Agenda item

The Committee received a progress report on the Scrutiny Review on Fire Safety in High Rise Blocks, which was begun by the previous Committee as part of its work plan for 2017/18. The Head of Organisational Resilience gave a verbal update to the Committee around the preparedness of the Borough to coordinate a response to a major incident and health and safety considerations for staff. The following points were noted:

1. The Council’s emergency plans were regularly reviewed and tested as part of the Haringey Resistance Forum, a statutory partnership body.
2. Following Grenfell, the Council undertook a local review of the lessons learnt. In addition, a number of staff were deployed to assist in the response with Kensington and Chelsea. In addition, the Chief Executives  of London Councils commissioned a peer review of London local authority resilience arrangements. A further multi-agency review was also undertaken following the peer review. As a result, the Committee considered that there were a number of fora from which the Council could learn lessons.
3. The Head of Organisational Resilience summarised some of the key actions resulting from the lessons learnt:

·         The Council had developed its mobilisation plan and put in place arrangements to ensure that there were enough people in Emergency Response roles in order mobilise staff effectively.

·         A workshop was held with voluntary, community and faith groups to help them understand how the response to a major incident worked.

·         The Council had taken steps to ensure that staff would be visible in the eventuality that the Council had to respond at scale.

·         Long standing mutual aid relationships existed with other London boroughs. A piece of work is underway as part of the London-wide Resilience Forum to standardise the emergency plans for each London borough so they structured in the same way.

·         A London-wide Memorandum of Understanding had been put in place with the British Red Cross.

d.    The Committee were advised that there were two high rise buildings used by Council staff, both of which were ten storey buildings and neither of which had combustible ACM cladding.

e.    A fire risk assessment was in place for both buildings and tests were conducted regularly on a range of fire safety equipment. An updated fire risk assessment had been commissioned for both buildings, the Head of Organisational Resilience would be working with the Council’s facilities management contractor to ensure that each of the actions arising from the fire risk assessment were put in place.

The following arose from the discussion of the report and the verbal update from the Head of Organisational Resilience:

a.    In response to a question, the Head of Organisational Resilience advised that the London Resilience Forum were responsible for coordinating emergency planning and resilience arrangements across London. Sitting underneath this forum were a number of sector panels, one of which was the local authorities sector panel which was responsible for the standardisation of emergency plans.

b.    In response to concerns about the Council’s facilities management contractor, officers advised that stronger structures were being put in place to manage the contract and additional staff resources had been allocated to manage this contract. The Head of Organisational Resilience assured the Committee, that the Council had processes in place to escalate its response in an emergency and that there were no glaring risks in terms of the Council’s overall level of preparedness.

c.    In response to a question around a lack fire extinguishers in communal areas and lack of fire marshals in Council owned residential properties, the Chair advised that she would pick this up with HfH. (Action: Chair).

d.    In response to concerns around why the disability access ramp at River Park House was no longer in use, officers advised that they thought it was because of the gradient and non-compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act.  The Head of Organisational Resilience advised that he would get back to the Committee about why the ramp was no longer in use. (Action: Andrew Meek).

e.    The Committee sought assurances around whether work had been undertaken to establish exactly who was living in Council accommodation and also whether there was any capacity to house people in a major incidents. In response, officers advised that given the housing shortage it would not be easy to find suitable accommodation within the Borough. Officers advised that HfH were continually trying to keep up to date with whose was residing in their properties but the main issue was around identifying leaseholders and with illegally sub-let properties.

f.     The Committee questioned whether any work had been undertaken across-London to establish the level of available housing in the event of a major incident. In response, officers cautioned that the number of void-properties held by any individual authority was constantly changing and that in the eventuality of an emergency the exact figure at that point in time would be required. The Head of Organisational Resilience emphasised that that having joint arrangements in place with the other London local authorities was crucial and would allow an accurate assessment to be undertaken quickly.

g.    In response to a further question around the voluntary sector engagement event, the Head of Organisational Resilience advised that he had agreed to develop a voluntary sector capabilities assessment. This involved a questionnaire being sent out to each of the voluntary/community/faith, groups in order to establish their relative capabilities in being able to respond to an emergency and establish which particular group/s they had links with.

h.    In response to a question around staff and their exposure to fire safety procedures, the Committee was advised that this formed part of the staff induction process. In addition there was a fire safety awareness training video on Fuse and all of the Council’s emergency planning processes were also available on the  staff intranet.

i.      In response to a further question, the Head of Organisational Resilience advised that weekly fire drills were a key method for ensuring that all those who regularly used the Council’s buildings had a good understanding of what to do in the event of a fire.

j.      Following a query around the role of Members in the response to an emergency situation, the Head of Organisational resilience undertook to share an existing briefing document with all Councillors. (Action: Andrew Meek). The Committee were also advised that there was some member training scheduled for November around what to do in an emergency incident. London-wide guidance and training was also planned through London Councils, aimed at leaders within local government. It was anticipated that this would be subsequently formalised into a training package to be delivered at a local level for all boroughs.

RESOLVED

1. That the report on progress be noted;

2. That the Committee received evidence from the Head of Organisation Resilience on emergency planning issues arising from the Grenfell Tower fire and the preparedness of the Borough to coordinate a response to a major incident;

3. That, in the light of the current uncertainty regarding the final outcome of plans for implementation of the recommendations of the Hackitt Review, consideration of conclusions and recommendations be deferred until later in the year.