Agenda item

(To receive a report from Ian Reed, Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Manager, which provides an overview of the Grenfell Tower fire and informs the Committee of lessons learnt and any potential implications for Lincolnshire County Council to consider following the Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Service visit to the site on 20 July 2017 hosted by Ealing Borough Council)

A report was considered which provided an overview of the Grenfell Tower fire and informed the Committee of lessons learnt and any potential implications for the Council to consider following the Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Service visit to the Grenfell Tower site on 21 July 2017, which was hosted by Ealing Borough Council.

A list of recommendations for Lincolnshire, which had been developed by the Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Service, as a result of the lessons learnt, were included in the report.  Officers went through each one and the following points were noted:

·         Although local authority representatives were at the Grenfell Tower (GT) incident, they were not identifiable as they did not have reflective jackets.  As a result Lincolnshire County Council had purchased a number of hi-viz jackets with the LCC logo printed on them.  These would be made available to Councillors too.  Any community groups present at an incident would also need to be wearing them;

·         The media had been on site at the Grenfell Tower incident before many of the agencies had arrived.  The media were conducting interviews with people before the situation could be managed by the appropriate agencies.  This had prompted media awareness training for Lincolnshire County councillors and officers, including the use of social media;

·         Donation centres needed to be situated away from the site of the incident.  In addition, an appropriate channel for receiving monetary donations needs to be in place.  Cash was donated during the Grenfell Tower indicent;

·         A volunteer reception site ought to be identified so that volunteer help can be appropriately managed.  Although well-meaning, many people at GT were trying to help without having been given specific instructions, which created chaos;

·         At GT, the Humanitarian Assistance Centre was a local sports centre, which was in viewing distance of the tower.  Using hotels would actually be more cost effective.  Using rented office space was more useful for accommodation than a sports centre;

·         Welfare support for volunteers would be needed in order to provide respite for people untrained for the situation;

·         Derbyshire County Council had established a counselling support team to help in a humanitarian crisis, should it be needed.  There were plans to develop a partnership with them to help should the need arise;

·         The Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Service would review the aide memoire for Lincolnshire elected member reflecting new LGA guidance and lessons learnt at GT.  Officers would ensure all Councillors received one;

·         Training for Members would be developed, and the content would be based on what Members felt would be most useful.  Interview training for media questioning would be included.  This would also be included in the induction sessions for newly elected members;

In response to questions from the Committee, the following was confirmed:

·         Emergency Planning at Lincolnshire used interoperability sets, as airway radios were expensive to buy and not cost effective;

·         Ealing Borough Council did not have a spontaneous volunteers policy in place at the time of GT.  Co-ordinating ad-hoc volunteers took away valuable officer time from dealing with the actual incident.  As such, the media had opportunity to criticise the poor management of the situation;

·         If a multi-agency response was required for a serious incident in Lincolnshire, the local Member would be informed as a matter of course.  A multi-agency response to a minor incident, would not trigger the same response;

·         There was a five stage training programme for areas in Lincolnshire at risk of flooding.  It was suggested that this be cascaded down to parish councils in the target areas.  The Emergency Planning section would contact parish councils in order to do this.  It was suggested that any  training be organised for clusters of parish councils, rather than individually.

RESOLVED

          That the report, its contents and comments made be noted.