Part-time work

[P GUTHARD]

Hi all,
I have a fire safety consultancy company in the north of England and have been undertaking fire risk assessment for the past 4 years.
At the weekend I was approached by a friend of a friend who is in the fire service and he asked if I was prepared to offer him part time work in fire risk assessing on his days off. I explained that this was probably not legal as there is an obvious conflict of interest (your comments please).
He informed me that he has already been offered work for another consultancy in the area but would prefer to work for me (never been in direct competition so no problems with the company). He also stated that the company in question already employs wholetime firefighters on a regular basis.
I feel this is not right for both the company and the fire service personel to do this, and was wondering if any of you guys have come across this and what steps (if required) can be made to stop this?
Thanks in advance
Paul

[greg]

From your point of view I would have thought that the most important thing would have been the skills Knowledge and experience of the prospective employee.

The conflict of interest issue is probably an ethical/moral issue and would only arise if  advice was given that was contrary to the FIre Service or Your company policy that then came to court.

One way of stopping this may be to contact the relevant brigade, I believe that most brigades require that staff ask for permission to take on part time work and have the right of veto if such work may affect  their ability to carry out their duties.

I have heard of a case where an individual was doing similar work and this was sanctioned by the Service as long as they did not work within their Fire Authority area.

[wee brian]

Building control officers have been doing this for years - often the best people to knock up the plans for your extension - but never in your own area - sacking offence usually.

Of course they work in relatively small boroughs whereas FPOs work in counties.

[dave bev]

just because its in a contract to 'ask' this doesnt make it legally binding though i reckon the 'courts' may wish to consider issues of confidentiality - not only do some people want 'control' over employees at work, they want it even when theyre not at work! so long as it doesnt come into conflict in professional terms 'seeking permission', in my opinion is boxxols

dave bev

[pd]

Well said Dave. Absolute bo**ocks that employers, of any nature should attempt to control our lives when we are not selling our labour to them. If we are fit and capable of doing the full time job then it is none of their business whether we do FRA's or exotic dancing in our OWN time.
No FA has, to my knowledge ever tried to take anybody on for failing to abide by their new labour style rules...mainly because the know they would lose in court. This, of course makes the rules themselves unlawful.
I would though, as a matter of courtesy not work in an area where I may, in theory, have to take enforcement action against the very people I was advising.
No Japanese company man would sell his soul to the firm in the way that we are expected to!
I suppose all those bar staff don't have day jobs, or MP's, or NHS/Private doctors or nurses doing an extra bank shift or civil servants quietly networking their way onto defence companies.
Vomit

[colin todd]

Every time we advertise for consultants we get applications from firemen who want to moonlight. Only a personal opinion of course, but the very idea seems tardy and unprofessional to me. Maybe I am just old fashioned.

[wee brian]

Your employer has every right to be concerned when your behaviour brings the organisation into disrepute.

Doing consultancy work in the same area that you work as an FPO is about as unproffesional as you can get.

If you work outside your area then I don't have problem with it.

[AnthonyB]

As well as the conflict of interest issue, I'd want to know what competency they had for FRAs  Fire FIGHTER is not the same as a preventor - if they'd done the various FPO courses then fine, but if not then it's surely a bit arkward

[pd]

Wee B

That may be true but the concept of bringing the organisation into disrepute is very subjective. Is working as a voluntary porter disreputable, or is it the concept of being paid? Is working as a government minister and then moving to an organisation that was within your remit disreputable? Do bricklayers get castigated for working in a charity shop or firemen for posing for 'racy' calenders? Oh, I forgot, that was for charity so no problem. This area is fraught with difficulties and if a competent FSO wants to earn a few more bob, working outside of their enforcement area making places more safe...what is the problem?
Flexible Duty Officers may work 72 hours, retained firefighters have two jobs and that is OK but if a fireman wants to earn £50 extra he has to ask permisson??? Please.
Employers and those in power want to control our every thinking moment. Big brother is surely just around the corner.
Rant over, chianti finished. BED.

[fireftrm]

Flexi duty offciers do not WORk 72 hours, they. like firefighters work 42 hours a week. They are then on call for another period, the actual in lenght of which depends on the individual FRS duty rota system. IN mine it is about 48 hours. They get a %age extra for this and otherwise are exactly the same as any other FRS member so please include them in the 'why shouldn't they earn some more'. As an example they earn less here than a Day crewed SubO/WM.

If the work is outside the FRA area then why not?

Colin - what is so tardy and unprofesional - for a start they are likely to be prompt (the opposite of tardy) and professional (being that they are trained professionals). I very much doubt that the people applying are moonlighting as that would be a breach of discipline, the FSOs I know (all flexi-duty by the way) who do work outside the FRA area and while off duty, all informt he FRS of such work and have approval for such secondary employment.

My problem is with the title 'consultant' a dirty word in my book for persons who come in, ask loads of questions of managers, write reports based on the answers they get and present as the 'future' together with their bill. The entire thing being based on the knowledge that was already there and a cost to boot. Some of the biggest businesses are waking up to this con and have banned any use of 'consultants'. Unless the fire industry wants to be tarred with the same brush may I suggest that you change the titles to fire engineers or safety advisors?

[pd]

fireftrm
I was not abusing FDS, merely illustrating fire authority double standards. OK to allow some of their staff to work 48/72 hours, (retained now have to provide full cover I think), whilst trying to control the lives of those who have finished the contracted wage slave hours!
My point was that short of the person being too tired to do their job properly, it is none of the FA's business.

[greg]

i dont think that doing part time work is an issue but maybe the type of part time work you do could be. I think that it is probably reasonable that an employer should be concerned if your second or alternative employment is likely to bring you into direct conflict with themselves. I am sure that within the commercial sector staff would not be allowed to work for a company if that company was in competion with the primary employer.

[Chris Houston]

My problem is with the title 'consultant' a dirty word in my book for persons who come in, ask loads of questions of managers, write reports based on the answers they get and present as the 'future' together with their bill. The entire thing being based on the knowledge that was already there and a cost to boot. Some of the biggest businesses are waking up to this con and have banned any use of 'consultants'. Unless the fire industry wants to be tarred with the same brush may I suggest that you change the titles to fire engineers or safety advisors?

The consultancy process can be similar to the one you decribed above, but I would add some important points from my own experience:

-Most of the questions have never been asked before.
-While some of the conculsions reached by have been known by middle management before, they have never before been presented to senior management in the right way to persude them which is the correct course of action to take.
-Invariably the consultant can share information about how the rest of the industriy deals with their problems.
-Invariably the consultant is more qualified, knowns more about their area of expertise and can suggest solutions to problems that work.

The cost of using a consultant is agreed at the outset, and nobody forces anyone to use one.  Everytime I undertake fee work for a customer I seek feedback and not once has one been unhappy with the results.

[ian gough]

There is a fair bit of 'contract' law and case law surrounding this issue. Clearly it is a conflict of interest to work as a fire officer in an area where you might do fire risk assessments (and I wonder about issues such as the premises being in one part of the country, however, the 'body corporate' being elsewhere??) as it is not right to be 'both sides of the fence'. As yet, however, I understand that this particular situation is untested in law.
That being said, there is case law suggesting that it is not lawful for an employer to stop an employee doing work, when the work is not being offered by the employer. A very interesting case arose a few years ago in Nottingham (Nottingham Uni I think). In that case a research scientist, employed by the Uni, did research for someone else and got paid. He then got sacked. But the court said: because the research work done privately was different to his work at the Uni - and the Uni was not offereing the same research facilities to any potential clients - this was unfair dismissal. And the Uni had to pay compensation.
If a Fire Authority offered a fire risk assessment service therefore - any firefighter/officer employed by that authority would be in serious breach of contract for working part-time doing fire risk assessments - due to conflict of interest as they would be 'poaching' clients. That is the main rule that's been established for other industries. I do not believe that this is the case here though.
By the way, I've been following this topic whilst supporting one of my officers who took out a grievance against our fire authority who refused permission to do such work. He lost! And although he probably had a good case for the courts, we considered it too risky to risk his job or cash as the FBU were not happy to support him.

[colin todd]

What is unprofessional is as follows:

1. The chap does a FRA, let us say. Then, the client phones the next day and asks a question about it. So you would end up saying 'Oh he is not here today, he is at his proper job.'
2. How do you manage the guy's CPD, given that ongoing training in the FRS is probably of lower quality and quantity than a reputable consulting practice would demand of the employees. And if you are giving him ongoing training and development, you are doing so for the FRS to benefit.
3. How do you keep him up to date with standards if he is only doing the odd job here and there, and how do you deal with the QA of his work.
4. Many of those who apply are not even well experienced fire safety officers ,but firefighters who have shown no interest/ aptitude for fire safety in the FRS, but suddenly show an interest if its worth a few bob in their spare time.
5. Ineveitably, there may be differences in approach of his ''home'' brigade and that of the consultancy. How does he cope with reconciliation of such difficulties.

None of this cannot be overcome to an extent. its just tardy and unprofessional, but that is often the World we live in.