Transcript

Mr Chair, the policy has been received from Councillors Robert Sandstrom, and from Sarah Duxbury and Val Joger. Councillor Watson is on his way with the centre of apologies for being late. Thank you very much. Members, do you have any discloseable interests? No? Okay. Chair's announcements. I don't have any. So that makes that quick and easy. The minutes of the previous meeting have been circulated. Is your wish that they are adopted as a true record of that meeting? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Public question time. We have Jill Machinado with us. Nice to welcome you. And I think Scott's with her from Biddford on Avon Parish Council as well. Thank you for coming along. I've spoken to Jill before the meeting. She has a question this afternoon, and the question asks us to take an action. As has been explained, obviously we are an OSC. We can't make a decision. But with your agreement, we're going to take the question this afternoon, and I'm going to ask our portfolio holder to refer it onwards as it's for a decision-making body, not for an OSC. Is everybody happy with proceeding that manner? Yes. Okay. Rightio. You've spoken here before. We welcome you. You've got three minutes to put your question and point it across. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much, Chair. In 2014, British County Council closed the Young Firefighters throughout Warwick's Year. We all know that given young teenagers meaningful occupation in their free time benefits them and the community, in Biddford on Avon, numerous young firefighters went on to make a career with Norwich Fire and Rescue Service. Many counties within the UK have fire cadet groups and national charity. This is a real interest with young people in Biddford on Avon. There is a real interest with young people in Biddford on Avon in starting up a fire cadet group. This is not possible without the backing agreement of Warwick's Year County Council and support from WFRS. We hope to fund this also from Grant. I wanted to take this opportunity to ask the OVSC, the portfolio holder and the CFO to think about this for the future and offer support to move forward with this. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Jill, and thank you, Scott, for coming with Jill this afternoon. It's a pleasure to welcome you. I'm going to say, do the portfolio holder or Ben, would you like to make comments on this before it moves forward? I'll leave that with you, Ben. Firstly, thanks so much to Jill and Scott for coming today, really appreciate your time and taking the effort to come here today. Very happy to do have further discussions around this. We want to make sure that we progress Warwick's Fire and Rescue Service both in way engaging the young in Warwick's Year, but also employment pathways through into Warwick's Fire and Rescue Service. So, very looking forward to some conversations after this meeting. And portfolio holder Andy. Hello, Jill. Long time now, see? Good to see you again. I'm your Scott. Yeah, I think, obviously, Fire and Rescue did a great job in the community and has many community benefits, not just rescue people or attend the collisions, RTCs, et cetera. It is a pillar of the community and really well respected and gets into places that other Blue Art Services have trouble getting into it, and it's not because they've got cut in the government. Because the advantage is valued by members of the public. So I think that this possibility is that we could look at this, because, again, from a personal safety point of view, young people's mental health while being, and also in terms of community safety and protection and being great citizens, it's definitely got a lot of benefits. So, if we're going to do it, we'll have to do it properly, and if you can get grant funded help, that is always helpful, because we've got the portfolio holder who looks after the money in between million years, and I think he's always there when he mentioned the grants. So, yeah, one happy to look at this and mention to cabinet, so thank you. Thank you very much, both. I take it, it goes without saying that the committee, we're all happy that that is referred on back through our portfolio holder and Chief Fire Officer, and we would be very supportive of that. I'm sure. Jill, thank you very much indeed. As I said before the meeting, you're very welcome to stay if you wish to, if you wish to, up to you, but thank you so much for coming, public engagement, we value it, thank you. Right, we move on to item three on the agenda, question to the portfolio holders relevant to this scrutiny committee, are there any questions? Councillor Bose, aye. Thank you, Chair. A question to the portfolio holder for the Fire and Rescue Service. I wondered if Andy could give us an idea of the timeline as to when we will know about the response to the recent resources to risk fire consultation. As we know, you hope we have special resources, ONS, on 6th of June, to look at proposals going forward, and I just wanted to give us a bit of a timeline as to how that is looking and whether, and when you expect proposals to be published and when a decision will be made. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Andy's indicated, and also Ben has indicated, so which one of you wants to go first? I don't want to go first and I'll throw it afterwards, okay, Ben, you come in first and Andy, you go after that. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Bose. So we'll give more information at the ONS on the 6th of June around the consultation, but we've had just under 1,300 responses, and that doesn't include emails, feedback from public meetings, et cetera. So we are currently analysing all of that information. The business intelligence team have been doing that within Warwick County Council. They've come up with a number of themes that have come through that. What we've also done is we've had an independent panel made up of people from HR, legal, communications, et cetera, and from other fine rescue service, who've come up with some assessment criteria through which all proposals will go through. We're then going to engage with corporate board and then cabinet through this process. So the initial next steps we'll be meeting with corporate board next week and then cabinet the week after, and that will take us forward to the OSC paper that will come through and will be published on MOGGERV and then through to the 6th of June OSC. We still haven't got the exact timeframes for when it will come to cabinet because we need to understand how it progresses and we need to make sure OSC is a meaningful dialogue and conversation as well, and we have time to reflect any feedback that you as a committee would have prior to us going through to cabinet. Thank you, Ben, do you want to pick up on Andy? Yeah, it's just until obviously the one at the OSC, the 6th of June is obviously one of the D days that we're working to, so yeah, we will try and progress. Again, we don't want to rush this. We've had a lot of responses as Ben has said, so we need to make sure we analyse the responses properly and work out again, we've got the deputy leader with us, the man with the post strings, beside us as well, so we do need to consider options carefully as well. So we are trying to kick it down the road because we've made this commitment that we come here and we've made that commitment that we would consult and we did a tremendous job I feel with the consultation, Ben and I have still got the scars from being around the country. It seems like around the country because the amount of miles we did was unbelievable and we did have dark hair before we started the consultation and it slightly changed colour, so we value the time and trouble the residents took to come and speak to us, so we don't want to rush this but we will initially work on the 6th of June and then progress on there and we will keep everybody informed as we do and be as clear as transparent as possible. Come back to Sarah, are you happy with that? Have you got a supplementary? Because you may remember it was me that said, I think it was back in December, are we having a scrutiny committee and at that stage we weren't having a special scrutiny committee and now we are for which I'm very pleased to see. There are many people, some of whom are here today, the people that I correspond with on a regular basis who are waiting and would like to know a timeline as to whether this is happening, for what I can take, for what Councillor CRUMP is saying, it's possible that something will come to scrutiny in June and then there may not be a report going then forward to Cabinet and for Council in July, I think everybody's expectation is that a decision on the CRM people to be made at the July Council, are you saying that that may not now happen? I didn't say that, I'm going to say it. I'm saying that we need to be an option. If you go back to December, December is a different place and we didn't realise we would get such consultation responses. We hoped we would, I mean we got more and because we were out on a boat and we were active, so therefore it doesn't mean that we have to rush this for an artificial timescale. We need to go when we've analysed the information correctly, we've reviewed the options and then come forward with a decision or a set of options that have been reviewed properly not to meet an artificial target, but that's not saying we wouldn't do the July meetings, but let's do this properly. Come back to December, we never thought things would progress as they did, you're real glad they did, but I don't want to give any firm dates at the moment because we've got to do this properly. We felt we did the consultation properly and we've had comments about that this is unheard of in terms of fire consultations, definitely in the region and potentially nationally as well. So we've done a good job so far, so that's not spoiled by rushing it. So to me it's a timescale that might not be achievable. Thank you. I think Ben wants to come back in on that as well. Yeah, thanks Chair. Just one comment around the fact we also want to make sure we respect this group as OSC. So if there's feedback and come back on the 6th of June, we clearly need to reflect that and understand that to write and amend any final cabinet paper that goes through. So there is, we want to make sure that we don't set an arbitrary timeframe right now until we take due consideration of this committee's comments and thoughts on the 6th of June as well. Thank you, Councillor Sinclair. You're just reflecting on that and listening to all of what the pair of you are saying, are you able to either on that 6th of June manage our and residents' expectations in terms of the next stages? And or if you're not able to on the 6th of June, can you commit to maintaining that dialogue so that people do know what's going on? Because if I might suggest a characteristic of what has been and seems to me an excellent consultation process, there's been a two-way discussion and keeping everybody involved and maintaining that, even if things are changing, seems to me it might be a positive step. Thank you. Yeah, I'll come in. Yeah, definitely maintain the dialogue. I think we've been clear and transparent and open. Definitely. The other bit, you're prior to the consultation and joined some of the early meetings. There was accusations that things were set in stone and this consultation wouldn't be meaningful and I think we've disproved that. So therefore we don't want to preempt things too much and as Ben says, we don't want to disrespect the value of the scrutiny committee by coming in with preconceived ideas that will tell you a bit disregard what the scrutiny committee says so therefore we've got to have some degree of flexibility in terms of timescale and report it. Ben. Thanks, Councillor Sinclair. Just for reassurance, we want to continue with the engagement communication, clarity for our people as best we can. So we have a clear plan, so we've got a business plan that's in place with clear milestones. That doesn't pinpoint every decision but once a decision is made, we know then we have to move into a formal consultation pathway with the representative bodies as an example. So we have to agree terms and conditions and contracts. So it doesn't, once decisions made, end, we are absolutely committed to ongoing dialogue with our people and with our bodies, it moves into a different stage at that point in time but we've got that all mapped out and it's there, ready to go once a decision is made. We just want to make sure at this point in time we get to the right decision, analysing all of the information, considering everyone's comments. I think it's important at this point that we, these are questions and we don't move into any preconceived ideas or move into any debates today. That is for the business of the 6th of June. So, I think we'll be very careful not to do that. I think so. But I think we are, we are getting to the borderline of it now. So, yeah, it's Parminda. Thank you, Jeh. I was pleased to see it on the work program coming back on 6th of June. It figures me, I had sort of shared a concern that it's a mountain of work and we just need to make sure that whatever help we need to give to the people who are analysing, we need to give it. So I can see it being a lot of work actually, getting it out. So we'll take it from 6th of June. And maybe a bit of this artificial intelligence we're about to see can help you analyse the data. I'm going to give the last word to the Chief Fire Officer. So Ben, if you want to come in and sum up on this. Yeah, thank you so much. So, huge amount of work is going in now by lots of teams across the County Council. So, it's the business intelligence team. We're working with the legal, we're working with HR. There's a huge amount of work going on. So, I want to offer my thanks actually to the huge amount of, it's cross cutting teams across Watch County Council who are getting us into a really good place for the 6th of June. And I look forward to presenting that paper on that day. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Andy. Are there any other questions to portfolio holders relevant to this committee before we move on? No? So, Ben's not going to get a break then. So, we'll come straight into his report. We move on to item number 4, which is the performance report of Warrich here, Fire and Rescue Service. Ben, yes, this is you to present this. Thank you, Chair. So, I'll just give some of the brief headlines out of this paper assuming people have read the paper. So, just to emphasise, this is a performance of Warrich's Fire and Rescue Service from 22/23. So, it's a historic look back report. So, we've ended the next year already. So, I'm going to be very, very careful that I'm creeping to some of the performance from 23/24, which is an improvement on 22/23. So, I'm going to be careful on that. So, this is specifically around 22/23 performance. Sadly, during this reporting period, there has been 4 fire deaths and 30 fire-related injuries. We don't want any injuries or fire deaths within Warrich's, but that has been what occurred during the year 22/23. After every fire fatality or serious injury, we do a serious fire instant review. That looks at all the circumstances surrounding that serious injury or that fatality. It works with partners across the board in understanding if there was anything different we could have done or anything more we can do into the future to prevent these terrible incidents from occurring. During the reporting period, we arrived at life and property incidents within 10 minutes on 64.3% of occasions, which is below our target of 75% of the time. During this period, the number of house fires has increased, and this is a national trend, but want to emphasise the fact that 90% of all house fires that we attended were contained to the room of origin. So, the fire didn't spread outside of the room where the fire started, which is a real positive, both in relation to prevention, so the early detection through smoke alarms and our prevention advice, also through responding and keeping that fire within that room. There's been a small increase during the reporting period in the number of road traffic collisions that we attended. During this reporting period, all-time fire plants availability was at 98.4% and on-call availability at key stations was at 52.4% of the time. Hostile's home, which is one of our key activities, where we identified the most vulnerable, so they have to hit certain criteria the patient does, which is a vulnerability category for us, so they're vulnerable to fire or other incidents, at which point we take that person home from hospital, which supports the NHS, clears hospital bed, and there was the NHS to work more effectively. We take them home, but then we make sure we deliver a safe and well to make sure their risk of fire is reduced as well, so it's a referral pathway of the most vulnerable to us, and over the time period analysed, there was a slight reduction in that number, but it was only slight, and that remains a really positive service that we provide. Safe and well, the number we've done has increased since the COVID pandemic during the reporting period. Fire control handled the 999 calls. Our target is that we handle 90% of them within 90 seconds, and we handled 84.5% of the calls within 90 seconds. There's been a significant increase in the number of fire safety audits we've done in businesses. That's critical for keeping the economy going for business safety, so we've had a significant increase during the reporting period in our engagement within the business community. So, finally, I just want to say, massive thank you that the work that our fire fighters do and our other team members do across the whole of which the fire rescue service for their communities is incredible, so I'd like to place and record my thanks for their work over the reporting period. Thanks, Chair. Thank you, Ben. Well, firstly, I think this committee would echo our thanks to everyone in Warrick's Fire and Rescue Service for the work that they do, and we would add our condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives that are reported in here. It is, as we say, we want no deaths in Warrickshire from far or any other source like that. So, we would place our condolences on record. One question I've got with the performance figures, we all know Warrickshire is a great place to live, and the county is growing. So, as it grows, obviously, the percentage figures would change. Do we consider moving forward where we ought to be reporting as well alongside the percentages, how it would compare the 100,000 population or so of Warrickshire so we can have an accurate, like-for-like comparison? Yeah, thank you, Chair. There's some benefits and disadvantages to doing that in comparing per head of population. So, for us to understand it, it may be helpful for us to understand that, but fire and other incidents discriminate against the most vulnerable. So, it's less about the number of people in the head of population and more about, actually, the small number of vulnerable people that we need to target and do something with. The other challenge we have with per head of population, if you compare us to a large metropolitan farm rescue service, we're always going to compare badly per head of population. So, if people see it and start comparing us to other farm rescue services, you become in a very challenging situation in reporting in that way. So, we've just got to take a bit of care, I think, in changing it in that direction. That's fine, and I'm grateful for your advice. I was thinking more in terms of the general performance figures, because if the population increases by 2%, and you know, the incidents as you're attending for fire increased by 2%, actually, performance is static. And it's just to get an accurate comparison for this committee, because our job is to accurately understand the performance of the fire service. But if that works well, yeah, one more point on that chair, the business intelligence team has done a brilliant new dashboard for us that actually predicts the number of incidents we're going to have over the next 12 months based on looking back over historic figures, and it's fantastic, so it's that predictive type analytics. And that way, absolutely, in the future with a maybe a way in which we could say we anticipated this level based on historical and linking it to population numbers or whatever it might be. And we're actually below or above the predicted, which might be a really useful way of doing what you described here. Thank you for that, and that is very helpful. Right, questions, committee, Councillor SINCLAIR Tim. I have a number, and I'll leave it to you, Chair, to stop me and pass on to others or allow me to keep plugging on, if I may. But I'll start. It's a really useful report. It's very simple, it's very clear. The only challenge is it raises questions as well as answering them and hence my comment. Comment first, if I might, and this is a comment stroke question, in broad terms about the report, reflecting back on your first comment about the timing, would there be any value in delaying this report by two or three months in the cycle so that this committee can see the most recent data? In other words, if you've reported in two months time, could we have had a report that took us to the end of April 24? Question one. Question two, reflecting back on the Chair's comments, and I've seen this done in other portfolios within the Council, understanding that we as an authority are not like every other authority because of our geographic peculiarities, there are other rural county councils out there, and we could conceivably be compared with other authorities like us in this. Are there either of those two suggestions sensible, but not sensible possible? Thanks Council Sinclair. So first in relation to the time of the reports, it's rare that this report is this late, so we provide usually an annual update on our performance. I think resourcing to risk and other things have meant that this is a slightly delayed report, so I'm hoping that next year's 23-24 report should be with us a lot sooner than this report, if that makes sense. This is delayed for a number of reasons, so I agree that we should be able to provide it sooner, so we're not into the next year before it comes. On benchmarking, as a fire leadership team, we look at benchmarking against similar county council, fire and rescue services, so we already do that in relation to RTC's flood related incidents, so I'll be guided by the Chair and the Committee around what level of detail and what is beneficial to this, but again the business intelligence team provide that to the fire leadership team, and we look at that benchmarking on an ongoing basis to understand how we're performing. Again it's very challenging because motorway networks for RTC's, the reason a comparable fire and rescue service, so it's an indicative, but like you say, that can be helpful as long as we look at it in that way. I think as you say with the business dashboard we have now it does enable us to log in and drill down a lot more than we used to be able to. Tim did you have a follow-up on that? Yes I do, and this delves into some of the specifics relating to the data. Reflecting by the way, on the point that you've just made, it's hard to ask questions about something you don't know, so we might need some guidance in terms of other authorities, experiences that are relevant to bring to this committee, unless we see everything it's difficult to know whether they should be or they shouldn't be. Anyway, so the first question I had related to on page 15 3.1, in April 22 sadly we saw a spike of 10 fire-related injuries, and it's a really notable spike in the graph. Do you have any information to explain it, or is it just a statistical anomaly that we have no evidence of? Yeah, thanks again Councillor. So first in relation to your report around what we should be looking at as a committee around national benchmarking and those elements, I'd point the committee to the annual State of Fire report which is produced by HMIC and Home Office, so there are national documents that benchmark the performance of fire-related services and give you national trends. So very much we'd like to sign post the committee to those. In relation to that spike of injuries, the reason those spikes could occur and they usually do is that you'll have a single incident with a number of injuries, so as an example we've had some injured police officers who came to the help of an incident, so in that scenario you had two police officers, potentially two casualties within the property, so that in a single incident you sometimes get quite a few if it's a significant incident, so those spikes will generally be caused by that. There is no trend we see around it, it's the more severe incidents which get more injuries, but there is not necessarily a trend around it because those incidents occur as it would result in risk usually within the day, but there's less trends around time, month of the year or death of the week. Are you happy with that, Councillor Sinclair? Not quite, can I just follow up on this and then I'll hand over to others before I ask other questions. Ben, can I just check though please? In this particular, there's a very notable spike on April 22nd, there's 10 fire-related injuries, and I think what you're saying is you know what, where those 10 come from, whether that's one or two or three, and you're saying that typically spikes are caused by one big incident with, the only problem I've got is that I don't know that one, is that? You're saying it could be, are you able now to confirm whether it's that and/or when there are things like this occur in a report like this, can you preempt the question and answer it if you like before it has to be asked? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Councillor. I haven't got the details of that, I can provide that too, but what I can do is provide you with some assurances that after every single injury we do a serious fire incident review, some of that information will be confidential as well, but we do absolutely do that, so there's no even single or multiple injury where we don't do a serious incident fire review on that with partners to understand it, and it's usually vulnerable people sadly who are impacted, but I haven't got the exact details of that. Thank you, Councillor Bode, Sarah. Thank you, Chair. It's really interesting reading this report, having sat in all the consultation meetings on resourcing to risk, I've heard Ben and other officers talk about performance and the number of incidents, and Andy, too, a lot, and so it's really interesting to read this report in light of some of the things that were said at the resourcing to risk meetings compared to what's in the report. So, for example, you talk about the number of incidents, April 22, March 23, 4,541 incidents, which are 24.5% rise, and you talk about that, some of these increases may potentially be to do with an increase in the number of properties, and yet at the consultation meetings, I think you said that because they were new properties, it was unlikely that these properties would have incidents because they were all brand new and much better standards and smoke alarms and all the rest of it. We also see special services' tendencies increased by 26%, which there wasn't much said in the consultation around special services, and I don't think how they were going to be manned was actually taken very much into being or considered as part of the consultation. Somebody else that came up a lot, and I'm telling the two together, and I will then pause before I ask another one, is around climate change. Now, I asked several questions during the consultation meeting around climate change, because not only did we see an increase in the number of fires, and we're seeing this now, fires in the summer, hot weather, but then in the winter, and we've had a very, very wet period now, lots and lots of flooding. So we've got fire engines out rescuing people from floods in Kenilworth and other parts of the county as a result of that. So I just, and again, I think we're all at the final point, we're coming out of COVID. So 22-23 is the year after '21-22 and '20-21, where we're seeing people's patterns of behaviour change a lot. So '20-21, we'd have seen people at home for a huge amount of time. '21-22 started to come back, and '22-23 started to come back even more. So really what I'm after is a comment as to how this massive rise in incidents, because it is a lot, and how that trend is continuing. I'm the resorting to risk really concentrated on risks to life and property, where this is obviously much why all the incidents that you go out to. But if you follow some of your fire stations on social media, which I do, you will see that they are out dealing with wildfires and all sorts of different things. So just a really comment as to how this is all playing into your thoughts going forward, and whether this very large rise is continuing on in terms of incidents. I think the portfolio holder wants to come in on this as well. Do you want to come in before Ben or Ben? I'll come in on this looking, perhaps more qualified over it, as well, so I'll get you first, Ben. Yeah, thank you so much, Councillor Bode for that. So I'll just make a couple of points around it. So firstly, just around climate change, our resorting to risk elements, pick up on climate change, that's the whole idea around resorts and to risk is the fact that our day-to-day activity levels, although you say it's a large rise, there's percentages, but they're actually fairly small figures when you look at them. They're not thousands and thousands compared to other foreign rescue services. We still have the lowest number of incidents. So there's a number of more incidents, that's nearly a thousand, I think that's significant. Okay. So I can't talk about this year, but it's around where that trend is, so I think it's a trend that's going, but part of resourcing to risk is around saying we can deal with the normal everyday resources using the normal resource we've got, and then we need to increase it for climate events. So climate change on the national lead for that, and it's clear what climate change doesn't bring is a long-term increase. What it does is it gives you spikes of activity, large spikes you need to cope with, which is part of what resource and to risk is all about. Just on the van fires and those type of incidents, all of those are included within the resource and to risk data. It includes every instant type we attend. That's what ORH have modelled for us. It's not just how some property fires will property and life risk incidents. It is all instant types including those van fires that you describe. Just in relation to properties, there's no evidence that new properties cause additional fires. That's not what the national trend or the war, or it's your trend show, but there is a national trend around an increase in property fires. A small increase, we wonder if that's the cost of living, and other elements of fuel poverty, but like I say, fire targets people and vulnerable people, rather than necessarily a specific property type. Can I bring the book, I do apologise. Yeah, it's just a bit to do with flooding, and this was one of the benefits, potentially, of the resource and to risk model and the surge, and that's no pun intended. Obviously we have tidal surges and flooding, and the surge principle is that usually flooding doesn't suddenly go from one foot to six foot in the space of ten minutes. We know if it rains 50 miles up the road in somewhere heavy rain, that will come downstream to a certain low point in the county that we usually know about, and that will start causing problems. We've had cases, obviously, the wet is February and two hundred and fifty eight years, March, three times the national average in Warickshire, you know, as portfolio holder, I'll get to hear about these things. We know that we can predict with some degree of certainty where the floods are likely to occur and when. So therefore, we can call in resources at certain times to make the peak demand, etc. And one of the incidents where it was one of the storms, whether it's storm, hench or one of the names that I can never remember, that we, even though we've got 11, four time pumps and 12 retained on cold pumps, when we had a real bad incident on the Sunday, Mr. Brook could only get a maximum of 14 pumps out and we needed more. So this was the whole point that we could look at these items and bring them in on a phase basis. On day two, we will have other issues that come up, that really take hold very quickly. But in this case, in terms of flooding, I think resourcing to risk is specifically designed to help this and create more pumps in whatever definition of pumps you want to use in this case to help the situation. So I think that answers that question. Thank you, Andy. I was going to sneak in there because we were again strained dangerously close to the business of the 6th of June there. But there you go. I'll move back to Ben. What's the comment there? Sorry, Councillor. Just one point around the rise in incidents you've described there. You'll see on page 12 that the majority sorry, page 24 of the pack, that the more majority of that increased incidents happened in August, which was the 40 degree heat. So that was, you know, there were low level grass, those type of incidents. So I would suggest that one of our planning assumptions is that if you have a 40 degree heat scenario, hence surge, that is when you have more incidents. So just when we're really specific and clear, that is the increase in incidents during that time period, not house files or other things. Thank you, Ben. Sarah's got a supplementary on that. Just one more point. Thank you very much for the answer. I think particularly on flooding. I mean, it's interesting that the day of the last ONES, which I missed because I was at a conference in Birmingham, I drove through Kennerworth in the morning and the Ford was fine. When I came back at night, the Ford was up and I think that was the day that people got rest, people drove into the water and had to be rescued. I'm not sure whether that may be a different day when a car, a vehicle was in the Ford. There was a fire engine, lights flashing, rescuing the person out of the car and another car drove into the Ford and broke down. And you think, what bit of water this high and a big red fire engine with flashing lights and somebody being rescued doesn't perhaps indicate to you that it would not be a good idea. So I do appreciate, we are dealing with bizarre behavior from human beings who seem to think that their car is OK and therefore they can get through, they can get through the flood. Just a couple more points. On page 20, it talks about the role of the community engagement officer being made permanent, which I'm very pleased about, and looking to attract on-call recruits, etc. And I think we've seen a bit of a pause on that. So I do, I'm really pleased to see that that is getting going again. We had a gentleman at the Chipston consultation meeting who had been just about to start training and that had been paused because of the consultation. So I know we've got people out there that it's really, really keen that we get them in and sorted. And then the other one was around to dedicate his station manager focusing on exploring new approaches to improving on-call. And again, that just seems really sensible to me. Put people in, in five stations that you're going to then make them viable and on the run. And that seems really, really sensible to me rather than having people, whether that's not necessarily neat. So those two really pop comments rather than questions. Thank you, Sarah. Councillor Redford, Wallace. There we are. On what Sarah has just been talked about on the dedicated station manager. I mean, that is a great initiative. But would it be possible for us to have a briefing note on what they're actually looking at and where they think successes might be available and ideas that are being discarded? Because the on-call is so important. I mean, our current rate is, correct me if I'm wrong, been about 52% availability, something like that. So, yeah, this is a report from over a year ago. Oh, yes. So we're down at 40% of the moment. I mean, it's so, it is, the availability of on-call firefighters is so important to us actually meeting timescales, attendance times, in particular in the rural areas. So I think what he's doing is very important. And if we could have a briefing note, just to let us know where progress is going. I'm going to look to the chief fire officer on this, but obviously we've got a major review that we're going through. No time sculpture. Yes, I'm just wondering whether a briefing though before the resource into risk is the way forward or whether we should be looking at the way this process unfolds. Incorporated, you know? Yeah, so this is a report from '22, '23. So those positions were imposed in the year '22, '23. So that's where they came from, what we can do, those make sure within the performance report from '23, '24, that we have to make some reference to the Atoms Theatre took. One other thing, Chairman, if I may. The question of flooding, we have a long history in this county of flooding coming, in particular, from our river system. And we do know basically where we're going to be hit in the event of extraordinary rainfall and weather conditions, et cetera. But that's not what's happened this year. We've had the main fall since October. There's hardly a day gone by between October and April that we haven't had rain. But the flooding has not come from the rivers. It's come from the land. And in my own division, I've had four houses flooded, who have never been flooded before. And people have bought houses in this particular area, believe in the flooding. We know when the river, how can we have been flooded? But they have been. And it is something I think that we need to be aware of that there are precautions to be taken outside of just looking at where our particular high points are on rivers. Flooding, I think, is going to be a bigger and bigger problem. I think, as was on the news this morning, we've had the registered 18 months on record. And I think you're probably right, Councillor Redford. What we used to call once-in-a-hundred years events had no longer once-in-a-hundred years of events. And I think we're going to have to be more reactive to this. Okay, I've got Peter Butler and Councillor Butler and was to come in. Oh, this is quite right about the flooding aspect of it. What we call land runoff has been an element of this time. I used to be a farmer, and I knew technically when your land gets to saturation point, and it can no longer take or act like a sponge, which is what we had depend on. You will get run-off, and that's why some payer is basically kind of a run-off in the land, and they've got to put in incidents as a result. I've been around long enough to have seen it before. I saw it when I was farming at Dunchurch and seen run-off, and if you get extensive amounts of rain, the land is saturated, it runs off onto the roads, et cetera. The other thing is input into the planning process, because one of the one big things that we should take into account, when you have the rapid appearance of water into our water system, is when you build more and bigger shed, more and more houses, the water that runs off those houses doesn't soak into the land, it goes into the water system and appears very quickly in the water courses. I just wondered the other question I was going to ask is, do we get an increasing amount of input into the planning process so as we can try them from new developments, slow that water down, appearing into the main water courses with what we call intersection, water and intersection ponds. I just wanted to write the fire and rescue, and also people insults what have you, flooding department, I think, have input into the planning process, because it should, it shouldn't be taken into account. Thank you, that's quite a broad question on there. Do you wish to comment on that then? Councillor interjecting. Councillor interjecting. Councillor interjecting. Councillor interjecting. Councillor interjecting. Thank you. I can do it here very briefly. Firstly, just to make sure I'll open and screw to my committee or aware that fire and rescue service has now no legislative responsibility around flooding or water rescue at all, so we have no funding and no statutory duty in this space, so it's a re-challenging area for us, but it's something clearly we do do as sort of a catch or respond to any emergency type area. We do include both fluvial and fluvial risk in our community risk management plan, so we identify both of those risk surface water and other elements as well as the rivers within our community risk management planning. We've got an MOU with the environment agency and we also consider it through the local resilience forum in relation to planning. From a fire rescue service perspective, we have a very, very small element which we can talk to planning. It's usually around access and egress for firefighting. We don't have anything around flood related elements to that consultation, but we do consult on building regs in relation to access and water supplies, but that's the two quite specific areas that we engage in. Thank you very much. Right, I've got no other indicating speakers or questions on this item or Councillors in case you're sneaking in at the end. Right, one more. I held back on many of my detail questions, Chair, so forgive me because I wanted to obviously make sure I didn't dominate, but there are some going back into the report if I'm okay to quiz. Page 16, Ben, you note here the average time to respond to a life risk incident for the attending appliance was 8 minutes, 10 minutes, 7 minutes for the different types of incident. Why are they different? I'll start with that and I'll come back. Yeah, response times generally tend to be slightly longer for an RTC or an instant that is of not fixed abode, so that is access and egress travel time usually and then identification exactly where it is on a point in a map. So we tend to ensure that we position our resources around instant hotspots and fixed properties. So when you have an RTC that can happen in a much more variable way, although we do have hotspots, that tends to be why those response times are slightly different to other types, for instance. Thank you. Interestingly, of course, that's the area that's messing up your average. So it's road traffic collision response times that are causing the average response time, whole average response time to fall below the target, just as an observation. You might comment on that, but I'll move on to my next question if I may. Page 17, where we talk about accidental dwelling fires and you suggest that there's intelligence that might indicate that the fires occurring are linked to deprivation and the cost of living crisis. Can you please explain why you drew that inference? If there's a data that suggests that or it's just a as it were anecdotal experience, and or why deprivation should cause more fires, and what could be done about it? My head went to, can people not afford fire alarms? Do we need to provide cheap fire alarms? But that might be dull. Yeah, thanks again Councillor Sinclair. So in relation to how we've identified deprivation, it's not a war it should piece of analysis here. So the National Fortunes Council have commissioned a set of work around risk in the foreign rescue sector, and they've got external experts, data analysts who've done this piece of work for the sector as a whole. What they've looked at is how far's across the whole country, what they look and feel like, where they most occur, and they've got definition of how we have to do our community risk management planning. There's a fast standard for that in which I have to comply with that, and HMIC look at me, and assess whether we're doing that or not, and that's picked up in any far reports you'll see it within our report around how good we are at community risk management planning or not. And what they do is they've looked at certain specific risks in that, so one of the risks they've looked at is the risk of a house fire. What that data has clearly showed is that there's a number of factors that lead a person to being most vulnerable sadly to a house fire, and being injured in a house fire, and sadly being fatality. They are factors like deprivation over 65, being unemployed for more than two years. There's some ethnicity pieces in that as well. It's not quite as simple as one factor leads to higher risk. It's when they come together, they multiply each other. That leads us to an understanding about who is most at risk within our communities. That applies to Warraiture. What we then do, Councillor Sinclair, is we actually target our safe and wells to those people. So you'll see into the future that we actually, you'll see a measure around the number of safe and wells we've done in high risk homes. They are the homes where that person demonstrates those risk factors. We fit as free, smoke, lime in those spaces. We have a universal offer, which is the website, universal information. So if someone's not vulnerable, please go to our website. You can see all the information there. Then anyone who's in a target or a specialist category, we would fit a smoke alarm for those people. We target our interventions at those people who are most vulnerable to fire. Could I just come in there, Ben? I seem to remember during the energy crisis when energy got very, very expensive. You are asking us to make people aware about chimneys and chimney fires because they seem to be quite an uplift of people opening fireplaces up and just basically burning wet wood, not managing the farmers particularly well. Did that have an impact on these figures? Yeah, thanks, Jay. It's really interesting because one thing we struggle with is understanding what we prevented. So how do we know what hasn't happened? That is a real challenge for us. So we haven't seen a huge spike in chimney fires. Whether that is due to our prevention work or other factors, it's very hard to say that. But ultimately we believe there has to be a correlation longer term between the prevention work we do, fitting of smoke alarms and an actual number of incidents. Whether it is, as clearly seen within one year's worth of data, what we have seen is a 40% decrease in accidental dwelling fires over a 20-year period. That shows that the impact of safe and wells, fitting smoke alarms, fire safety advice going into schools and we have two key age groups we go into linking in potential with fire cadets into the future. There's lots of things we can do in that space where over a long period of time you can see a huge reduction. So, in fire, we have seen a 40% decrease in the number of fires we attend over the last 20 years, which is significant and a big congratulations to our firefighters for that. Please thank you because I had two remaining questions and you've somewhat answered one of them. And if I can perhaps reiterate the point you've made back with a request for the future, what I think you've said there, I was going to be asking about the great activity on the hospital to home collections, which is a large prevention objective, and then specifically the prevention protection and response teams. And you've said there that it's very hard to correlate the success of those activities because you can't count something that doesn't happen. I think you also said over the long term, there's been a significant decrease. Might I suggest that that messaging is put into a report of this nature? Again, just to sort of indicate we do this, we spend our time and money here. This is why we think it matters because I can see what you're doing, but I can't see why it matters from the report. The other point was just sort of finally, and it links to page 25, which is all of the grass really, but it's a page 25 where we're talking about the call handling within 90 seconds and that 84.5% are done, on average, are done within time. Do we report as a bell curve on any of these statistics, not just that one, so that we can not only see that the average is fabulous, but we can see if there are any significant extremes that we need to be aware of, because if I personally ring up and I wait 10 minutes, I don't care about everybody else, I just care about my call, but that could extend to all the other data. Thank you. Yeah, thanks again, Councillor SINCLES. A couple of things. So in relation to measuring our prevention, I think we can do more in this report around risk, how we identify risk, what that looks like from a national picture and then how applying that to work from that prevention impact that we potentially have around our resources, very happy to do that. One thing we have trialled during the last part of the last financial year, so this isn't in this report, is around actually, rather than measuring the number of safe and wells we do, we've trialled this at rugby, we are actually giving every risk component a score. So actually, if you identify and do a safe and well with 10 risk components, and they get two points each, an example, then that's safe and well scores, X score, if it's only got two risk components only scores, and that way we're directly correlating the impact of that safe and well on the risk you're reducing. So we are trying to do that and that's been rolled out across the service now, so we're trying to be a lot more sophisticated in how we understand the impact we're having, not just the arbitrary number that's being produced, so we are trying to move in that direction and take any steer outside the room on that. In relation to extremes and bell curves, so our community risk management plan in process is actually moving to that bell curve type approach that we're looking at that, we're working on that at the moment and every extreme we look at, so if we have a response time that is outside of our, we look at that and we've actually got a dashboard in Power BI that gives us an understanding of all the extremes, we understand those and we look at those all the time, so we don't ignore them. What's the last one, Tim? Is it possible, it's a genuine question, if through a report like this in the future, it is possible to highlight for us significant extremes that we need to be aware of, because we're probing on averages, but we don't have information to probe here about any of those major extremes. That's just a question, stroke suggestion, thank you. I just want one comment on that and very happy to meet outside Councillors in clear to have a chat about that. What one of the things you will see is that we know the incidence where we don't get there within the timeframe, we look at what the reason is for that and I've got a graph that shows the reason for that, you'll see 99% of those travel time, so that is what it looks and feels like, so we know what the reason is, so very happy to bring it to this group, it's just what would you then do, because we know it's travel time, we're proposing resourcing to risk and those elements to put a resource in the place where they're going to make the biggest difference to reduce travel times to the most severe incidents at the right times of day, so very happy to show what every information this committee feels is useful, my question would be let's talk about it to make sure we actually do, it's now, can we get from that? Thanks Ben. Andy? Yes, I've got things that sometimes, I remember things, is that it's sometimes the extremes that cause the extremes, the 40 degree heat, the unprecedented amount of water we've had for the last 18 months are some of the things we can't at the moment deal with 100% effectively because things have changed and that was one of the reasons we were going down to resource and risk process. I think, again, prevention is one of the ways forward, we can stop these things happening, we all know from a child prevention is better a cure and a stitch in Tom says no, it's a loss end up, and I just want to plug the safe and wild visits, sorry, it's a misstring of me, for a safe and wild visit the team doing Mark Powell and his team, I think Gaiden, they do a great job and I don't just see, they come around, it's on the website preventing slips, chips and fours, giving up smoke and winter warmth, home security, hydration and health eating, they are doing a great team, so please, Tom, plug this, if that's just one thing you remember from this meeting and one thing you remember, ever remember from Andy Crump, the safe and wild visit, please plug that, thank you. Thanks Andy, I think a lot of us have sort of processed that information round and at the end of the day, I'm sure Ben will agree, fire service don't want to put out fires, they want to prevent fires and I think they've done a lot of really good work around that. So we've given that a really good air in, Ben, can I thank you for presenting that this afternoon and when we look at these incidents, we always need to remember that our firefighters, at all our blue light services, are dedicated and put their lives on the line on a regular basis to protect the public of Warwick's share and we should be eternally grateful for them, so Ben, if we could pass our thanks back to your service for what they do for us, we do appreciate it. Right, now we move on to item number five on the agenda, which we're going to have a presentation on Warwick's approach to artificial intelligence, so I'm looking forward to this, I watched Terminator the other day and I'm not very comfortable with AI myself, so let's see what this looks like. [ Pause ] All of you need to see this through the screen, if you need to move forward, fail for a frame. I always do that, I'm sorry, I'm here to share some thoughts on artificial intelligence with you. I don't claim to be the expert and I don't claim to have everything any individual colleague or elected member would want to understand, but this comes from a piece of work I've started with colleagues and we're around the council thinking about how artificial intelligence could impact not just on us as a council but on all residents and how it may become of use as it progresses over time, indeed some of you may have seen my electric there where I'm using artificial intelligence at the moment, so the surface prune is listening to me speak and putting that up in the form of subtitles and that's a little clue to perhaps where artificial intelligence is and where it can get us to. Now I plan to talk about 20 minutes, if you know me, I'm probably lying and I'll talk for the rest of the day but I will try to limit it down to 20 minutes and hopefully take any questions through the chair as we get to it if that's okay, I've now got to turn my slides on so it trips me up, I'm going to go backwards a bit to begin with and I'm going to just explain what artificial intelligence is and then I'll take you through what I think we need to consider and certainly what I shared with corporate board and colleagues around the council about what we need to consider about this new area of technology and then I'll share with you our direction of travel which I've shared with leadership team, it's not set and final but I wanted to discuss with you how I think the county council can move forward on this and as I say nothing's fixed, this is a set strategy plan of direction, it's a very new area of technology and I'm sure it will develop over time but a sort of a preface for you if you like, we are really well positioned in the county council because of the work that council have endorsed both in the digital strategy and the data strategy, I'll share more of that as we get to it. It's hard to answer what artificial intelligence is because it isn't one thing, when we use the phrase and certainly when I've talked about this with my boys, with my children, they think it's as single as the chair set, a single entity or a single brain or a single piece of technology. What's important to get across is it's not and this is expanding, if you're as old as I am you'll remember the technology bubble back in the 2000s, it feels a little bit like that, all IT companies are developing forms of AI, some of these you're using today, if you have an Alexa in the house I use it for music and radio, it's artificial intelligence, chat GPT is hugely prevalent at the moment and why chat GPT is beginning to take the lead on this is meant because the amount of investment that Microsoft has a part we're putting, but also to do some incredible things, some of which we've got early side off, we're blessed in the county council and that we have a number of colleagues who are both working on AI with us but actually working on AI with government colleagues as well to try and understand the direction of travel. I've shared other examples and now I won't go through them all, if you've ever used any of these tools you'll know they all do different things, be it alpha code which can literally write programming language on behalf of coders and from fresh. UBA is a large model, artificial intelligence, it knows where you are, it knows where you need to get to, it knows sufficiently possible, core pilot and I maybe shouldn't say this but I will, we have core pilot in the county council, it's available to you now and install to use it to see and feel in a really safe environment, I'll stress, I'll stress why it's important to come back. The message is it's everywhere, it's growing, it's being used in a number of different applications and I can share a little bit of insight about what they look like in the next few slides. It can do for the first time as a technology general onated tasks, that's the really exciting part of artificial intelligence. On the left of the slide as I see it, it can without help classify, look at information and put in the groups or suggest where data is a mess or a ride or a fraud may be occurring. It can edit, certainly I've used artificial intelligence to look at some of my writing and suggest how to improve it. Within our own tools currently, within words, there's an artificial intelligence tool which gives you a score based on how easy your text is to read and will suggest how to make that better. A growing part of artificial intelligence, indeed the conversation between the councilors in Clare and the chief fire officer picked this up, it can interpret data numbers really efficiently. I'll give you an example of that from the, if you like the labs of Chad Pete, Jupy, taking the moment to show how that works. We use AI pretty much every day with commercial call senders. When you ring up, I rang one yesterday and I'm talking to a robot and that's getting more and more effective at actually even understanding geordies, I will see. So we're starting to see that technology grow and develop in different ways. I've used the video here, I hope it's worked, because it's not just on what we've considered language models. Just trying to skip that on a bit. If you've ever seen any of these videos from Boston Dynamics who are a part of Google, they're showing how artificial intelligence can be used in manufacturing or manual work. Now, as I understand it, this video shows the robot has been tasked with a simple instruction. Can you bring something to me? And the robot is determining the best way to get up there. It's working out for itself, how to get the bag up to the worker on the top of the platform, and it will work out in its own brain, how to balance, how to move, how to get up following its own, if you like to tell it to the top. That's why in the previous set of ten, it's more than one thing. We think about it in terms of computer software. Actually, there's a lot happening in the world of AI to do with how work can be helped. This is one example. I think it is so short. There's other examples on there I could share, but unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to do it seamlessly around driving and around other types of manual work. If I ever get the chance, I'll show you the Remove Barriers AI, which is incredible. It takes a person's face, they talk, videos that, and it will translate it to any language, including the let movements immediately. In the world of translation, that's not just to take a real step forward. I said I'd share some ideas, or I just meant shows on the right side, of how this is going to develop as we work. There's two examples I would share amongst many. This is chat GPT. It shows how the programmers and the software itself begins to develop, and it is developing a sense of common sense. If you can't read and apologize for text being so small, there's two photographs, the person asking chat GPT that's what's going on in the photo. The software is able to interpret and explain what is going on in that photograph. A real sense now of being able to interpret what in the world. The second example I highlighted this earlier, chat GPT is now able to interpret chat. I almost sound like I'm on the BBC. There are other applications available. This is just the example I got from chat GPT. It's able to answer questions based on data presented to it, and give interpretation and analysis an insight. The third example I thought was really interesting, and to pick up the terminator example, I found this fascinating. The artificial intelligence is beginning to learn feelings and emotions. Here's an example of empathy, where looking at photographs and images, it's able to explain how the people in those images is feeling. I hope they give you a sense of why I say it's more than one thing, and I hope I give you a sense also that this is developing quickly, and in areas you I know that people won't be able to forecast about how this artificial intelligence could be used in the future. And I stress could be used, because we don't endorse. I'm not yet the same. We should be using these tools for these reasons. It is simply a sense of progress and development. I think we need to consider three things, and this is what I've shared more widely elsewhere. How it could impact one of the opportunities and the rest to us and others, and how could the council adopt to move this forward? I'm going to move in to talk a little bit about that now. I love this call hill, and I wanted to share it with you, because there's lots of different quotes around technology and AI, but I think this one is really apt. It applies to bankruptcy, where Ernest Hemingway first used it, but it's just as true in artificial intelligence. How will this affect us? How will this impact the nurses or residents or colleagues? It'll happen gradually, and I think we're in that phase. We're just sort of starting to get to understand it, and then very suddenly, it will start to make a difference to our daily lives, our work practices, and how we integrate with each other. Bear that in mind as I talk about some of the examples as I move forward. What I have on this slide is lots of publicly available quotes, and you will not the same theme. They're mainly from technologists. Now, I don't mean to be a cynic, but I think there's a self-interest in technology companies talking about how AI will revolutionise the world. Again, I don't endorse these facts and figures, but they all lean towards the same conclusion. AI will affect work. It will affect how we do work. It'll affect the type of jobs we do. Funny enough, on a personal level, I've been talking to my boys about this. I've got a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old. They're just getting careers advice through their school. In the school, let's start to talk about, think about how artificial intelligence could affect some of the careers you would like to follow. It's starting to have that societal, if you like, infection. People start to talk about it. It's not all as optimistic as the head of technology companies would have us believe. Indeed, I think it was a week ago. The International Monetary Fund gave a forecast for how they believe AI could affect the world of work and the economy. They're looking at productivity gains between 0.9 and 1.5% per year in the UK. Again, all forecasts, all linked to companies in the previous bullet points who may have an interest in promoting this, but a similar theme throughout. This will impact on how we do work. What are the opportunities and the risks? Firstly, we can use this now. We're then a current counsel. I'll talk a little bit about this later when I get to risks. We have artificial intelligence tools and we start to explore, use and work out what they can do for us. Ben kindly mentioned how the business intelligence team are using some of this technology to help decision making. The emphasis on help. Artificial intelligence and current counsel is not making decisions. We would never allow that to happen. It's an aid. It helps us look forward. It suggests patterns and things we may wish to investigate and explore further. I've talked about other tools like co-pilot, where it is this generative of artificial intelligence. It can create text, numbers or pictures or presentations for you. There are productivity improvements. Indeed, some of the data work again going up the business intelligence team, not just because they work in my service. They've been doing this for a long time. They're using it to look at how we could make efficiencies and suggest areas of work where we may want to focus time and effort to interpret. But I think it was also an opportunity to think about AI in our communities and how residents may wish to consider AI. We have large industries which are looking at it now. We have plenty of smaller companies who are investigating how AI is working. Huge opportunity there for us to help and look and talk to communities, in my view. There are risks of artificial intelligence. I can share a couple of them with you. I would click the link that I can probably summarize it better. A famous case by 12 months ago. Samsung took the whole of their code base for all of their mobile. Technically, their computers, their televisions, their fridges, the washing machines, dropped it at the chat JBT. Literally said, Can we improve this code? The problem with that is that anyone who then typed it at chat JBT, Can you share some code from Samsung? got the whole of the code base. They lost all of their intellectual property overnight. Because if you put something into chat JBT, it is the property of the world. It's not filled as you were unable to filter it. You're not able to stop it being accessed by anyone else. I can share how we're avoiding that in a moment. I'm going to come back to this later and share another risk. It is not infallible. I think this is something to ponder. Dare I suggest any technology is infallible? It is definitely not infallible. The example I've picked today is if you can follow the screen, a random user started asking an artificial intelligence, Which flightless birds are native to the United States of America? You can see the first response and it won't be the rest of your ostriches, emus, rias. The rest of the conversation is the user. A very patient intelligence you point out, Well, they don't actually. They're not native to the United States of America. It shows when we get to the end, the user told chat JBT about the only native flightless bird to America, which is the roadrunner. Un infallibility is there. It is learning. It is that native, if I can, just in that it learns as it enters a workplace or an environment and it starts to take intelligence from a person. That's how they're programmed. Learn, adapt, build it in what you take going forwards. I do think we're not quite sure, if we think in terms of the meat in terms, three to five years, where this will take us. It could be absolutely the next big thing. It could be something with limited application that isn't quite as powerful as where we get. It could end up being the property of huge technology company. Certainly, that's where the money is now. Microsoft Google, Facebook, they're weather developing. It could be something they then start adopting and adapting very small limited ways with charges. That's possibly the final thing on the risk pattern to think about the cost. It is high cost to under the artificial intelligence game. We have looked at some examples of it. There is no cheap or free way to use artificial intelligence. You all have heard this call only phrase before. chat JBT has a free version. You can visit cost version, there's a free version. In IT circles, they say, if you're not paying for the product, you're the product. Hence that example I've just shared with you, chat JBT learned about flightless birds because you entered the data to it. You're teaching it like a code or a program award. To use it in the sense of a large organization complex or like a sales, there is cost, there is technology impact and there's work impact. They're that mainly as we move through where I think the kind of cancer law. A lot on this slide, and I'm going to concentrate on this a little bit simply to see, maybe I would say this about in my my role, how and what are we doing to adopt AI in the kind of cancer. There's four things. We need to consider its impact on the budget. We need to think about where our data is stored and that's the big divide between the we hold our applications or the cloud so we can put the data in an accessible place. To really take advantage of artificial intelligence, you need to change the way you work and we need to consider that. And we need all the providers we work with some 220 technology providers to make sure they can use AI and help us use AI really effectively. We are on that path and council to adopt this. I can say that with confidence because we have a number of tools and mechanisms and I can share some examples of where this has benefited us. We do have our road maps and digital data. Both of those have allowed us to move into a cloud-based environment where possible. Our data work led by Spencer and Craig in the legal team is helping us get better data, more accessible data and we're able to share that with more colleagues. And we are moving into a part where we're going to work with colleagues to read and make sure that data is right first time not just because we've thrown it through a roadmap. I've been asked to lead a process redesign program on behalf of the corporate board as well, which is I must say exciting at the moment. It's shown us where we could use artificial intelligence to help our processes be more efficient. I've identified about 10 of them with colleagues and we're looking at how either AI or process change or any other technology may make that possible. So we're finding them away identifying them. And we have published internally principles of how you use it and best get value out of it. So we're starting to educate our colleagues about where this can help and where it can't help. What I will say as well on this to show how we take advantage of it. Ben's already mentioned about prediction. That happens because our data roadmap has allowed data to be accessible. We have the right technology and we're able to get at that and stop really pulling apart and stop seeing how it works. What I will do, what corporate board will do, however, is make changes that will impact negatively on our residents. One example being I mentioned lots of companies are starting to use robotic and artificial intelligence in core centers. We won't do that. We won't remove an opportunity because we're conscious of the digital divide for residents to ring us or email us and use whatever contact mechanism they can. We're not just going to blindly adopt technology. That's a fundamental part of digital and data roadmap. We test, we experiment and we move on. Final slide from me when I hope that then gives you a good sense of where we are. This is in its infancy. It's expensive now. It could get cheaper. What we need to do is think about where best to get advantage. That's not just in terms of ourselves but the impact on our residents. I've talked about digital divide. Could it help? Could it hinder? Could we do things in different ways? There's also ethical questions in this. What do we share? How do we share it? Do we want it to help us make decisions? Do we want it to take a lead on things? We're considering those as a county council now and just working out how that ethical and moral stance could also affect where we're going. What I've put on the screen is my position to the county council, corporate board. We want to be a first follower. We want to explore. We've started doing it. We're going to start with better into places where that's valued and we're going to learn from colleagues. I'm lucky enough to be involved in quite a few conversations with other county councils and other organisations about how we could take advantage of it. I did see our talk for a long time. Thanks for your patience, Chair. I'll pass back to you for any questions. That's okay. Thank you, Craig. Personally, I find this fascinating and tiny bit frightening. It caught measures because I am after that generation and many of you will be where AI was put forward as a thing that might be quite a dangerous thing. But as we've moved forward, it's clearly something that it's going to happen. It's here and we're going to have to deal with it, but I do think that one of the biggest problems is going to be perception because I think the older you are, the more distrusting of this you're going to be because of the way it's been presented for many years with films like iRobot, Terminator, The Matrix. It is that sort of thing where our generation is a little distrust and perhaps we're going to have to relearn our perception of artificial intelligence to take this forward. So we've got a few people that are going to ask questions. I can see four are indicated already, so we'll move around. Tim first. Yeah, thanks. I would echo your comments. My children are 18 and 20. They just start looking to get jobs. They're scared to death of AI because they're saying I've got a degree. I've got this and the other. Is AI going to take that away from me? But I don't think it's just older people. I think they're all generations of concerned. But I have a link question. So I'd like to understand why the county council, a traditionally incredibly risk-averse organization, has taken the decision to be a first follower. That fascinates me. Links to that, please. How are we going to monitor? How is the organization going to monitor what risks are being taken? And then monitor whether the risks being taken were wise risks or not wise risks and is a body like this going to have a chance to be a safety net of the progress and the process that's being taken. Thank you. I think Craig's just going to talk that into chat GBT for the answer for you. Thanks, Councillor. If I start coughing, forgive me. I'll start with the second question. First, if I'm the only member of the rest. One of the processes I need, again, to bring Nick in as well through legal at the same time is what we call the DPIA process. So it's the data protection assessment process. Every piece of software, every piece of IT, every new use of applications or websites has to be assessed through a rigorous process to look at where is the data shared, who's sharing it, what it can be used for, where it will be transferred to, where is it held. A whole bunch of questions on there. We have just the data to include applications of artificial intelligence as well. Asking fundamental questions about how involved in decision-making would have be, are there any safeguards, any checks. I get the sign that off. Sarah Duxgril ultimately sits over it and is able to ask for further evidence, further information to make sure the risk profile is appropriate. We monitor application of that as well. Should there be any breaches or should we find that anything in the artificial intelligence or software changes, that DPIA is refreshed. That means that I've got control over what's used and what's not. I can turn things on and off based on that risk profile. We report that corporately to corporate board. The ultimate indicator of what that risk profile is because as Monica and Officer Sarah has over the side of it, Sarah feeds that into who reporting if we have breaches or undue risk profiles on there. I like the link question to why we first follow up. I have often adopted first-folded status irrespective of the risk profile. Certainly, if you looked up or moved to Microsoft and moving to Power BI, we knew that was happening two, three years before that was in place. The reason why I think first-folded was the right place to be is we get to influence that market without being the first risk holder as anyone's civil organizations are there. I think it's appropriate also because I have that DPIA process. I'm able to advise on what we follow based on the risk, but I'm also able to take a profile, which is we do need to consider how this could affect processes and to use one of the chairs lanes, it's going to happen to us anyway. It's not like other technology where we had a choice. All of the main application providers are providing artificial intelligence products either on top of what we have or embedded with what we have. I mentioned Microsoft. We're not paying for those, additionally, our tools. They're there, they're live. We have to understand how they work and really take a view on them before they start getting them better than pro-practice-weight sensor principles I've talked about. So I think that's that whereas I agree with being risk-averse, I can't avoid what's happening in the technology market. I need to be ahead of it without being the first people really put my whole neck on the line to take that place. The beauty of chairing a meeting, you know, you can see everybody's face and this one's been a cracker to watch your faces, just represented this one. Puminda, you've got a question. Thank you, Chair. It's interesting. One of these slides you're showing it in rupees, not fanster links, that's just a comment. One of the issues we spend a lot of time is analyzing data and with the pandemic, we have tons of data which in its analyzing and signed with the Census 2021. And I don't think we make enough use of those. I have to provide the service, the people we need to get to. So I would think that this could be a very useful tool to help analyze those data and linking the services, is that the area we might look at first. Thanks for the question. It absolutely is an area we're looking at. I'm not sure if it's going to be first simply because we're trying to understand what these large language models are, Councillor, this chatty routine, how it helps drafting and editing. That's where we've started to think about it. But it is part of Spencer's BI program to be considering artificial intelligence tools. One of the slight hurdles in the way that is the ethical question I mentioned, that's where I've been very careful with how we would consider it. I know people can get worried about, well, and I paraphrase, artificial intelligence is making decisions or it's making recommendations without human interaction. We need to consider that at the same time as consider how that tool will help us get to the better analysis of the question. So we're looking at it. It's not first in the queue. It will be very soon for what I expect based on the amount of data we do after analyzing. Sarah. Thank you. I'm retiring five weeks tomorrow after 45 years of work. And I think what when I started work, no internet, no email, no Wi-Fi, no smartphones, everything was on paper. I'm sorting out, I've worked for my current employers for over 30 years and I'm sorting stuff out slowly. I work from home, I have a house funder stuff. When first papers for meetings, everything was typed. It probably were processed 30 years ago, but it certainly had to be posted because there was no other way of getting stuff. So you know, life is changing all the time, isn't it? It absolutely is. And the way we did things when I first started working in 1980, the way things do happen now is changing all the time. My children are a little bit old, slightly older, 20 and 24. They're seeing, I've seen massive change. People that older me have seen probably even bigger change and young people are going to see change as well. And I think we have to embrace change and get on with it because otherwise we will get left behind. I do think though that we are a people facing, I can see the things about data and analysing stuff absolutely, but we are a people facing organisation and I'm getting the people that perhaps contact us, particularly by phone, are people who actually really, really, really want to speak to a real person. They don't want a box coming up on the bottom of a screen, answering them, trying to explain what it is that they want. So I think we need to be careful. It's interesting, I missed the last CRNP meeting. I was going to watch the recording on Teams, but I realised there was a transcript and I think Teams gives you that ability to have a transcript. I do a lot of training on Teams. You get a transcript. I tried to read the transcript of the meeting and after about five minutes I gave up because so many of the words were incorrect and it got, it got really, by the end, I knew what, I knew what they, just a bit was, but it got really annoying because lots of the words were not quite the right word and you had to keep thinking all the time to analyse it. So I think we need to be, I think it's a lot of potential, but I think in terms of people facing, we need to be making sure there's a real person that can, because people won't necessarily ask questions in the way that a chappy GBT can, we've seen it with the birds, you know, chat GBT needs to know all the answers, doesn't it? And that they may not know the answer to somebody's particular social services query or something like that. So I think, I think there's lots of potential, but I think we need to be, make sure that we don't leave the people behind. Thanks. And if you don't mind, just add into that comment as well, Cancer, thank you for it. We're investigating that area you talk about to do with minting and not taking the transcripts. Hence why I talked about this being part of a process review, not a technology review, just to expand on that. You're right, if I sat now and talked to the teams, it would capture probably 60% of what I see. What we've done is looked at how can we improve that. So we've looked at microphone placement, we've looked at using software that can then summarize down the notes. You get out just the meat of what you want rather than the whole unedited transcript. Doing that makes the role of the people in that room hugely more productive. They're not having to review and read and digest and try to summarize down the notes. They get what they want really quickly afterwards. It's that sense of it's not infallible. It's how you take something that was designed to do a general task and make a work for the task you got in front of you. And I do support what you said about making sure our residents aren't impacted by this too quickly. I maintain we have the telephone, we'll take web, we'll make sure the residents feel supported. We're not just going to force a technology on them. We want them to enjoy and get the value of the contact. And as you know, that's within my remit as well. I'll talk to Stephanie about how we can make sure if we look at technology, it aids. It doesn't look, please. Thank you. And you make a really good point there, Sarah, about digital exclusion. I know a lot of people who just want, as you say, to stick with the telephone. They're not wanting to embrace this, and they feel as if they're being left behind. Right. Rick, you're next. Unfortunately, I think the question has really been answered because Miss Councillor Sinclair sort of asked the question. But the only thing to really follow up on is where are we in comparison with other councils around the country as in are we ahead of the curve or are we in line with the councils or are we chasing up behind? Thanks for the question. It does allow me to follow on there as well, Councillor. And the councils I've talked to split in three camps. We've got the ones who are very definitely leaving the way. I'll expand upon that in a moment. We've got councils to fit in the area we're wearing, and I'll expand on that also. And then we've got an awful lot of councils that don't go anywhere in the US. If I pick up on the third category, first, they are in the main. The reason being that it's, as I said, the cost, their stage of their design and their process work is former based on getting a process for efficiencies from individuals. And they're the ones that just by nature and history haven't necessarily led on IT programs as they go forward. They're in the main. If I jump back to the first category, I know of two or three who are experimenting and working on some of these examples now. They report mixed and I won't mention names. They report mixed results. Some have spent an awful lot of time trying to do some real change with AI and found it hasn't worked. When I talked to them privately, that comes then with the design and the planning of the process. It's not the technology. The technology is what it provides. I keep emphasizing that's why we're corporately looking at this as a program of where do we need to improve in terms of process, make more efficient, make more productive, and what tools have we got to aid in. Not here's AI. Can I make it do something that takes responsibilities away from people? And the second camp, the first followers, were probably in the sort of the minority at the moment. The ones I've talked to have got priorities based on end-to-end. If I pick up the example from counter the board, I've got a customer journey and I can see where AI may help and we're working on those together. We're talking to a couple of them now across the country about, well, that's something that our problem can maybe work on. It's not together, but get a sense of learning and practice from each other. All the three categories, it's always going to be the largest at the bottom, the smallest at the top. I think what the police were in, we could very quickly get to that first step if we see real value, exploring some of those at the moment in processes where I think we could make really quick wins. But I think we'd certainly keep our eyes on. If different counts are starting to wrap wildly different directions, it might inform us of which technology could help, which partners couldn't help. We have two portfolio holders and an officer who wants to speak on this and a Councillor coming back in right. So I'm going to take Rob first if that's OK. Can you hear me now? So the other element of this is being ready. So to be able to follow something that would apply for our issue is safe, secure and appropriate to our business needs. We need to be ready and one of the things that we've done well, I think, is get our IT infrastructure and services in good shape and data as well. So we've moved to the cloud, we've stripped back dramatically the number of applications we've got. We've now got single customer platform technology, the investment in Power BI, getting the data right is fundamental to having any sort of prospect of exploiting artificial intelligence. So a big part of our strategy is actually getting those building blocks in place. And that includes the legal and the ethical side as well. So I think we're trying to get ourselves well positioned. And I wanted to come back on the we're a very risk-averse organisation and gently push back on that because we carry huge risk by the day in various types in different ways, not least resources. And I think we've done initiatives that are really quite innovative and with well-managed risk. And I think artificial intelligence is one of those things that done well and surgically in the right sort of place brings quite a lot of opportunity in dealing with some of our challenges. If I pick up the phone to everybody who rings me, all six of them every day trying to sell me something from AI, we will probably be fumbling around somewhat looking for things that are going to work. But I think I think we've got our eyes wide open, we're trying to lay the foundations where there is something that will work for us, we'll run with this. And I think as Councillor Bose said this is happening, it's a feature, it's our website translates all our stuff into any language you like using AI. We've got to pick the right processes and drive proper improvement through this. But we're being very, very solid, I think, in the approach that we're taking but it is not risk-free and we will need to manage that well. Thank you, Rob. Martin. Yes, thanks, Chair. And interestingly, following on from Rob's comments, I mean this is an industry that I'm actually working. So everything you've said is exactly appropriate. We need to look at this, we shouldn't be scared of it. I think what's in the news recently, the reason it's become or people have hesitated is because some of the other uses of AI, these deep fakes, videos, etc, etc. But there is a real practical use for AI, copilot doing your minutes, doing your actions, all of those great things from meetings. I do agree with Sarah as well, trying to read the transcript from Teams is a painful process. But just picking up on two points, it really comments, the EU AI Act is either just out or is imminent to be out. So there is a piece of legislation coming out from Europe around AI. We're not doing anything in the UK as yet. But just picking up on your point, I've literally just finished or it's just been released working with the British Standards Institute, we've just helped write the facial recognition technology British Standard and it's about the ethical use of facial recognition technology because mainland Europe wanted to ban facial recognition technology. We don't call it AFR anymore, it used to be automatic facial, but it picks up on your point because now there's always a human in what's called human in the loop. So the technology is not allowed to make these critical decisions on its own. There will always be human oversight or human overview to make sure that what it's telling you is actually accurate because as we know, it's not always right. Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Martin. Thank you, Chair. Fascinating subject, I'm going to kind of listen to and I'm basically kind of purely because of money side and lack of stuff and all the rest of that. We've got to go down this route so as I can get better productivity out of the people that do actually do work for us and kind of keep this organisation going. But, I mean, it's what I was kind of like, call in the phrase, it's there to help us to think, to think better, but not replace us thinking. The trouble is we're kind of, and this is not necessarily to do with AI, but computers per se are basically created a generation where they don't know how to critical think. And we're basically trying to kind of now kind of go kids go to university and the university is saying there's no critical thinking going on here. They've been told what to think and they say they turn out what they've been told to think rather than basically kind of say question everything. I was always taught to question everything and that was one of the reasons why I basically kind of like you've got to be careful about what you're buying and I think it's right to be at the beginning so you can influence what you're buying. I mean, for example, I mean, the one thing that's made all the news just racially is Google's Gemini and they've got a situation where they've got themselves of what we call a woke piece of AI and they've had to go back to the drawing board because it's generating images that have got nothing to do reality but everything to do with the biases of the people who wrote the software. So there the drawbacks of drug combined software like that and the other thing they're not kind of like common sense and that's good to know in mind because if if a computer can recognize when someone's sad someone's fallen over someone's in not a good state they're happy. Use imagine what you can do with kind of an adult social care monitoring someone and they instantly recognize that our Betty is distressed needs attention immediately kind of and it's that common sense thing where we can draw attention to us and it helps us provide a service better and think better because they've kind of raised an alarm. So there is a got enormous potential for AI but like you say it's got it has got potential to be misused because don't forget people who write this stuff what I'm making money out of you. And I think that the thing about free you're the product if you buy you're not the product. I think that was a good saying oh write that one down. So yeah it's right for us to be on it. Rob has pointed out that we're more than kind of capable of basically making sure that it suits us and not them suit suit them and not suit them. So it's going to be a fascinating ride and to kind of Tim's kids every new move on from a new piece of technology everybody in the past it's bit and history pointed out new technology everyone thinks they're going to lose a job you know the spinning genie was kind of the classic one rather very beginning but a new technology creates more jobs and I'm always confident that generally you know every new innovation is creating more jobs ultimately because we can do it better quicker. So anyway like I say be an ongoing discussion. Thank you Pete. All right the last indicated speakers, Councillor Sinclair Tim. Yeah thanks it's interesting here in the comments. So apologies Rob if our corporate strategy is not to be low risk. If I wouldn't mind some clarification I thought that our overarching corporate strategy was to be a low risk organization and if we were we would therefore presumably take a low risk appetite in all instances. If that's not the case please clarify can I can I go on and then perhaps you can come come back. I would suggest and I would ask normally when you do something you say what problem are you solving? What's the point rather than doing it for its own sake? I'd be interested in understanding specifically what problems we're trying to solve that this investment in time and and what have you is directing us to and then the third point just one step point is there any opportunity going forward for this committee ZOSC to see where we are using AI and to monitor your work anybody else's work and how it's whether it's been successful or failed so that there's member community oversight of our first follower status here. Thank you. Yeah I mean on risk it's a slightly nuanced answer we've got a risk management framework and we've got different categories of risk for each of which we set a risk appetite. So this is what I was trying to convey earlier on really some are at the low end obviously safeguarding things like that we are risk adverse in other areas you know things like the property and development group for example we take a much more open attitude to risk and our risk targets are set accordingly so that's there that's been through the democratic process and we can I'm sure through the clock share that with you and that will reflect the way that we approach our technology and data as well. I was actually getting that through co-pilot so I use co-pilot to find a risk management framework just to see if you could do it and it did in answering that so I didn't because I was concentrating on that I can't remember the questions I'm really sorry. Can I come in there before because I want to add something to that because I was going to bring an information you're quite right Tim and how do we do that because let's be honest I'm of a generation I see myself as reasonably tech savvy but I remember computer training for me at school was 30 of us gathered around a little Sinclair computer where you inputted your line numbers and you typed it in and that was it and here we are some 40 odd years later looking at programs that write themselves and it's how this is presented to us as well moving forward as an OSC so that we can effectively analyze and scrutinize it because I think we have to realize the level that this is operating at and our understanding and how we bring something that we can effectively do our job so if you could bring that into the answer as well Craig if you can because I think that is the key of what's our role and how we effectively do that with our level of understanding of this. Thank you, that's the question thanks to the comments and if I pick the question first around you know what problems we're trying to solve I'm making a little bit of trouble because I've got a list of about 20 incorporate border yet to see them but I'll share I'll share where we are with with those 20 and I've almost given sort of summary of possibly the first one we investigated when I was told to cancel a vote and there is a no problem with the amount of time spent taking minutes of statutory meetings and those that we need to report record keep on file and make available should residents parents children want to see those in future and the long meetings some three hours long the minute taking has to be taken June that meeting by an individual refined afterwards checked look for clarifications one of the I think exciting opportunities here is to completely automate that process and reverse from a many individuals doing the work to a few individuals checking to make sure they're accurate with a record of what was there that's possible with technology we have with some refinements to some of the way we record the meetings we can turn what is an almost nine hour process we think down to about 10 to 15 minutes per meeting that's an example of how this AI is going to help us we're not the city saying that's going to work we're not the city to present that yet we're in a really fine process of discovery why I have a number of individuals business analysts IT data analysts working with the services to investigate and come back with an update on whether that is effective recognizing what members said about the transcription of teams it's it's not that it's a very different approach another example is how we could consider how we process invoices whether we've got artificial intelligence that could make that far easier the minute that goes through many different human interactions of one officer to another for checking or inputting to moving on there's two examples I could give you many more where if you like what I think AI will help us with first is shortening the process of production but also the handoffs moving information from one place to another what that means and the role of this committee in that I'd be delighted to bring back the digit on data roadmap which is where most of this AI work is landed and I'm taking a report a corporate board open the next four to six weeks which summarizes the discovery of the AI what we think will work and what I would consider success in that area and I think we'll be probably I'll check with Rob and Chair afterwards but we could certainly bring that for your questioning for your probing of what's work what hasn't where we think we move on next I think that'll be a really useful way because what I don't have by design I've got some I've got really good ideas for next six months I've got some ideas for the next 18 months and I'm thinking about you know 24 months and beyond as that pipeline develops we'll start to be able to show you that work that didn't that's what we're moving on to that's some of the learning that's our risk profile and the final thing I'll say just to go back one of your previous questions comes that I should have said and the risk element of this has recently been up to the corporate risk register as well so we're recognizing AI reasons and the questions raised about ethics and moral morality and how all residents would want us to use it so that risk is visible across the organization hence why when I get side of it people are informed as the type of risks we're looking at thank you Rob just just two builds on that I think in terms of the problem we're trying to solve one of the big challenges we have at the moment with our current demand pressures is that when when demand rockets say in social care the demand for the support staff who do the things that Craig described goes up proportionally and what this technology might give us is a very significant mitigation against growing demand doesn't completely remove it but you know automation of these these types of activity is pretty much demand-proof going forward so I think that's that's a point worth making the the second thing we will fold some of this thinking we're trying not to pin ourselves down completely now because it's such a rapidly moving field but the data and digital strategies are due for a refresh next year and there will be an opportunity perhaps to test how we fold AI into that when we when we're developing that coming through and we are committed in the Council delivery plan to a data ethics framework which again might be something that's worth testing with with the committee on the way through the event to make sure it sort of aligns with your expectations and any concerns as well and builds on this conversation so those are just a couple of thoughts thank you Rob I mean one thing's for certain as we've said already it's it's happening it's happening whatever works your county council chooses to do or not do this is happening so we either embrace it or automatically get left behind but I think we have to carefully consider this committee's role in scrutiny of this so thank you very much for your time on this obviously it's going to be something we want to look at again so Greg you'll be back right we move on to item six on the agenda the work program any comments on that is everybody happy where we are with that yeah okay and the final item on the agenda is item seven any urgent matters not have been notified to me this is the last meeting of the municipal year of this panel so can I thank all of you councillors for your efforts particularly the vice chair and the and Sarah Sarah and Will spoke for the really constructive way we've engaged through the year I do appreciate it to the officers that have supported us to our portfolio holders to bend the fire chief it's very much appreciated and to Andrew here who helps me look half competent by his massive amount of input that he puts into support me oh it's much appreciated so thank you very much for your efforts during the year and I'll draw the meeting to a close thank you [BLANK_AUDIO]