Attendees:
PFCC Stephen Mold (SM)
Nicci Marzec (NM)
Helen King (HK)
Paul Fell (PF)
Louise Sheridan (LS)
Stuart McCartney (SMc)
CFO Darren Dovey (DD)
ACFO Shaun Hallam (SH)
ACFO Rob Porter (RP)
Area Manager Phil Pells (PP)
Nick Alexander (NA)
Vaughan Ashcroft (VA)
Paul Bullen (PB)
Grenfell Enquiry
Assurance Statement – Grenfell Tower response paper.
The Commissioner thanked the Chief Fire Officer and his team for the robust action plan that was in place as a local response to the findings of Phase 1of the Grenfell Tower Fire inquiry.
As with previous reports on this matter he was reassured that the County’s Fire and Rescue service understood the operational implications from the recommendations of this inquiry and had a plan in place that allowed them to respond to these.
The Commissioner did express a concern over the slippage of a small number of actions and activities that were planned to be delivered in Q2 but sought and received reassurance from the Chief Fire Officer; that this was largely because of the COVID 19 pandemic and these will be delivered in Q3.
The Commissioner was assured that at this point, NFRS has done as much as they reasonably could to deliver against these actions and make residents safer. Key to this was that all high-rise buildings had been inspected ahead of the planned schedule and will have been subject to a re-inspection before the end of this current financial year.
Budget conditions letter update
Assurance Statement – Budget conditions letter
The Commissioner overall was assured and pleased with the progress being made in relation to the matters that had been agreed in the budget conditions letter.
He scrutinised and challenged some aspects and was satisfied with the responses and assurances received.
The Commissioner expressed some concerns that progress on plans to deliver greater operational interoperability between Northamptonshire Police and Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service were not as advanced as he expected. He was conscious that there was a governance structure in place to oversee this, but required some additional reassurance on the speed of progress on this work and requested that a joint paper is brought to this meeting in December 2020.
There were areas, such as IT where further progress was required, however assurance was provided that good progress is being made and a plan existed to progress this work further.
The Commissioner specially noted the excellent progress that had been made on reducing response times to incidents by NFRS.
Mid-term budget outturn
This report was presented in two parts: A mid-term budget update and a presentation on the early considerations and scenarios for the Medium Term Financial Plan
Assurance Statement – Budget monitoring.
The Commissioner thanked the Chief Fire Officer and finance staff for the paper.
He was reassured that progress was being made to monitor budgets for NFRS and acknowledged that improvements continued but he reiterated the importance of implementing internal audit recommendations and ensuring a robust internal control framework is in place.
This supported the position that the service found itself in a better understanding of this year’s budget than previously, although some areas were still to be understood and works continues towards a robust financial management environment. There remain longer-term concerns over the NFRS budgets and the impact of changes in assumptions on these budgets but the processes that are in place provide reassurance that these implications can be better understood to support informed decision-making.
Action – HK to draft letter for the Commissioner to review.
AOB
No further business was raised