Efficiency

2024/25 Budget Information

The 2024/25 budget was approved by the Fire Authority on 23 February 2024 and is detailed in Table 1 below. More details can be found in the Budget Proposals for 2024/25 report.

Reserves

Expected levels of reserves as at 31 March 2024 are £9.5m are detailed in Table 2 below.

The General reserve is predicted to be £5.0m at the end of 2023/24, which is above the minimum level of £4.5m general fund reserve agreed for 2023/24 by the Fire Authority in December 2022. A £4.1m minimum level for the general fund for 2024/25 was agreed by the Fire Authority in December 2023.

Earmarked reserves are expected to be in the region of £4.6m by 31 March 2024. These reserves are earmarked for known projects or items of one-off expenditure. They include a budget pressure support reserve of £1.125m which was created to support the budget in 2023/24 and future years. The 2023/24 budget included a contribution of £404k from this reserve but it is now expected that this contribution will not be required due to underspends elsewhere in the budget. The £138k budget shortfall in 2024/25 will be funded from this reserve if required. Earmarked reserves are reviewed annually as part of the Reserves Strategy included in the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).

Efficiency Savings 2024/25

The budget for 2024/25 includes cashable savings of £219k that helped towards reducing the deficit. £37k were from pay budgets and £182k of savings were achieved from non-pay budgets. The total cashable saving represents a 2% non-pay efficiency saving. A further £171k of non-cashable savings were achieved through the use of procurement frameworks which has resulted in cost avoidance. More details can be found in Table 3 below.

Collaboration

Collaboration continues to be at the forefront of NFRS business; as an organisation we are continually seeking opportunities where these will deliver financial efficiencies or benefits to our community. We continue to collaborate with Nottinghamshire Police around our shared headquarters and shared sites, as well as operationally where the shared welfare unit and drone capability continue to deliver efficiencies.

Collaboration continues to be at the forefront of NFRS business; as an organisation we are continually seeking opportunities where these will deliver financial efficiencies or benefits to our community. We continue to collaborate with Nottinghamshire Police around our shared headquarters and shared sites, as well as operationally where the shared welfare unit and drone capability continue to deliver efficiencies.

Collaboration continues to be at the forefront of NFRS business; as an organisation we are continually seeking opportunities where these will deliver financial efficiencies or benefits to our community. We continue to collaborate with Nottinghamshire Police around our shared headquarters and shared sites, as well as operationally where the shared welfare unit and drone capability continue to deliver efficiencies.

In partnership with Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Councils, wholetime personnel deliver food parcels to vulnerable residents out of standard office hours to ensure a 7-day availability of the service. As part of the delivery crews will attempt to undertake a safe and well visit, which only a very small minority of residents have refused. The crews will record their time for this under the safe and well process, but it is an example of an efficient collaboration that delivers two outcomes for our community from one engagement.

Another initiative seeking to maximise our efficient use of resources is Safer Streets, where operational crews travel on designated routes when possible, with the aim of providing a visible and reassuring presence, and disrupting crime and antisocial behaviour. After proving successful in 23/24, this has been expanded to an additional station.

Section 3 within last year’s plan highlighted the other significant collaborations NFRS undertakes, namely;

• Joint Fire Control with Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service
• Joint Headquarters with Nottinghamshire Police
• Shared premises across multiple fire stations and locations

We also have a longer term strategic vision for closer working and integration with Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service; aligning our CRMP timelines and being cognisant of the potential collaborative opportunities that may arise following the Mayoral elections this year.

Return on Investment

NFRS has secured grant funding of £367k to support the Service’s plans to decarbonise the Estate. NFRS will provide £257k of matched funding from the capital programme which will be used to fund a project to replace end of life fossil fuel heating, inefficient and soon to be obsolescent lighting and the installation of additional photo voltaic panels to our Highfields Fire Station. The savings have yet to be quantified but will be reported in future efficiency and productivity plans.

The installation of an air source heat pump as a greener and more sustainable alternative to fossil fuel heating at Worksop Fire Station has enabled the removal of the gas supply from the site; this will save circa £19k/year on utility costs.

Charging Policies

NFRS has a chargeable special service calls policy, which provides the option to recover costs from a very specific set of fire service activities that sit outside our statutory responsibilities. The rates are reviewed annually by the Fire Authority and can be seen in Appendix 1.

Asset Management and Investment in Technology

NFRS adopts a risk based approach to equipment, PPE and appliance checks. These are conducted in line with the relevant procedures which outline the required timescales. The work is managed electronically through an asset management system which automatically logs all checks undertaken and the type of check completed for audit and review purposes. Assurance on the quality and frequency of these checks is undertaken through station audits and the internal audit process.

Appliance inventories are undertaken on a weekly basis, through the same electronic system and areas of concern are automatically highlighted to the engineering team.

This process has been in place for over a decade, with new scanners and station-based equipment being issued in the last three years to ensure functionality and improve the end user experience.

In line with the capital programme, 12 new fire appliances (a further 5 in 25/26), an incident command vehicle and a range of wildfire equipment have been purchased and will come into service in 24/25. In 24/25 an aerial ladder platform replacement programme will also commence. Forecasting savings on this programme is difficult but as modern vehicles manufactured to current legislation, these will offer improvements in fuel efficiency, sustainability of materials and longevity.

A continual programme of ICT equipment upgrade is part of this programme; replacing devices and infrastructure to deliver more efficient services and end user experience. This forms part of our systems redesign workstream within Futures 2025 and CRMP ambition for a digital first approach.

In 23/24 NFRS introduced a new unified rostering system for all operational personnel, replacing the previous separate systems that wholetime, on call and officers utilised.

Resourcing

This year we have reintroduced wholetime crewing at Ashfield Fire Station to more effectively address the identified community risks in this part of the County. In doing so we have redeployed firefighter posts into Prevention, Risk and Assurance and equality, diversity and inclusion workstreams to increase capacity in those areas.

NFRS has an annualised hours collective agreement with its wholetime personnel which provides flexibility to employees and staffing efficiencies to the Service. This method of crewing enables employees to work flexibly in line with their personal needs and across watches where required.

A process to utilise on call personnel to cover short term gaps in the wholetime operational ridership (short crewing) and the process to deploy them, has been designed and implemented in 2023/24. Where a short crewing shift is authorised, an on call firefighter will work at the required wholetime station. This saves the difference in cost of a plain time shift against an overtime shift, is an efficient way of utilising the previously unavailable personnel resources available to the Service and assists with the retention of on call personnel. In 23/24 this has avoided more than £10k of overtime costs and is fully embedded for 24/25.

Procurement

The procurement tendering procedures are set out within the NFRS Financial Regulations to ensure that best value is achieved. Value for money is achieved by undertaking active pre-market engagement to understand the market, technology, any collaboration opportunities, and procurement routes available. The procurement route which offers best value is selected which could be; obtaining quotations aligned to the financial regulations, tendering aligned to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 or the use of National, Sector lead or PBO frameworks.

Where frameworks are used, this could be via mini-competition or direct award. Frameworks can offer a more streamlined and efficient procurement process and deliver both Cashable and Non-cashable savings. Non-cashable savings are achieved through the efficiency in procurement and evaluation time. Not having to run a full tender can save months of procurement time allowing the procurement team to undertake other projects and potentially frees up staff members time through pre-completed evaluation.

NFRS use the National Collaborative PPE framework to procurement Fire Kit. This has allowed NFRS to benefit from economies of scale and obtain lower pricing when compared to running an individual tender, have pre-defined terms and conditions which would have cost circa £6,000 - £7,000 to have written by a legal representative and saved many days of evaluation by multiple operational staff as this was undertaken at a national level.

NFRS have also used the sector led Devon & Somerset framework to procure fire appliances, again ensuring an efficient route to market with pre-defined documentation allowing NFRS the flexibility to be specific to our requirements whilst using the documentation provided and saving the legal fees as identified above. NFRS use many frameworks including CCS and G Cloud ensuring efficient access to market and benefitting from preferential rates and use frameworks led by PBO’s such as; ESPO, YPO, KCS etc.

NFRS engage with the National procurement hub where possible and are currently supporting the Commercial and Technical Groups for the National Fire Fighting PPE project. By utilising tenders, framework mini competitions and direct awards we have realised the following savings:

• Open Tender for 11 fire station refurbishments – winning bid vs. median bid – Saving of - £1,133,943.70
• Open Tender for refurbishment of the Service Development Centre – winning bid vs. median bid – Saving of - £30,615.69.
• Open Tender for the NFRS Cashback Scheme – winning bid vs. median bid – Saving of - £14,284.08.
• E-procurement portal (In-Tend) - NFRS signed up to the National Blue light agreement savings a full year’s licence fee of - £2,500.
• Contract Management and the processing and return of faulty smoke alarms ensuring replacements are received avoided reprocuring smoke alarms to the value of £5,100.
• Open tender for Middle Managers development programme – winning bid/ Median Bid – Saving of - £6,391.00.

Estates

The Estates team seek to maximise efficiency across all areas of their work; avoiding costs wherever possible through the sharing of both resources and estate, the efficient reuse of resources wherever possible, reviewing contracts across all providers to ensure best value and strict oversight of projects to ensure works are completed within budget.

Examples include:

• Development of the building maintenance and service contract (MAC) terms and conditions has generated efficiency savings in the form of costs avoided in the delivery of estates minor works and projects with labour rates for these activities levied at a 20% reduction on MAC standard contract rates. This saving is estimated to be in the region of £34k in 2022/23 and £31k in 2023/24.
• Sharing our estate with blue light collaboration partners including the Police and EMAS at West Bridgford, East Leake and Eastwood Fire Stations and leasing space to other partner agencies including the City Council Emergency Planning Team, St John’s, the Scouts and a Telecoms operator at Highfields, London Road, Eastwood and Stapleford Fire Stations and also leasing an office building at Clifton to Notts Police has generated an income for the Service of approximately £150k. This sum includes rental and recovery of service charges – however, after allowing for reactive costs and taking into account the areas occupied by collaboration partners, the net benefit is approximately £135.5k per annum.
• Sharing our jet wash facilities across the NFRS estate with Notts Police has generated an income of £5k per annum.
• Savings have resulted from rate rebates and revaluations. Rebates have been received for Bestwood (£29k) and West Bridgford (£111k).
• The move of Stores to Highfields Fire Station has optimised underutilised space within the existing footprint of the station and has been achieved without uplift in planned and reactive maintenance costs or utilities. The Service has also saved money through the re-use of the existing stores racking from Bestwood. The cost of works to facilitate the move was £52k; the savings will be seen through release of the previous site as part of the sale of the old headquarters building.
• The innovative use of performance dashboards for the monitoring of utility consumption has identified charges of £75k that have been billed in error; subsequent challenge to the provider has seen this cost avoided.
• The reuse of the fuel tank from the old HQ site and its installation at Arnold Fire Station means operational crews do not have to fuel at public filling stations; efficiency savings have been achieved by avoiding the cost to procure a new tank and costs have also been avoided on labour. The crews will also achieve a time saving time on an ongoing basis by being able to undertake this activity on station.
• Reuse of furniture for various projects within the Estate has enabled the Service to avoid incurring cost for new furniture to fit out JHQ and other meeting and office facilities necessitated as a consequence of the closure of the old HQ site; the estimated saving from recycling of furniture is approximately £67k.
• Recycling assets into other stations where they still have useful life (e.g. air conditioning, diesel tank, drying cabinets, EV charger) has enabled the assets to be retained to their full life expectancy and has avoided costs of approximately £28k to procure new.
• The move into shared accommodation with Notts Police at JHQ has created an opportunity for the Estates Team to rationalise services and re-structure the team. This has facilitated an estimated saving of £9k with planned preventative maintenance delivered in house that was delivered by external contractors previously. It has also avoided costs of circa £25k with an increased capacity within the team to carry out additional reactive works and has created a saving on resource (one Site Supervisor + attendance allowance approx. £33.5k and one Site Supervisor attendance allowance £4.5k.

Departmental Reviews

In 23/24 a full review of the Prevention department has been completed, restructuring the department to support the Service’s ambition to be outstanding, reflect the changing needs of our communities and the demand for NFRS services in the Strategic Assessment of Risk. Whilst savings were not the rationale for this work, efficiencies have been identified that will enable the delivery of a more efficient service with fewer posts. These savings will be reported in future efficiency returns.

In 24/25 departmental reviews will be undertaken within People and Organisational Development and ICT to ensure these support the Service’s ambition to be outstanding and are correctly structured to most efficiently undertake their work.

Governance

A review of governance arrangements in 23/24 has identified meetings that do not require full minutes to be taken. Due to the time required to accurately transcribe minutes, removing this requirement has released significant capacity within the Service Support Hub, circa 500 hours per year; a significant non cashable saving.

Occupational Therapist

As part of the review of the Prevention Department, the seconded occupational therapist (OT) role has been substantiated within the team. Independent evaluation of the role undertaken by Nottingham Trent University demonstrated that for every £1 invested in the OT service a benefit of £7.16 was realised through reduced harm and costs to the wider public purse.