Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Ben Brook, who reminded members the report looked at performance for 2022/23 but there would be some reference to performance levels for 2023/24. The following statistics were highlighted:

·       There had been four fire-related deaths and 30 fire-related injuries during the reporting period. After every fatality or serious injury a serious fire incident review would take place, involving partner organisations, to establish the circumstances and if there had been more that could have been done to prevent the incident.

·       64.3 per cent of incidents were attended by a crew within ten minutes, which was below the target of 75 per cent.

·       Instances of house fires had increased, which reflected a national trend. However, 90 per cent of fires had been contained to the room in which it had started, which demonstrated good prevention and protection work.

·       There had been a small increase in the number of road traffic collisions attended.

·       Whole time fire appliance availability had been 98.4 per cent. For on-call crews at key times, availability was 52.4 per cent.

·       There had been a reduction in calls requesting a crew to take part in the hospital to home initiative.

·       84.5 per cent of 999 calls to fire control had been answered within 90 seconds, below the target of 90 per cent.

·       There had been a big increase in the number of fire safety audits, and increased engagement with businesses.

Members noted the number of incidents being attended within the target time, and how this tied in with the Resourcing to Risk consultation. Responding to a point raised by the Chair, Ben Brook said using a statistical analysis of incidents per 100,000 people had some advantages but due to the rural nature of some areas of Warwickshire it was not always the best methodology to use. The Business Intelligence team were looking into ways of providing comparable statistics to show how current figures compared to historical ones.

Responding to questions asked by Councillor Sinclair, Ben Brook said benchmarking in terms of road traffic collision and flood risk response was compared against another county council. However Warwickshire’s motorway network was not comparable against another fire and rescue service, due to the high ratio of motorway against the county’s rurality. A spike of ten injuries noted in April 2022 was likely to have occurred during a small number of more severe incidents. There was no correlation between seriousness and number of injuries against time of year or day of the week, although vulnerable people were more likely to be adversely affected. National trends in incidents were set out by the annual State of Fire Report produced by the Home Office.

Councillor Boad noted the increase in property fires and suggested this could be due in part to the increase in the number of new homes. An overall increase in incidents compared to previous years could also be attributable to the Covid pandemic, as they were less likely to occur during periods of lockdown. Councillor Boad also stated her  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4