Verbal update by Councillor Wyatt
Minutes:
Councillor Wyatt gave a verbal update on the Emergency Planning arrangements for the Authority.
The Improving Places Select Commission had undertaken a Scrutiny Review of the arrangements in 2016/17 concluding with 15 recommendations the response to which was reported to the Select Commission in November 2017.
There had been a commitment in the work programme to keep an ongoing overview of the Major Incident Plan and arrangements and progress of the recommendations.
A meeting had taken place with the key officers last month but there were still some gaps but the progress so far was as follows:-
Recommendations
1. That the Major Incident Plan is reviewed bi-annually by a group of Members from the IPSC and this work forms part of the work programme for that year, however the document is to be reviewed by officers on a continual basis.
A date has been provisionally agreed at the end of September/beginning of October 2019 for the final draft of the refreshed Major Incident Plan. The proposal was that a few Members from this Select Commission got together to carry out a desktop look at the final draft before it was submitted for approval.
2. Mandatory training is to be provided to all Members about the Major Incident Plan to increase their awareness and involvement in any major incident.
There had been a couple of training sessions and also flagged up the fact that it was an all-out election in 2020 and that needed to be included for potential new Members.
3. Training relating to the Major Incident Plan should be mandatory to ensure all staff who volunteered are confident in the role they play in the management of the incident.
There was regular training and reports to the Strategic Leadership Team around that performance.
4. An “out of hours” training exercise to take place once all volunteers have been trained. Full training exercises then take place on a regular basis.
Exercise Thunderbird took place in 2019 involving a test scenario around a rail crash and included all elements of the Major Incident Plan. There had also been a cold call exercise which involved testing the availability of people to be able to respond to a Major Incident to ascertain their availability. In some respects that probably was of little value because it was done during working hours. At the end of the month the contact lists would be updated as scheduled.
5. A targeted approach to recruitment from employees who can be “job matched” to appropriate roles in the operation of the Major Incident Plan.
There was confidence that there was a good team of Forward Liaison Officers (8 at the moment) and Borough Emergency Co-ordinators that were filled by Strategic Directors. Only permanent contract employees were included.
6. There are sufficient volunteers to staff the EP for at least two shift changes.
The recruitment was ongoing.
7. A protocol to be developed to ensure that the partner organisations in the Major Incident Plan are notified as a matter of course when significant incidents occur in the borough and through the Local Resilience Forum, ways are to be identified and carried out on building relationships between partner organisations involved in the Emergency Plan – in particular to the turnover in staff.
There was a lot of joint working taking place with the South Yorkshire Resilience Forum which would hopefully ensure that organisations were keeping each other in the communications loop.
8. A facilitated meeting/away day involving the emergency services and RMBC major incident staff on the ground to promote team working.
Again reference to South Yorkshire Resilience Forum. There was a scheduled Gold Symposium, no date as yet for it taking place.
9. An on-going programme of training sessions for Parish Council members should be arranged to ensure any new members receive training on the subject.
Some work has been carried out with Parish Councils but somewhat piecemeal. Some Parish Councils were more engaged than others. Work in progress.
10. A representative from Procurement to be involved in the Borough Emergency Operations Room to facilitate timely ordering of goods/services and to provide information if the Belwin Fund becomes operational.
There was confidence that, because of the representations from Finance and Customer Services, everything could be properly recorded i.e. spend, orders etc. Even though representation from Procurement was not in the room there were ties in under the arrangements. This was very important because if there were any subsequent claims through the Belwin Scheme there had to be proof of what the money had been spent on. It was very important that this was covered.
11. Through the Shared Service Agreement funding is secured for a Community Resilience Worker.
Still being looked at and conscious that a positive response was down to funding.
12. The Corporate Risk Manager is involved in the role of a “critical friend” any amendments of the Major Incident Plan
That has happened.
13. A flow chart to be designed detailing the Major Incident Process and highlighting how and when Members are to be involved in the process.
Assurance that this was completely included in the Major Incident Plan. Ward Members and Cabinet Members should flow from that notification.
14. The Chief Executive/Leader of the Council to inform counterparts in Sheffield of their concerns over the lack of meetings in relation to the Joint Service Agreement.
There were still no regular meetings being held. There needed to be the right people together from Sheffield and Rotherham in terms of governance. The outcome of the forthcoming election in Sheffield was awaited and what the structures in place would be.
15. The situation relating to the unsupported IT systems is rectified.
The Emergency Planning Information System (EPIS) has been moved to a newer platform which was a safe and supported system but had some difficulties with regard to updating the information. Luke Sayers, Assistant Director, Customer, Information & Digital Services, was involved.
Resolved:- (1) That the update be noted.
(2) That a small group of Members attend a one-off meeting to carry out a desk top review of the final draft of the renewed Major Incident Plan with relevant officers prior submission to Cabinet.
(3) That an email be sent seeking volunteers for (2) above once a date has been set.