Agenda item

CFO Phil Shillito, Humberside FRS and Emma Lawrence, Home Office to attend

The Chair invited CFO Phil Shillito (PS) – NFCC - and Emma Lawrence (EL) and Jack Pickering (JP) - Home Office - to introduce the report.

PS provided members with some background to the Fire Productivity and Efficiency Forum, which was formed in January 2022 in response to commitments by the NFCC and Home Office to increase both productivity and efficiency in the fire and rescue service over the course of the current Spending Review period (2022/23-2024/25).

To address gaps in the evidence base around productivity, academics at Cambridge Econometrics had been commissioned to devise a fire productivity metric. This was presented to the Forum in 2022 and was now being further refined and developed.

EL updated members on the results of the Fire Productivity and Efficiency Plans. Headline findings showed that between 2022/23-2024/25, at national level, FRAs are forecast to make average savings of 5.6 per cent per annum (£97m) against non-payroll budgets of £1.7bn, against a target of 6%. Outliers from the survey were currently being engaged with to get further detail, and examples of good practice were being collated.

JP informed members about the Firefighter Utilisation Survey which would be running through 2023/24, with quarterly snapshots planned for its duration. The survey would help to provide a baseline level of data which could then feed into the productivity metric and would be used by HMICFRS to inform inspections. Further work on measuring the quality of outcomes would be undertaken.

Members’ comments and questions:

·       It was suggested that the productivity and efficiency agenda had largely been overtaken by the pressing need to address problems with culture and inclusion in fire services. PS said that both agendas were very important and were strongly linked, particularly in terms of public trust in the service. The Chair endorsed this view and stated that culture remained a key priority for all services.

·       Reassurance was sought over the consistency of measurement of activity between services. JP said that data consistency was still being worked on but it was moving in the right direction.

·       Roger Hirst asked if it would be possible to have access to the model behind the productivity metric. JP agreed to contact Roger directly.

·       Cllr Brackenridge, Chair West Midlands FRA, asked how his service’s West Midlands ‘risk-based crewing’ model would be reflected in the productivity metric. PS confirmed that this would be recorded as an efficiency for that service but emphasised that decisions of this sort were operational ones for services to make. Use of technology also needed to be carefully considered in relation to efficiency and productivity.

·       It was considered important to be able to demonstrate the benefits that firefighters bring to their communities during the 90+% of their working time when they are not attending an operational incident. PS agreed but added that this figure was a lot lower for services who operated predominantly on-call duty systems. Policy decisions such as not attending ‘unwanted’ fire signals also had implications for efficiency and productivity and this needed to be accounted for. Activities other than operational incidents were being recorded as part of the Firefighter Utilisation Survey.

Decision:

Fire Services Management Committee:

1)    Noted the ongoing work on improving productivity and efficiency of fire and rescue services in England; and

2)    Agreed to actively promote and discuss the importance of the fire productivity and efficiency agenda with their local Fire and Rescue Authority.