Government forces fire reform agenda

Government & Politics

“I want the National Fire Chiefs Council to be absolutely at the

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heart of this agenda”

Conclusion In conclusion, Dave, you set me three challenges, all of which I would be delighted to accept: I want the National Fire Chiefs Council to be absolutely at the heart of this agenda; I would be delighted to set you challenges around outcomes for us to work together to solve; and, lastly, I want us to work in partnership to make a considerable difference to the performance of this proud Service and one you should all be hugely proud of.

I make no apologies for being upfront with friends and colleagues in saying that we need to turbo-charge reform.

The transformation of this organisation into the National Fire Chiefs Council is one step on that journey, and I wish you every success. *This is an abridged version of the Minister’s speech at the 2016 CFOA Conference.

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themes: the working environment; documented conditions of service; industrial relations; retained duty system and management.

The majority of the review’s recommendations are for the Service to deliver and have the potential to modernise and transform the workforce in the years ahead for the better. A few recommendations are addressed to government which we will carefully consider.

The review also sets a number of challenges to you, the professional leadership of the Service, and challenges that I hope you will step up and address. These include expanding the talent pipeline, staff engagement, the Service’s culture and staff engagement. I am keen to discuss these recommendations further with you and your teams once the report has been published.

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Government forces fire reform agenda

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make no apologies for being upfront with friends and colleagues that we need to turbo-charge reform”. The Policing and Fire Minister, Brandon Lewis, speaking at the CFOA Conference in September, left Fire and Rescue Service leaders in no doubt that he was looking for substantial change.

It is inevitable in a speech like this that the Minister will say the usual things about the success of prevention, the need to do more with less, the need to improve diversity and so on. Add to this the running theme associated with the Policing and Crime Bill, this speech was unlikely to include new thinking.

However, it turns out there were a few new things to say, not least a clear commitment by the Minister to work with the newly announced National Fire Chiefs Council.

The reform agenda encapsulates all the change that the government means to make to (and with) the Service. It is not enough to have this broad theme, now the government has set out three pillars that underpin the reform agenda. It is a repackaging of what was already happening.

• Pillar 1 – efficiency and collaboration • Pillar 2 – accountability and transparency • Pillar 3 – reform of the fire and rescue workforce.

It is entirely sensible to structure the reform

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FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin reflects on the Policing and Fire Minister’s speech at the CFOA Conference, at which he stressed the need for ‘turbo-charged’ fire reform

16 | October 2016 | www.fire–magazine.com

into manageable and easy to communicate themes; pillars are as good a way as any to do it. No doubt it is inspired by the language of police: three pillars of efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy underpin the PEEL assessments of police forces in England and Wales. There was, sadly, no suggestion that the fire and rescue inspection regime would be based on FEEL assessments.

What it does achieve is a clear movement away from the trite economy, efficiency and effectiveness that has been trotted out for so long (unless the FEEL approach is adopted, of course). Although saying that, there is no escaping efficiency as it is in the title of Pillar 1. Fresh language is welcome but it is the substance that is of most interest.

There were a few interesting nuggets in the speech. The Minister gave notice of a government amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill that would see the Police and Crime Commissioner renamed in the light of taking on fire functions. The amendment proposes, in an awkward arrangement of words, a ‘Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’.

The day after the Minister’s speech, the House of Lords met to consider the fire clauses during Lords committee stage of the Bill. The government brought forward its amendment as trailed and it was met with

Government & Politics

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opportunity to introduce more diversity into the workforce may finally be here. The Minister talked about the opportunity that arises from “one third of the current workforce retiring over the next five years”. He’s right to talk about the opportunity to re-shape the Service without reducing the “quality on the front line”.

Brandon Lewis builds to some extent on the speech made by the then Home Secretary, Theresa May in May 2016, where she said bluntly: “we must transform the diversity of a firefighter workforce that is 96 per cent white and 95 per cent male”.

But the Minister made no direct mention of the representative bodies (accepting that they are of course part of the NJC mentioned above) in the way that Theresa May did, when she explicitly said she hoped to work together with the FBU to increase diversity in the Fire and Rescue Service.

The link between workforce reform, inspection and standards to “push meaningful change” in this speech is well made. The latter is currently the focus of some work by CFO Dave Curry from Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. CFO Curry is developing options for the establishment of a standards body which will “cover a range of issues such as professionalisation, ethics, technology and the workforce for the benefit of those who work in the sector”. Using the National Operational Guidance Programme as an example, the Minister made the link between standardising delivery to improve interoperability and advance collaboration.

And this approach is also at the heart of the new interest in procurement. It is hard to think about a new strategic approach to procurement without thinking about the late Firebuy.

The recent publication of procurement data highlighted the anomalies in individual services buying items at different prices. Anything that addresses this has to be a good thing. If those improvements are assisted by the nascent R&D hub so that products are not assessed and evaluated 45/50 times, it will be even better.

The Minister spoke to CFOA at a time when it is on the cusp of its own reform, with a move to a newly created National Fire Chiefs Council from April 2017. By then the Policing and Crime Bill will have received Royal Assent and some fire and rescue services will already be testing the new governance models. For some, there is great change ahead, but not for everyone.

While it is laudable to set out a reform agenda with its pillars and corral all the various elements together in this way, some fire and rescue services will struggle to implement all this change at the speed required by the Minister. There needs to be a careful eye kept on those who are not the pioneers and ensure that they can make their own meaningful reforms, because turbo-charged reform might sound good, but it won’t suit everyone.

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“While it is laudable to set out a reform

agenda with its pillars and corral all the

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various elements

together in this way, some fire and rescue

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services will struggle to implement all this

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some incredulity by the opposition peer, Lord Harris of Haringey, who considered the name a peculiarity but then suggested adding ‘Rescue’ in to the mix as well.

It is unlikely that will happen, and should not; it would take the Service back decades as it is so much more than about rescue: a simple ‘Fire’ will suffice. Perhaps the Lords will consider a re-ordering? Police, Crime and Fire Commissioner would make more sense.

The section on the proposed inspectorate was notable. The Minister said: “I have asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) to develop a proposal with input from the Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser and his team.”

He then goes on to note “it makes sense to have a single inspectorate”. There is no independence here; the body that benefits from the expansion is charged with developing the proposals for the inspection of fire. It would be more transparent (that is Pillar 2) for a body that gains nothing from the outcome to consider all the options and put those forward to the Minister. Even better, the government should consult on the proposals and let the fire sector give its view too.

Maybe it would save time and money to just commit to an expansion of HMIC to embrace fire, if that is what is really intended. Then there can be another debate in the Lords about the name. Inspection did come up in the tail end of the debate on September 14 but was dominated by the Earl of Lindsay who was mostly trying to get private inspectors involved in the new organisation, but the government was having none of it.

Penny Mordaunt (LGA conference 2015), Mike Penning (LGA conference 2016) and Theresa May (Reform speech May 2016) all said that the Thomas Review would be “published shortly”. Brandon Lewis becomes the fourth member of the government to make the same promise. It is as embarrassing as it is predictable. It would be good if the government would just publish it and get it over with.

The Thomas Review comes under Pillar 3 which has the worst name of the three: reform of the fire and rescue workforce. The overall strategy is fire reform; it is just clumsy to have reform in the title of the underpinning pillar. Workforce improvement would be so much better.

In a broad brush replay of the arguments about reforming the workforce through recruitment and retention, the Minister put the spotlight on the conditions of service.

“The National Joint Council and the grey book are creatures of the sector, which the sector can reform if it has the will and commitment to do so”. He offered no advice, however, on how to do this.

With some fire and rescue services now starting to recruit wholetime firefighters after years of a widespread recruitment freeze, the

change at the speed required by the Minister”

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