13 February 2012

Members are reminded that they should declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests at this point and that they should leave the meeting room before any item, in which they have a prejudicial interest, is discussed.

Members are asked to receive any questions, statements or petitions, of which notice has been received, from members of the public.

Members are asked to receive the non-exempt minutes of the Strategy and Resources Committee meeting, held on 19 January 2012, attached marked 6, and consider, and decide upon, the recommendations at items 5, 8 and 10. The reports relating to those items are attached, marked 6a, 6b and 6c respectively. The recommendations at item 9 of the Committee minutes will be considered as part of item 11 on the agenda for this meeting.

Please note that the appendix to paper 6c (Capital Programmes 2012/13 to 2016/17 and Prudential Guidelines) is an exempt document. It will, therefore, be necessary to move into closed session at this point to consider the recommendation relating to this appendix.

Attachment	Size
06-strategy-and-resources-minutes-19-january-2012.pdf	46.98 KB
06a-financial-performance-to-december-2011.pdf	32.7 KB
06b-adequacy-of-provisions-and-reserves-and-robustness-of-budget.pdf	38.48 KB
06c-capital-programmes-2012-13-to-2016-17-and-prudential-guidelines.pdf	51.52 KB

Members are asked to receive and agree the paper Capital Programmes 2012/13 to 2016/17 and Prudential Guidelines (the appendix to paper 6c), attached marked 8.

Members are asked to receive and note the exempt minutes of the Strategy and Resources Committee meeting, held on 19 January 2012, attached marked 10.

This report, attached marked 12, seeks Fire Authority approval to a budget for 2012/13; Council Tax levels for 2012/13; and precepts on billing authorities and related matters.

Attachment	Size
12-revenue-budget-2012-13-precept.pdf	89 KB

The Fire and Rescue National Framework sets out the Coalition Government's expectations for fire and rescue authorities in England. This report, attached marked 14, summarises the Framework and sets out a proposed response on behalf of the Fire Authority to the current consultation exercise.

Attachment	Size
14-draft-response-to fire-and-rescue-service-nat-framework-consultation.pdf	50.24 KB

This report, attached marked 16, presents proposed increases in charges made for special services.

Attachment	Size
16-annual-review-of-charges-special-services-2012-13.pdf	139.92 KB

The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting on a proposed policy statement for Part 2 of the Localism Act 2011. This report, attached marked 18, provides an executive summary of the statement and sets out the proposed response to the consultation for consideration by the Fire Authority.

Attachment	Size
18-consultation-on-proposed-policy-statement-for-part-2-of-localism-act-2011.pdf	65.04 KB

Members are asked to note that the recently installed Local Area Network (LAN) and Shropshire Council provided Wide Area Network (WAN) are now fully operational with real-time fallback and disaster recovery arrangements in place at Telford Central. Remedial work on the consolidation of servers for optimisation of performance and enhanced security continues, thus enabling a more reliable and supportable network.

Developments are now underway to performance test and install new station end equipment, which will be integrated to the new WAN, with the WAN acting as the primary mobilising bearer for the recently deployed command and control system (completion expected end of March 2012).

Alternative solutions are being evaluated to secure a resilient secondary fallback bearer. A hardware refresh of the wireless network infrastructure is scheduled to improve the consistency, reliability and speed of information updates to the mobile data terminals on fire appliances.

An announcement on the grant allocation to support Fire Control arrangements post cancellation of the national FiReControl Project is now expected mid-late February 2012. The Government is reviewing 25 bids, 11 from consortia of two or more Fire and Rescue Authorities (of which Hereford and Worcester and this Fire Authority represent one bid) and 14 from single Fire Authorities.