The Cabinet Member considered a report regarding the Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue, industrial action contingency arrangements. In this regard during preparations for industrial action in 2022/23, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue services worked together to maximise the effectiveness of the limited resilience arrangements available.
Whilst the risk of industrial action remained significant but stable, there was now an opportunity to explore seeking assistance from a 3rd party resilience arrangement. As a result, it was identified that all three services wished to benefit from lessons identified during previous preparations and saw this as a strong commercial opportunity for the three services to tender for a provider.
As part of the Thames Valley alignment approach, Oxfordshire had been offered the chance to enter into an “IA contingency arrangements project” currently being run by Royal Berkshire, with Buckinghamshire already as a partner.
The tender process itself had been agreed by the OCC Commercial Board. However, as a partner Oxfordshire needed to agree to the funding for an agreed level of IA cover required which included the need to identify the financial resources to secure the services of 20 firefighters to provide a minimum fire cover level of 4 fire appliances across the county in the event of strike action or event triggers as listed in the project implementation document. In order to enter into a competitive tender process, additional funding was currently being estimated at £150,000 per year for a 4-year contract.
RESOLVED to:
a) approve the financial allocation to progress with the joint-tender process which needs authorisation (due to cost) before the award process can be concluded and, the Contract signed in January 2025.
b) delegate authority to finalise the terms and condition to the Chief Fire Officer and Director of Community Safety in consultation with the Head of Legal and Deputy Monitoring Officer and Head of Procurement.