Appendix 2

Confirmation Hearings Committee – 9 June 2016

Transcript of Agenda Item 6 – Confirmation Hearing in Respect of the Appointment to the Office of Chair of the Fire and Emergency Planning Authority

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): We now move on to our main business of the day, the actual Confirmation Hearings, and can I first of all welcome Assembly Member Fiona Twycross to the meeting? At this Confirmation Hearings Committee, we will be putting questions to you in relation to the proposed appointment of yourself to the office of Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA). Can I, before moving to the question and answer session, ask the Committee to formally note the background information circulated with the agenda for the meeting?

All: Noted.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): There is some information that was received after publication of the agenda and this has been circulated to Members separately. OK, we now move to questions. I am going to start off, if that is all right with Members.

Assembly Member Twycross, could you tell us why you think that you are qualified and capable of becoming the Chair of LFEPA?

Fiona Twycross AM: Thank you, Chair. I think I have the experience for the role. I have been on the Fire Authority for the past four years, three of which I have been Vice-Chair and leader of the Labour Group on the Authority. I also have management experience, including strategic management experience, from before I was elected to the . I have a good understanding of how the Fire Service operates, as well as taking an active role in meetings at the Authority. I have spent a lot of time talking to firefighters and officers of the Fire Brigade about their work, going to stations, looking at the control centre, going out on the riverboat and talking to people about the nitty-gritty of what the job involves. I am able to work collaboratively and I want to work with all groups on the Authority to ensure that when we meet the challenges of the coming year, as we look at the Mayor’s review of fire, we look at the London Safety Plan 6 (LSP6) as an Authority, we take a joint approach to commissioning recruitment, as we have done in the past with senior appointments in the Fire Brigade. I feel that I do have the experience to make sure that I can be Chair and lead the Authority and make sure that all Members take an active part in these last nine months of the Authority.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Thank you for that.

Joanne McCartney AM: Over the last few years there have been a few confrontations and Directions issued by the Mayor. How would you seek to operate on a cross-party consensus?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think one of the main points of tension we have had over the past few years is that it has been a hung Authority, where the majority of the members were not of the party of the Mayor and so we have had that direct conflict between it. I think we recognise - and I think all parties recognise - that that was quite a negative way of operating and that is why we came up with the cross-party consensus on moving to the new governance arrangements. I would like to adopt the approach that we take here at the

London Assembly, where we are much more able to work on a cross-party basis. It would be quite easy for us to come in as a Labour Group - we have a pretty good majority on the Fire Authority now - and sort of ride roughshod over the other groups, but actually I want to use the experience of other Members. They will still be Members of the Authority, they still have the duties, as members of the Authority, to carry out. We have pretty major projects that we are looking at, particularly around the LSP6 and around the Commissioner [London Fire Commissioner] recruitment. I alluded to the fact that we had had cross-party consensus on quite a lot of those things in the past and obviously somebody like Gareth [Bacon AM] has professional experience of recruitment, and we would want to use his experience in that. [Councillor] Oonagh [Moulton], one of the members of the Conservative Group, has taken an active role in the Equalities Working Group, so I want to build on those points of where we have had consensus to try to build consensus over some of the big issues over the coming nine months or so.

Gareth Bacon AM: You touched on some of them, but you might like to explore in more detail what you see as some of the key issues that will be facing you as the final Chair of the London Fire Authority over the next year or so. Would you like to elaborate on some of those?

Fiona Twycross AM: LSP6 is probably the biggest piece of work we will be completing over the year, so looking at where we are now - particularly following any outcome of the Mayor’s review - looking at how we can collaborate more closely with other blue light services, building on the work we have already done, looking at the outcome of the pilot over co-responding, which I think will form part of LSP6, and I think we will also be looking at how we can develop community health more widely as part of the community safety that firefighters already undertake. I know there is a piece of work going on at the Fire Brigade at the moment, so I think that is one of the biggest pieces of work that we do. We have obviously got the recruitment of the Commissioner and the transition to the new governance arrangements, and I do have experience of governance changes before in a different context. When I was Head of Governance at Diabetes UK, I led both the process of a governance review and then oversaw the implementation, so I feel I am quite well-placed with colleagues on the Authority to lead that transition.

Gareth Bacon AM: On LSP6 - unsurprisingly, I agree with you, I think that is going to be the biggest strategic thing that is going to be facing you, certainly over the next 12 months - what do you see as the essential components of LSP6 and is there anything that you will rule out at this stage?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think the essential component has to be keeping Londoners safe. We need to look at what the core purpose of the Fire Brigade is at the heart of the next London Safety Plan, so how we respond to and how we prevent fire, but the Fire Brigade has a wider responsibility around resilience. We are seeing an increasing responsibility towards flooding, for example. There were the major floods in South London previously. We have obviously got to play our part in preparing for major terrorist attacks in London. All these elements, we need to look at what the risks are, who is most at risk and where the resources may need to be.

Gareth Bacon AM: Yes, I would not disagree with any of that. There are certain component parts of that, such as things like alternate crewing and things like that, which is something that has been kicked around often, as you are well aware. What is your view on things like that? That is one of the things that was talked about, certainly when we had the debate over the 13 appliances, that was put forward as an alternative to that, and the response at the time was that actually that is something that should be considered under LSP6. I think everybody agrees that that is something that should be considered under LSP6. Do you have a view now as to whether or not alternate crewing is a good way forward, and if so, in what shape, and would it be across the Brigade or would it be in certain areas?

Fiona Twycross AM: We felt very strongly that alternate crewing was a good alternative to the cuts to the 13 appliances. I think we should look at whether it is part of the picture for the Brigade going forward. Obviously the Commissioner [Ron Dobson CBE QFSM, London Fire Commissioner] had different views about which vehicles might be most appropriate to be alternately crewed, and so we would need to work with him and with other members of staff to look at where alternative crewing is most effective, where it should be, because clearly we also have the situation that the fire and rescue units, which we were recommending to be alternate-crewed, the Commissioner suggested should be where the response for terrorist incidents was. I think we need to make decisions about that before we decide exactly where we would want to put alternate crewing, but as an alternative to cutting the front line, I think the review and the consultation process demonstrated that that was more popular with the public and with firefighters than with staff, and I think that we do need to take into account people’s concerns over further cuts to front-line appliances.

Gareth Bacon AM: What is your approach going to be to industrial relations?

Fiona Twycross AM: With industrial relations, we had this discussion at the Fire Authority previously, that there has been an awful lot of strain within the industrial relations at the Brigade. Both the Fire Brigades Union, which is obviously the largest representative body at the Fire Brigade, and senior officers seem to feel that there have been considerable improvements over the past few months in industrial relations, and I am hoping they can build on this and actually get this to a place where there is an ongoing dialogue. I think it is really important that we recognise that the unions are the voice of the people who are keeping us safe in the Fire Brigade and make sure that we have a healthy dialogue with them.

Joanne McCartney AM: Something for you there, Gareth [Bacon AM], I think.

Gareth Bacon AM: No, actually, I was tempted to ask what you put that down to, the improvement in industrial relations.

Fiona Twycross AM: I think we both have a reasonable idea of what that is about.

Gareth Bacon AM: I think we do and it would be a mischievous question, actually, and it was not much to do with me. Anyway, what --

Fiona Twycross AM: I think we can give you some credit.

Gareth Bacon AM: That is very kind of you, Fiona [Twycross AM]. What sort of relationship do you believe that you ought to have with senior officers in the Brigade?

Fiona Twycross AM: It should be a supportive relationship. We should be respectful and friendly and I like to think I have a very good relationship with senior officers at the Brigade.

Gareth Bacon AM: One of the things that came out as a result of LSP5 (London Safety Plan 5) was station disposals, ten stations, most of which have now been disposed of, and the others are at an advanced stage of disposal, but what that has given the Brigade is quite a large pool of capital receipts. Not all of them are obviously in the bank yet, but they are en route. Do you have any thoughts about what that money could or should be spent on?

Fiona Twycross AM: With the capital receipts, we cannot just treat them as a pool of cash that we need to spend rapidly, but, like me, you have obviously been around quite a lot of the stations and there are an awful

lot of stations that really are not fit for purpose. Particularly, when we are driving forward equalities within the Brigade, there are a reasonable number of stations where actually the accommodation for female firefighters just is not really up to scratch. If we are going to really push that agenda forward, then the first step needs to be to make sure that the fire stations are fit for purpose, that we cannot have fire stations where there is some sort of informal view that you cannot really have female firefighters there. That is really not acceptable in the 21st century.

Then I know we have talked about having the new training centre in the south of London. I would have liked us to be able to use the money towards purchasing the headquarters but, as you are aware and other people will be aware, unfortunately it had just been sold at the point at which we started seriously exploring that. It is a considerable amount of money and we need to invest it to make sure that we look after our stations so that we have really good working conditions for our firefighters. In some cases, we might need to look at which stations still need to be replaced, as we have had quite a few replaced over the last few years, obviously.

Gareth Bacon AM: Yes. The ones that you are referring to, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) fire stations, the nine, all of those were replaced on the same footprint as the fire station that was demolished and rebuilt. One of the things that has been floated though is that much of the fire estate was originally conceived and built when fire trucks were pulled by horses, and they are now strategically in slightly disadvantageous positions. One of the solutions that has been suggested as a theory is that some of those stations could be demolished and replaced by other stations that might be slightly larger and better suited and tick all the boxes that you have just talked about. What would your thought process be about that? Would that be something you would support?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think we need to look at everything on a case-by-case basis. I do not think we should have a blanket approach to saying, “In no circumstances will we do this” or, “In all circumstances we would do that”. One of the things that we have seen in the past though is that there are very few fire stations which have mixed use, so we have more co-location of emergency services, but, for example, the Millwall Station has accommodation above it. We have just built loads of new fire stations. Because we have been a single-purpose authority, we have not actually looked at how many of those could also have accommodation/housing associated with it in the same way. Going forward, it would be good to look at what we could use the space for, because actually there is quite a lot of ground at some of the stations that could be used either for residential accommodation or for light manufacturing. We all know there is pressure on office space, so we need to look at it in the whole. Actually, that is not necessarily something we are legally able to do in the next nine months, but we can set the seeds for doing that when the Fire Authority is abolished and it comes in-house.

Gareth Bacon AM: The Commissioner’s contract, term of office, is due to end at the end of this calendar year. LSP6 is about to start really motoring now. Arguably, we are even possibly behind schedule with LSP6 for reasons of the election and things, nobody’s fault, but there we are. Does the Commissioner’s departure during such a key strategic time for the Fire Brigade cause you any concern?

Fiona Twycross AM: The Commissioner has very kindly stayed on quite a few times past his retirement date. I think the last time we renewed his contract was a year ago for a further year and I think obviously we do need to think about all the strategic things and have that conversation, but there is a point at which we will need to make a new Commissioner’s appointment. If it looks like it should be slightly later and coincide with the governance changes, then that is something I think we should consider, but we need to look at what the timeframe for the recruitment will be, who the new Commissioner will be and take it as that. He has been very

decent in terms of extending his period of office, and I understand might be prepared to do that again, but I think there is a point at which we do need to make progress with the Commissioner recruitment.

There are other arguments in terms of strategic planning, for example, because if the Commissioner were to leave at the end of March 2017, then he would be handing over a completed plan to a new Commissioner who had not had a say in it, so there are arguments the other way, that somebody coming in would still be able to influence it. You can make the arguments either way, but I think we all owe the Commissioner a debt for staying on when asked to.

Gareth Bacon AM: I completely agree with that. It is not an advantageous position to anybody, because actually you are looking at a new Mayor, a new Chair, LSP6, new governance arrangements in May 2017 and potentially a new Commissioner all at the same time. It is not an easy time, is it? Do you have a personal preference as to what you would like to do, Commissioner going sooner rather than later or hanging on for longer?

Fiona Twycross AM: I have not really considered that at the moment.

Gareth Bacon AM: I do not entirely blame you, actually. I was not putting that in there to trip you up. Do you think you have enough time to do this job, Fiona?

Fiona Twycross AM: I do think I have enough time to do the job. Actually, I considered all the pressures on my time and I have stepped down as Chair of Governors at the school - I have been Chair of Governors for the last four years - which is a bit of a wrench because it is one of the most rewarding things I do, but I decided that I needed to make sure I could focus on this because I cannot imagine there being a greater variety of things that we would need to look at in a year on LFEPA in any other Authority year, so I felt it was important to make sure I freed up some time.

Gareth Bacon AM: Obviously it is not officially a done deal, but it would be a reasonable assumption to make that the new - very first - Deputy Mayor for Fire that London has ever had would be the person who is going to be appointed as Chair of the Fire Authority in the final year. There is a key question around accountability and scrutiny that will follow, because there will no longer be a Fire Authority, there will have to be a scrutiny committee here. Do you have a view as to what sort of governance arrangements there would be? Would there be a forward plan, for example? What sort of powers would you see the scrutiny committee having and what would you do to work with the Assembly to make that happen?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think that is one of the things that we will need to discuss when we are talking about the transitional governance arrangements both here and at the Fire Authority, but one of the advantages of the Fire Authority - and it is one of the reasons that we did not opt for going for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) model from the Labour Group perspective - was transparency. Obviously the Fire Authority, because of the public nature of the meetings, because of the public nature of the papers, is relatively transparent in terms of the decision-making process. I think that that is one of the things that you risk losing when you move to a more internal structure. We would need to make sure that we had structures here that had the authority to call both the Deputy Mayor [for Fire] and Commissioner before them, but also felt that they had the access to data and information and actually saw sight of some of the strategies and plans at a relatively early stage, because in the absence of an Authority, the scrutiny and challenge will need to take place here.

I know we have had a discussion between groups about the extent to which the Fire Authority should be undertaking scrutiny, but actually one of the key roles Authority members have is to put appropriate challenge towards officers. If it is just one person doing that on a general basis, then that is not necessarily as robust as it might be. I would want there to be a dedicated Committee here that felt it had the authority to do what I feel that the Police and Crime Committee has got to now, but actually after a little bit of a bumpy period, where there was some considerable resistance to some of that access.

Gareth Bacon AM: There is a key difference. I agree with your analysis of comparing what we did not want, which was a MOPAC model, and what is likely to happen, and the key difference of course is that MOPAC’s job is to hold the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to account.

Fiona Twycross AM: Yes.

Gareth Bacon AM: The Deputy Mayor for Fire’s job will be an executive role, so it is not to hold the Fire Brigade to account. The scrutiny committee here will be holding the Deputy Mayor for Fire to account --

Fiona Twycross AM: Yes, I appreciate that.

Gareth Bacon AM: -- which is the key difference. The most apt comparison that I can come up with in my head as to the transition will be when local authorities moved away from committee systems to a cabinet system and they ended up having forward plans or decisions which would be announced in advance when they would be taken. There were call-in procedures in most councils, so councils have the opportunity to call in a cabinet member’s decision and there will be a meeting to discuss it and they can send it back to the cabinet member to reconsider, which the cabinet member may or may not do. Are those the kind of things that you think that Scrutiny here should do, or not?

Fiona Twycross AM: That is a more general question about what the powers of the Assembly are more generally, because obviously we do not have the power to summons people full-stop. Generally, I have supported that, but that is not something that we have been given by Government. I think in the absence of that power of the Assembly to summons a deputy mayor, there needs to be an understanding within this building that there is an expectation that the Deputy Mayor for Fire will engage with the Assembly at an early stage, that people’s views and concerns will be taken into account and that your responsibility in that case as an Assembly Member would still remain, that you would be there to hold that person to account, whomever that might be.

Caroline Russell AM: Most of the questions that I had been thinking about have already been answered by other Members, but I just wondered if you could say a bit more about the work you did on the major governance review at Diabetes UK, and in particular you talk about an extensive consultation with key stakeholders. I just wonder if you could just expand on that a bit more in terms of how you see that consultation process working in this situation.

Fiona Twycross AM: At Diabetes UK, we had a situation in which there was a voting membership that voted for the people who voted for the board of the trustees. We wanted to improve the governance of the charity, which involved trying to reach out to get highly-qualified trustees on the board. The system did not work in that sense and it cost £100,000, and this was basically money that people had been raising through whatever means, quite often by shaking cans outside supermarkets. We had a tiny percentage of the membership who were eligible to vote who did vote, who were then choosing people who were then choosing a board that lacked diversity, that lacked a range of skills that we needed to run what was and is a growing national charity.

I was asked to look at both how we could improve the quality of the Board of Trustees and how we could improve the whole system.

We undertook a consultation which involved pretty much everybody who was affected by the decision. I think that when I talk about consultation in the context of the Fire Authority, I can learn from that, but obviously it is not directly the same groups of people, but then it would be the people who work for the organisation, it would be other people that we consider as major stakeholders, so people in this Assembly, potentially other politicians across London at whatever level they are, community groups and different groups that might have a say in that. When you are looking at how you work on the governance arrangements, ultimately that is a decision for the Assembly how it scrutinises things, but I would assume that the process of the transition of the governance would make sure that all the people who currently get consulted by the Fire Authority still feel that they would still get consulted afterwards.

Caroline Russell AM: Thank you.

Dr AM: Assembly Member Twycross, one of the things the Mayor wanted to do is lead on the review of the resources for the Fire Service. How do you think this review should be undertaken, who would undertake this review, and how will this feed into the new LSP6?

Fiona Twycross AM: We are currently looking for somebody with sufficient expertise and time to lead on chairing the review - it will be announced in the next week or so, I understand - and it would be expected to link into both the Harris Review and the London Safety Plan, to make sure that the timings match up, because there is no point us having commissioned a review, but then reports after the Fire Authority starts considering LSP6, but I think the essence is that it should be done relatively quickly but take enough time to look at the issue properly. Sorry, what was the other part of your question?

Dr Onkar Sahota AM: How will it fit into the LSP6?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think we would need to consider it as part of the process, and depending on the recommendations that come out of the review, some decisions might have to be taken before LSP6 gets signed off, which is due to take place in March next year.

Dr Onkar Sahota AM: Thank you.

Gareth Bacon AM: What background is this person ideally going to have to have the sufficient expertise that you just referred to?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think they should have a sufficient background in looking analytically at issues and an understanding of the pressures on emergency services.

Gareth Bacon AM: Therefore, it may or may not be somebody who understands the Fire Service?

Fiona Twycross AM: I would expect it to be somebody who understands the Fire Service.

Gareth Bacon AM: Therefore, Fire Service background?

Fiona Twycross AM: I assume so, but ultimately that is not going to be my decision. We will wait and see, basically.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): In response to Assembly Member Bacon, you said that you would treat all innovations on a case-by-case basis. There are going to be pressures from within the Fire Service to make global statements about, for example, will you guarantee that every single vehicle will still be there at the end of your tenure of office? Will you ensure that every single fire station will still be there at the end of your tenure? How will you approach those demands upon you?

Fiona Twycross AM: I think I will approach them in the same way that I have approached making statements of that sort during the recent election campaign, which is when I have spoken to firefighters who have asked me what the resourcing will be I have said that we cannot guarantee, with the current Government, that there will not be further cuts to public services and that I will not make promises that I cannot guarantee to be able to keep. The main importance when we are approaching drawing up strategies and plans for the Fire Service is remembering that it is there to protect people, and I think that [] has made it very clear that there is not a price tag attached to it, but the Fire Brigade will be resourced up to the level that it needs. We need to start from the point of what does the Fire Brigade need, rather than under the previous Mayor - with respect to Conservative colleagues - saying, “You have to make this and this many cuts” and almost at some point getting slight gung-ho about making cuts and getting into confrontations with people.

Gareth Bacon AM: Is that what you genuinely believe happened?

Fiona Twycross AM: That is what I genuinely believe happened.

Gareth Bacon AM: Have you spoken to senior fire officers about that?

Fiona Twycross AM: In what sense? Do I believe Boris Johnson [MP, former Mayor of London, Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip] got gung-ho about making fire cuts and having the row with the firefighters in the audience? Yes, I think he did get gung-ho over it. He found it very difficult to step back from decisions he had made when cornered, even when presented with other alternative options. Do I believe that senior officers also signed up to the cuts? Yes, I probably do, but I do believe that Boris Johnson got very gung-ho and got very cut-happy and actively sought out confrontation with the unions at times.

Gareth Bacon AM: Do you think that the Commissioner would agree with that if he was sitting here today?

Fiona Twycross AM: I have no idea. I will ask him when I next see him.

Gareth Bacon AM: That was a very good answer.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Thank you. I am very encouraged by what you say, that you will not be making any promises you cannot keep. I hope you --

Fiona Twycross AM: I have not. When I have been going around fire stations, I have been very honest about the fact that there is not a golden ticket, but I think everybody has been reassured by what the Mayor said about making sure we do it from a needs basis.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): I am delighted you have said that. Making promises you cannot keep is advice you probably want to give to your boss. Anyway, have Members completed the questions? Thank you very much, Assembly Member Twycross, for coming to talk to us and being so frank about the work that you will be doing.

Fiona Twycross AM: Thank you.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): “You may be doing”, I think it is that I should have said. “You may be doing.”

Fiona Twycross AM: Thanks.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): The Committee is now asked to make a decision on its recommendations to the Mayor as to whether or not Fiona Twycross AM should be appointed to the office of Chair of LFEPA. Can I have an indication whether or not the Committee is content with that?

Joanne McCartney AM: Yes, I would certainly happily recommend her, unreservedly. I think, looking at the criteria we have to assess, she is quite clearly qualified and experienced for that position, has the time and capacity and is a fit and impartial person. Just from her interview today, in effect, I thought she quite clearly understood the key challenges that are facing the Brigade. She gave detailed answers to Gareth’s [Gareth Bacon AM] very detailed questions and I thought she quite clearly demonstrated a way forward through transition and demonstrated her wish to have very good cross-party working.

Gareth Bacon AM: Yes, Chairman, I have no objection to the appointment at all. I think she performed well today. She has been on the Authority for a number of years; she has acted as Vice-Chair for three years. She does have the requisite experience and understanding of the Fire Brigade. She is going to have some trouble, I think, as Chair, but I think any chair would have because there is a period of great upheaval.

Joanne McCartney AM: Not from you though.

Gareth Bacon AM: Naturally I would have just taken it all in my stride and it would have been no problem at all! It is going to be a period of great upheaval and change in the Fire Brigade in the next 18 months to two years and then the Deputy Mayor for Fire is going to have to ride the crest of the wave a bit, but there is nothing in her application that suggests that we should say no to it, so I agree with Assembly Member McCartney, we should authorise it.

Florence Eshalomi AM: Just to add on to that, I think it demonstrates her commitment to get to full grips with her new role - if we do confirm it today - the fact that she stood down from Lambeth Academy in my constituency, which is a school which I know she has worked very hard with over the last few years. There have been some challenging times in the school in which Fiona has led as Chair of Governors and I know that is a decision that took her quite a while to come to, but again it shows that she is ready to take up this new challenge.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): We have taken that proposal from Assembly Member McCartney.

Gareth Bacon AM: I will second that.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): There is seconding from Assembly Member Bacon that it be agreed to recommend it to the Mayor that we should proceed with this appointment of Fiona Twycross AM to the office of Chair of LFEPA. It does not look like we are in the mood to add any notes to that or advice to the Mayor, so I put that to the meeting. Everyone in favour?

All: Agreed.

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Is anybody against that resolution? Thank you, unanimous.