Executive Board Minutes – 29 June 2021

Andrew Brodie (AB)            – Chief Fire Officer, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service Jonathan Foster (JF)  – Deputy Chief Officer, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service Thomas Thorp (TT)                                       – Interim Assistant Chief Executive, OPFCC

Caroline Blackburn (CB)      – Interim Assistant Chief Executive, OPFCC

Jenni Newberry (JN)            – Head of Commissioning & Partnerships, OPFCC Maria Earles (ME)   – Head of Business Design and Assurance, Enable Mike Clements (MC)                    – Head of Finance, Enable

Jane Wintermeyer (JW)      – Head of Legal Services / Force Solicitor Maeve Chappell (MCh)                                   – Corporate Communications Lead, Enable Michael Porter (MP)                                     – Chief Finance Officer, OPFCC

Phil Cain (PC)                       – Deputy Chief Constable, North Yorkshire Police

Ruth Warman                      – Office of the Police Fire & Crime Commissioner in attendance (Exec Asst)

Sam Millar                           – Supt Operational Business Change & Tech Lead

John Dwyer                          – Chief Inspector Single Online Home Project

Claire Lister                          – Head of People Services

Ray Ward (RW)                    – Managing Director, Enable

PA welcomed all to the meeting, attendance was noted, and apologies were received for LW, RW and MC.

The minutes of the previous meeting were noted and approved.

The Commissioner asked for timelines to be included in the Action Log moving forwards so that the Board are sighted on when to expect delivery and enable the Forward Plan to be detailed accordingly.

ACTION

·        JN, AB and MP to review their actions on the Action Log and feedback the appropriate timelines to the Executive Assistant so the Forward Plan can be updated.

The meeting received an update on the Risk and Resource Model for the Fire Service.

The Community Risk Profile is now completed. The resource modelling required on the risk mitigation needs further work and is not yet ready for public consultation. The delay is through insufficient data provision, quality assurance and compliance. Additionally, dedicated resource is required to complete this work.

The meeting formally decided there will be a need to extend the existing RRM for a period and this decision was taken in principle. The meeting also agreed to adopt a Publication Strategy, to promote exemplary transparency practice.

ACTION

·        Executive Board Members to meet after the Public Accountability Meeting on 29 June, to establish appropriate action required and a way forwards in terms of the RRM.

b.   RRM/Ambition 2025 Reviews Update and Outcomes (Value for Money, Capabilities, On-call Futures)

The meeting acknowledged a slight amendment to the wording on the agenda for this item since the purpose of this report was to provide an update on the progress made towards the delivery of Ambition 2025 and did not refer to the RRM. Therefore, the review focussed on On-Call Availability, Value for Money, and Capabilities.

The meeting was asked to approve the implementation of a dedicated Service Transformation Team to deliver the key milestones identified in Ambition 2025.

The meeting agreed to discuss this at their meeting in July 2021, when a way forward on the Risk and Resource Model had been established since the two were intrinsically linked in terms of funding. More specifically, the meeting asked that they receive at their next meeting a Business Case on how much it would cost to establish a dedicated Service Transformation Team, so the meeting could consider whether there was resource to take this forward.

ACTION

·        AB to provide a Business Case detailing resource required to implement a dedicated Service Transformation Team to deliver the key milestones identified in Ambition 2025 to July 2021 meeting.

c.     Equality Diversity Inclusion Estates Plan

This meeting received an update on the ongoing investment programme in the fire and rescue estate which was now underway.

The meeting discussed the key programme actions and timescales that would be required to bring the estate up to standard.

This agenda item is discussed at Executive Board on a quarterly basis and the meeting asked for a more detailed timetable, mapped out quarter by quarter for the next time that this item would be discussed.

ACTION:

·        An EDI Estates Plan progress update is scheduled for the August 2021 meeting. SGS to provide a more detailed timetable, mapped out quarter by quarter to this meeting.

d.   2020/21 Draft Finance Outturn Report

The meeting received an update on the outturn against the budget and also considered any significant changes that have been impacted during 2020/21. The meeting received and noted the key points.

The meeting received the results of the Treasury Management operations of the Authority for 2020/21 and the outturn position on Prudential Indicators. The meeting received and noted the key points.

a. Early Action Together Progress Update – Sam Millar

The meeting received an update on the Prevention and Early Intervention (P&EI) Strategy. A P&EI dashboard is being prepared and departmental delivery is reflected in Service Plans.

SM provided an overview of all four areas of the Early Action Together (EAT) programme which includes Customer Contact, Place Based Working, Intelligence and Pathways. All four projects are on course and supported by a good Communications Plan.

The Customer Contact Business Case is to be presented to the meeting in July 2021 and in August 2021, the meeting will be presented with the Intelligence and Place Based Working Business Cases. In September 2021, the meeting will receive the Pathways Business Case. Briefings will be arranged for the Commissioner for each of the project areas ahead of each Business Case coming to the meeting.

The Commissioner asked to be kept updated in terms of the timetable.

ACTION:

·        CB to liaise with the EAT programme team to ensure briefings are arranged for the Commissioner ahead of each of the four Business Cases coming to the Executive Board over the coming months.

b. Officer Uplift Plans

The meeting received an outline and progress update on Policing Uplift for North Yorkshire Police.

This initiative is being implemented in three phases, and we were now in phase two of recruitment. The first year saw an additional 56 officers recruited, three of which were required to be provided to the Regional Organised Crime Unit.

The Force have adopted a change in tutoring student officers which is designed to meet the volumes of new officers coming in and new training programmes. A Professional Development Unit (PDU) is now up and running to meet the different routes and training programmes on offer which is managed by an Inspector.

The student officers will learn to become police officers as well as undertake a full-time policing degree for 3 years, in policing. As a result of this, front line resource will not appear for the first two years. Therefore, there will be a requirement for this meeting to consider stakeholder expectation in terms of how soon the newly qualified police officers will be visible to the public.

PC was asked to capture the headline figures reported to the meeting in the form of a one-page brief for the Uplift programme which should include the three phases, resource allocation and diversity figures of officers.

ACTION:

·        PC to circulate the officer uplift programme figures to the meeting setting out the three phases of recruitment, resource allocation and diversity figures of officers.

The meeting received this report at the request of Chief Officer Team to provide an Executive Briefing in respect of Single Online Home (SOH) and its adoption and implementation within North Yorkshire Police.

NYP joined the Digital Public Contact (DPC) Single Online Home in respect of core services with further work ongoing to fully onboard to the platform October 2021, to afford the public access to a number of key additional fully online services.

The meeting was asked to consider the Communications Strategy to promote the new SOH Functionality and Services and the new operation practices to be adopted in respect of the management of 101 telephony.

ACTION:

·        SD to find out who the APCC representative is for Single Online Home & Digital Communications to help move forwards key messages related to the onboarding of Complaints handling.

The meeting received an update on progress to implement the new structural form to establish Enable and were asked to note this report.

The meeting considered systems access between Police and Fire. Discussions are ongoing with the Home Office, who are required to approve the system integration work. In the meantime, local solutions are being implemented until Home Office approval has been received.

b.  People Services Strategy

The meeting received an overview of the People Services Strategy that had been designed with NYP, NYFRS and OPFCC and also aligned with their operational and strategic priorities.

The meeting was asked if they agreed the strategy, actions proposed and direction of travel. The meeting approved the strategy and asked for it to be included as part of the Leadership and Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Programme item which will be presented at the next meeting in July.

Executive Board Members were asked to ensure that agenda items for meetings were sent to the Executive Assistant to be added to the Executive Board Forward Plan and that the Executive Assistant be advised of changes to agenda items when she sent them the draft Executive Board Agenda each month.

ACTION:

·        Leadership and EDI Programme to be added to the Executive Board Forward Plan for the July Meeting.

c. York Area Estates Plan

The meeting received a progress update on this project and were asked for their approval to proceed to development of a full Business Case.

The project will follow existing governance pathways, and, in addition, a Steering Group jointly chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable and Chief Executive & Monitoring Officer for the OPFCC has been set up to provide assurance and act as a sounding board for the project.

The Steering Group are currently considering a stakeholder map and engagement plan to establish potential partnership and collaboration opportunities.

d. Ripon Estates Plan

The meeting received an action plan to address issues within the estate in Ripon and were asked to consider the merits of options around a potential extension/re-modelling solution and modular construction, both of which would provide a more effective solution than repair.

The meeting considered the proposals in the report and asked for more details around how the work would be funded.

The meeting agreed that urgent action was required to take this work forward and it was decided to have an additional meeting as soon as possible to agree the most appropriate action to take.

ACTION:

·        SGS to organise an urgent meeting to decide action required to bring the Ripon Estate to standard.

The meeting received an update on Commissioned Services and the report was noted.

The meeting received a request to approve Corporate Communications and Road Policing Group North Yorkshire to progress discussions with producers of the documentary TV series Traffic Cops, to support participation in filming 2022.

The meeting agreed that the income supplied from this venture be reinvested back into road safety and asked the Corporate Communications Team to proceed.

ACTION

·        PC to pick up finances with ACC Mark Pannone.

·        MCh to send the contract to SD for approval once Legal have reviewed it.

The meeting received a brief overview on the proposed reform of Special Branch by the Home Office and the two options for transferring the associated funding. Due to time constraints, the meeting asked Executive Board Members to send their feedback on the report to CB. The meeting also asked for details about the financial implications to be presented at a future meeting.

ACTION

·        Executive Board Members to send their feedback on the proposal to CB.

·        CB to develop further details around financial implications regarding Special Branch Reform and present a proposal to the July Executive Board Meeting.

There being no further business, PA declared the meeting closed.

Tuesday 27 July 2021 09:30-12:30, via Microsoft Teams