Avoiding the dusty shelf: making sense of the Thomas Review

Government & Politics

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Avoiding the dusty shelf: making sense of the Thomas Review

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FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin reports on the release of the long-awaited Thomas Review, “a beast” with 45 recommendations that has had a mixed reception from leading Fire and Rescue Service organisations

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Asian Fire Service Association (see pg 39) in late November coming up with some new, post publication material: “The Thomas Review is central to our fire reform agenda providing the hard evidence, some of which is hard to read, gathered from and verified by people from within the Fire and Rescue Service, of where change is needed.

“If implemented, these recommendations will help to secure the future of the Service for years to come. It will create a working environment free from bullying and harassment, stronger leadership, better engagement, and more flexible working conditions.

“But words are meaningless without action. I expect the LGA and the Service to rise to the challenge and deliver the review’s recommendations and I will be closely monitoring their delivery.”

It is the point about monitoring that is the most interesting. With 45 recommendations – some of which have already been addressed – one of the key questions is who on earth is going to do the work and who is going to make sure it is done?

There is recent precedent where the Home Office has started to monitor the Fire and Rescue Service. Earlier this year the Home Office agreed: ‘to continue to check that all fire and rescue authorities in England have published assurance statements to confirm that they have complied with the requirements of the Framework’.

This was in response to the Public Accounts Committee report on the financial sustainability of the Fire and Rescue Service. Hopefully, it will not take a PAC hearing and subsequent report to encourage monitoring response to the Thomas Review recommendations.

As usual there is no compulsion to do so, but already there is evidence that fire and rescue authorities are looking at the Thomas Review and measuring their own organisations against it.

In Buckinghamshire, for example, the combined authority notes in its paper to the November authority meeting: ‘We will carefully consider the recommendations in the report,

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he Independent Review of Conditions of Service for Fire and Rescue Staff in England is the latest report commissioned by the government. Adrian Thomas began his work in August 2014 and while he originally submitted his report to the government in early 2015, it took a further 21 months before it was finally published on November 3, 2016.

Trailed in various speeches over the same period, the Thomas Review, as it is known, had become almost mythic: something that was thought to exist but only seen by a few and leaked back in the summer to a few more.

It is a bit of a beast, that is for certain. At 93 pages it takes some commitment to read, but it is worth it.

The term ‘conditions of service’ embraces a wide range of matters, from the working environment and its culture, to the terms of employment around the Grey Book. It looks at industrial relations, including work of the NJC and some detail about the retained duty system.

Finishing off with how fire and rescue services are managed, it is quite a tour around some meaty subjects and given Adrian Thomas does not come from the fire sector it must have been a challenge to understand it all.

There is a danger, of course, that it is just another report that ends up on the shelf, gathering dust as the next new shiny thing gets all the attention. It would be a shame if this were the case for the Thomas Review because he has some interesting and insightful things to say.

It is not realistic in the space available here to review it in detail, but there are some areas that are particularly noteworthy. Whether the 45 recommendations in their totality help the government understand how the conditions of service ‘present barriers to the reform, improvement and efficiency of fire and rescue services’ remains to be seen.

Having read the last few of the Fire Ministers’ speeches in great detail, it had become entirely predictable that the Thomas Review and its imminent publication would feature. It was, therefore, rather pleasing to see Policing and Fire Minister Brandon Lewis’ speech to the

the future of the Service for years to come” Policing and Fire Minister Brandon Lewis

Government & Politics

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comparison’; it does not direct the task at any one organisation. As a result this is unlikely to be taken forward in a coordinated way and will probably be side lined as a result.

‘There is much re-building to be done around culture and trust’, he writes in the Foreword.

The priorities include ‘addressing the concerns around bullying and harassment. This also has an obvious relationship with equality and diversity’. It is the point about bullying that the then Home Secretary Theresa May talked about in her major speech on fire reform in May this year – and the one that the mass media jumped on in response.

All the while, it is hard to read this report without thinking about the 2008 Equality and Diversity Strategy and its ten-year plan.

Sitting on the proverbial shelf, mothballed in the National Archives, it is a relic of the Labour government and yet says many of the same things as the Thomas Review. It is not even cited in the bibliography.

Some of the recommendations land squarely at the government’s door.

Asking the government to bring forward legislation about anything is probably naive optimism by the report author, who, now that he is working at the heart of government in the Cabinet Office, may think rather differently.

It is hard to see how the government will take on any of the recommendations given its stance around localism and the reduction in civil servants working on fire policy.

Looking at the other recommendations directed at government, there are two focused on national communications work: one on raising awareness of the diversity of the role of the firefighter and the second ‘a national awareness programme for retained duty system personnel’.

This was discussed at the annual gathering of FirePRO, where communications professionals from fire and rescue services considered how they could drive this work forward in conjunction with government. It is unfortunate that very few of those gathered in Birmingham in late November 2016 for the FirePRO conference had even read the Thomas Review.

That says it all really: its title belies the importance of the content and the range of issues that he covers. It is something everyone in the Fire and Rescue Service should be reading and thinking about.

The terms of reference for this work ask that the review should consider barriers to collaboration and integration with other emergency services. This is missing from the final report. Of course, since the report was commissioned, government has clearly set out its policy regarding police and crime commissioners taking on fire and rescue functions. Even so, the report does not go into any discussion about barriers in this area.

The other missing element is money.

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and look to ensure the support and enhance the plans already set out in our People Strategy and workforce reform agenda’.

The Fire Brigades Union has pretty much dismissed it. The press notice issued on November 3 says: ‘The 93 page document with 45 recommendations is a compendium of ill-informed notions, which in many cases are contradictory and in all cases un-researched.

As we reported when the review was first initiated, it is quite simply a hatchet job on firefighters and the Fire and Rescue Service’.

Both the Chief Fire Officers Association and the Local Government Association welcomed the Thomas Review. A succinct press release from the former noted in particular that: ‘The LGA will shortly be writing to special interest groups representing women and black and minority ethnic firefighters to invite them to discuss a memorandum of understanding in accordance with the review’s recommendations’.

CFOA was more detailed in its response, citing its progress on ‘a single research evaluation facility’ and arrangements for joint procurement of goods and services ‘to drive down costs’.

The Thomas Review was strongly critical of fire and rescue services for not having clear workforce strategies that looked at the long-term issues of recruitment, retention and developing management and leadership capacity. In CFOA’s response, it notes it is shaping a ‘national workforce strategy’ that will: ‘Help services to develop a more inclusive workforce, enhance change management skills and sector leadership. As well as promoting more flexible contract offers in the future to attract staff and look at the potential of the Retained Duty System’.

And, of course, CFOA will have been particularly pleased by recommendation 44: ‘The Chief Fire Officers Association should consider increasing the term of office for the role of president from one year to two or three years – provide increased stability of leadership’.

This has already been addressed with the abolition of the presidency and creation of the Chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council from April 2017.

This is a wider section on leadership at the back of the report. Adrian Thomas persuaded the consulting firm PWC to work for free to provide a methodology for comparing principal officer roles across all fire and rescue services. The argument for needing this is based on transparency and whether the pay of principal officers is ‘delivering appropriate value for money’.

It is an interesting idea but undeveloped in the report. While recommendation 42 would see the removal of the Gold Book (conditions of service for principal officers), it only says that a job evaluation programme should be introduced to ‘allow inter authority

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Government & Politics

a spotlight on the Fire and Rescue Service and it is a useful reminder that there is room for improvement in the

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workplace”

the people within the industry, to accept and accelerate change, reach out to new technology and working practices and get in front of the change curve’.

While it is jarring that Adrian Thomas uses the term ‘fire industry’ and management speak with ‘getting in front of the change curve’, his report is still worth reading. His report shines a spotlight on the Fire and Rescue Service and it is a useful reminder that there is room for improvement in the workplace.

This report is an important part of fire reform and it will only be influential if it is read, considered and acted upon by employers and employees as well as the representative bodies. Even if that means not agreeing with its recommendations and making an informed decision not to act, it is better than just putting it up on that dusty shelf with all the others the preceded it.

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“His report shines

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The terms of reference state ‘the cost of any recommendations should be calculated and in sufficient detail to enable effective implementation’. It is likely that with 45 recommendations, there is quite a cost to be met and yet there is no supporting financial data to understand the burden this puts on government, employers and representative bodies.

The report ends abruptly and there are no conclusions. The Foreword provides an insight into what Adrian Thomas thought after carrying out all this work.

‘I believe there is a clear direction of travel emerging from this review: one that balances the superb but ever changing contribution the fire industry (and the people within it) makes to our society with the resources that are available.

‘The challenge for the fire and rescue service is to continue to build upon the passion of

Essex boldly leading the way

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Adam Eckley, Acting Chief Fire Officer of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, spoke to FIRE about his thoughts on the Thomas Review after the publication in September 2015 of their own cultural review

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don’t think it changes anything for Essex. We had already made cultural change a priority. We are already 12 months into our own cultural change journey and that’s due to bold leadership by the fire authority.”

He talks openly about the public perception of his service.

“We took on all the cultural stuff very boldly; it was a rough ride to go through that journey and to have the name of this organisation vilified in the way that it was. It has made the organisation stronger and we are leading the way for cultural change.”

Making reference to Adrian Thomas’s use of the term ‘unconscious bias’, Acting CFO Eckley said this was an incredibly helpful part of the report. “Some of the behaviours that are unsuitable in modern workplaces are things that officers and firefighters experienced as they’ve been indoctrinated in the Service.” He argues that it is incumbent on modern leaders to challenge these behaviours and say to staff that it is harmful and damaging.

Essex is going through a process of redefining ‘service values’ and Acting CFO Eckley expects his staff to live those values. “We need to create an environment where people understand that they not only have a right but a duty to stand up and challenge inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.”

Confronted by reduced budgets, Essex has looked at its resources, has been imaginative and set things up so that it can potentially recruit wholetime firefighters from 2018/19 after a ten-year hiatus.

Much of this discussion is about workforce planning and addressing the point that was made firmly in the Thomas Review that fire and rescue services are poor at long-term planning and lack robust workforce strategies.

Looking at the role of government in terms of monitoring progress against the Thomas Review recommendations, Acting CFO Eckley says: “It’s for the fire sector to take a lead role and

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drive change from within.” He goes on to agree that there is a clear direction of travel from government for fire reform and that there is a role for the inspectorate to make sure the “journey is led by the Fire and Rescue Service”.

“I’m proud to say that in terms of culture, Essex is leading the way nationally in terms of being bold about challenging its own culture and putting that in the public domain. We are getting on with the process of driving change in this organisation.”

And while all this work is going on, the police and crime commissioner for Essex is looking to be one of the first to take on fire and rescue functions under a new governance arrangement. Hopefully, they will use what they have learnt to embrace the culture of the police by using the same bold and confident approach.