Radical Change to Boost Equality and Diversity in Fire Service

[johno67]

Having just read through the new measures announced by the Fire Minister regarding Equality and Diversity in the Fire Service, please see: http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/fire/811757 I am left asking myself the following question with regard to the recruitment strategy:

Is there a need for the educational fire safety role to be seperated from the intervention role?

I can fully appreciate that people from all parts of the community are needed to help educate the whole community. That those, for example, that are/have particular language skills, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs etc. will be in a much better position to gain access to and relate to those parts of the community, all of whom should expect to recieve equal access and treatment.

However, if the intervention side is taken in isolation, I can't help thinking that anyone would want the fittest, strongest, bravest, most highly motivated individuals with the best problem solving abilities to come and rescue them and their families should they ever find themselves in that awful situation.

As I see it at the moment, the fire service are trying to get the best of both worlds, using one individual to carry out both roles. Is each role suffering as a result? Are the best communicators necessarily the most suitable people to be carrying out the fire-fighting and rescue role, or are those athletic types the best people to communicate with the community. In a nutshell what I am asking is: is the overall standard being compromised as a result of trying to accomodate the 2 roles in the one person?

If I can take 2 individuals from the world of football:
How would Wayne Rooney get on if he also had the role of running the commercial side of a football club, and on the other side, how would Karen  Brady get on with having to play football for the team as well as running the commercial side. Both in there own spheres are brilliant. However if you want someone to combine the 2 roles, you would without doubt have to compromise.

If the roles were split, would this not bring in other large parts of the community who are currently excluded, for example those with both physical and mental disabilities, the young, the elderly etc?

I appreciate that this is a contenscious and emotive issue, but I would be interested to know what other people's thoughts are on this issue.

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

This is nothing to do with separating the roles, it's about recruiting members from under represented groups.

Delivering community fire safety is part of the fire fighters role map, services may use non operational people within community safety who have specific skills such as language, and there are many that do.

The CLG news page is about setting targets for numbers employed from under represented groups,and, while there are some good initiatives, there is a potential for positive discrimination, especially if specific campaigns and advertising is carried out.

Ultimately, those individuals that apply for a career in the F&RS do so of their own free will and because they want to.
Some Fire & rescue Services run positive action days which are information days for those who would not normally consider a career. If they attend, they get alot of information in many areas which assists them to make a more reasoned judgement to apply.

[johno67]

This is nothing to do with separating the roles, it's about recruiting members from under represented groups

I know, that was the question that I was asking. i.e. I'm asking if it's time to split the roles.

I think it is vital that all parts of the community are given access to information, and if they are being denied access to applying for the position by virtue of some unfair institutional barrier then that should be removed, ensuring equal opportunity for all.

Ideally those applying for a position as a fire-fighter should mirror the make up of the local community.

It is the next step that I wanted to get people's opinions on.

The CLG have set targets, not for getting percentages of particular groups to apply for the position, but actually for those percentages to be employed in the role of fire-fighter.

My question is:
Will this lead to a lowering of standards (i.e. being the best person for the position may not be enough to secure the job), and if it will, is this acceptable as a trade off to ensure that we have people in post who have the skills to gain access to and comunicate with particular groups within the community. Hence my original question regarding the roles of fire-fighter and communicator being split.

I am fully aware of the party line (so please don't quote it at me), I would like to investigate if there is a better way of addressing this challenge, than issuing quotas that Brigade's will do anything they can to meet.

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

There will be no dropping of satandards to get people through the application process as it's now a national process based on PQA's .. Personal Qualities and Attributes.

I can assure you there are no barriers to people applying, it's a job that is open to all, irrespective of race, colour, gender etc etc...

You should also be aware that alot of Fire and Rescue Services employ non operational community safety advisors with specific language skills or to assist the station personnel in certain areas, so in effect, the role has already been split.

If you are an employee of the Fire and Rescue Service, you will be aware of the role maps and the requirement to provide advice under the Fire and Rescue Services Act.

I have spoken to people at government level as part of a survey conducted some years ago. Basically, it's OK to put targets in, but how can they be met if people from the specific groups don't apply. We can't force them!

I would challenge you to find out as much as you can about the job of a fire fighter without calling the Fire and Rescue Service direct. Information is there and readily accesible, which somewhat dispels the argument for making information available to all!

[johno67]

Baldyman.

many thanks for the reply. I'm a bit disappointed that nobody else has contributed to this thread so far, as there does appear to be a lot of opinion about this within the fire service. Maybe it's because it's on the recruitment page which mainly attracts those about to embark on their F&RS careers.

Was your use of the word 'satandards' a freudian slip or merely a typo?

There are obviously still massive barriers to certain sections of the community applying to join the F&RS. This may not be in the form of someone refusing to give them an application form because of their surname or gender, but how comfortable do you think a gay man or a muslim woman would be about applying to join? I am sure a few would, but I'd wager the vast majority would not.

The need for a National Strategy has been highlighted by the findings of a new survey of firefighters. This showed that while most feel valued and have good working relationships, harassment, discrimination and even assaults are not uncommon in the workplace.

The survey reported on a number of issues including evidence of unacceptable behaviours: for example a third of respondents had experienced bullying or harassment in the previous 12 months and a quarter said they had been verbally abused. There was also evidence of discrimination by individuals against work colleagues on grounds of age; gender; sexuality and race.

Does that sound like the sort of organisation you would like to join?

Positive discrimination (as mentioned in your first post) is illegal. However, there are certain circumstances where it can be justified, for example where a black actor is needed for a film or television programme.

Positive action is probably what you meant. This is where an employer provides support or encouragement to a particular group. It is only allowed where a specific group is badly under-represented among those doing particular work or filling particular posts in an employer's workforce.

The employer is allowed to provide special training to members of the group. They can also encourage members of the group to apply to do the work or fill the posts (for example, by saying that applications from them will be particularly welcome).

This does not mean that employers can discriminate in favour of the members of the group when it comes to choosing people to do the work or fill the posts, that is unlawful discrimination.

I am aware that some F&RS' have language specialists, but these are incredibly small in number, probably less than half a percent of the workforce even in the most diverse Brigades.

I have been an employee of the F&RS for over 20 years, I am aware of the role maps and also aware of our responsiblities to provide fire safety advice under sections 6 (1) & (2) of the F&RS Act 2004.

With reference to the targets set by CLG I would like to return to the article I provided a link for in my first post:

All 46 local fire and rescue services will now have a target to ensure that at least 15 per cent of new firefighting recruits are women and that the number of minority ethnic recruits overall reflects the local working population by 2013. London for example will aim to achieve 29 per cent, with West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester 21.2 per cent, 11.5 per cent and 9.2 per cent respectively.

Each service will set out an annual action plan with practical steps to improve recruitment. And services that lag behind will not normally be able to achieve an 'improving strongly' performance rating.

A new National Strategy also published today requires each fire chief to take action that leads to real progress, contributing details of what they have achieved to an annual report, published by the Government. As well as showing progress against the targets, the report will detail how Fire and Rescue Services are improving their employment practices and service delivery.

This means in London for example, of every 100 new fire-fighters employed, 29 should be BME and 15 should be women (although some of those may fall into both categories).

As this seems to have been left to individual Brigades, with your experience of life inside the F&RS, how do you think they can address this other than through positive discrimination, bearning in mind that 'positive action' has been taking place for many years already, with mediocre results.

I hear lots of people within the F&RS bleating on endlessly about how the standard of new entrants has fallen over the past few years, (and I'm sure that people were saying it when I joined) but with stories of people who can't read or write, are addicted to drugs etc. I wanted to get some debate going on the real situation, particularly with so many people using this forum being so well informed and being able to communicate their views so eloquently.

If anyone would like to contribute to this debate but isn't comfortable posting their views for public viewing please feel free to e-mail me.

The following link to an article that appeared in the BBC website, covering how the Police were looking to address this particular issue is well worth a read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6570545.stm

[pugh]

I think it's entirely disgraceful, not to say discriminatory, that a significant portion of the population have ZERO representation in the fire service, and there are NO plans to address this issue - what about the pensioners?  They are a multi-cultural, multi-skilled group of peope with vast amounts of knowledge and experience of all sorts of things; ricketts, Hitler and bingo to name but a few.  How has this 'inclusive' Government allowed this situation to develop and what are they going to do about it?

And I'm sure they'd appreciate the opportunity to attend fires, particularly in the winter when they can keep warm at someone elses expense!