LGA and HMICFRS. The Terms of Reference for the Forum were agreed at its meeting in January 2022 and are appended to the main report.

Phil described the two areas of work that the NFCC was directly involved in – (i) collation and review of current NFCC/LGA projects related to efficiency and productivity; and (ii) a data review to ascertain what further evidence is required to measure efficiency and productivity. Examples of current projects to improve productivity and efficiency, including on duty shift systems, centralised procurement and the Community Risk Programme, were described.

Phil reported that a workshop had been held on 23 February 2022 for stakeholders from across the sector to share learning and good practice, and agree how existing data and evidence coukd be used to track progress against the Spending Review commitments. The outputs from this workshop would be reported back to the Forum for consideration.

Members’ comments and questions:

·       As part of this work, it was considered important to differentiate between the particular requirements of different services – e.g. rural vs urban. Phil confirmed that this was very much a part of the programme and the NFCC had been clear with the Home Office that this couldn’t be a one size fits all approach.

·       Possible changes to duty shift systems, and on-call in particular, were raised as a concern by members. It was considered to be important that the LGA be involved in this work alongside the NFCC in order to input the FRA perspective. Mark Hardingham, NFCC Chair, said that two new joint leads for on-call work had just started and he would be meeting with them shortly to discuss the programme going forward. As part of this, they would discuss how members could best be engaged in the structures decided upon. Phil added that the current piece of work around productivity and efficiency was limited to full-time staff, with on-call coming further down the line.

·       There was a discussion about the meaning and implications of the proposed 3% and 2% increases in productivity and efficiency respectively. Some members expressed concern that targets were Treasury-led and that it should be down to individual FRAs to determine their own productivity and efficiency targets. On the other hand, it was argued that without improvements in productivity and efficiency, it became very difficult to justify increased investment in services. Phil confirmed that the efficiency target broadly related to areas such as full-time firefighter salaries and centralised procurement, with savings being reinvested into the service. On productivity, work was being done with HMICFRS to establish a baseline against which productivity increases could be measured. These could relate to areas such as improved technology or more training, and scope for increased productivity would likely vary between different FRSs.

Decision:

FSMC noted the report and endorsed the proposed way forward subject to the comments made by members in the discussion.