Archived decisions

REGIONAL MANAGEMENT BOARD

Item 11

Notes from the meeting held on 13 April 2005

The new Chairman and Vice Chairman were elected into Office, Councillor Mike Murphy (East Sussex) and Councillor David Dewney (West Sussex). The appointed Clerk was CFO Des Prichard (East Sussex).

A presentation was made on the Fire Control Project. This covered work by the Fire Lawyers' Network and HR Practitioners' Group on the governance model, employee retention and redeployment. An explanation was also given on the South East bid to recover costs for 2004/5 and those anticipated for 2005/6. Hampshire have received little more than 0.5% of the amount requested. It was agreed that the RMB would lobby government on this through CFOA and the LGA.

In relation to location of site, an announcement can now only take place after the election. We will be given an hour's notice on the government announcement in order to advise on the preferred site. It was agreed that the RMB should lobby ODPM to extend the notice period so that staff can be adequately informed.

Work is due to commence in the next month on business continuity and risk assessment which falls out of the project. Work is on going to ensure that policy and protocols relating to fire control operations across the region are convergent. There was some concern that convergence is a mechanism to "bounce" authorities into regional fire controls, but is was accepted that if the work was not undertaken, a health and safety issue would arise.

A progress report was given for the RMB's work which identified that there are now 39 separate projects and the milestones achieved.

The RMB business plan for 2005/6 was presented and is available on http://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/manage/rmb/apr05/report1105busplan.doc. Of particular note is a provisional budget of £585,000 for the work of the RMB and its various workstreams. It was agreed that an elected member will become our representative, designated as a Director on Firebuy, the national procurement body for the Fire Service.

Hampshire put forward a letter calling to an end to the RMB pre-meeting. After some debate it was agreed that the pre-meeting would continue but Fire Authority members were welcome to attend as observers.

JBcem/CO/W/RMB/MeetingNotes.Apr05