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Grenfell, governance and inspection headline LGA Fire Conference
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FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin reports from this year’s LGA Fire Conference which was held on March 13-14 in Gateshead
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ateshead was positively balmy, caught in a temporary reprieve between the two blasts of ice and snow that come uncharacteristically at the tail end of a long winter. The annual trip to the LGA Fire conference is always something to look forward to and this year the conference centred on three big topics: Grenfell, governance and inspection. Ideally, the Fire Minister Nick Hurd would be first to speak, using this unique point in the fire calendar to address the employers and chief fire officers, setting out the policy direction and providing an opportunity for questions and debate. For the second year running, the Fire Minister failed to appear at this conference. Last year, then Fire Minister Brandon Lewis provided a video address that satisfied few; it was wise to not offer it again. The reason for nonattendance is usually parliamentary business and that is a convenient excuse, yet both shadow fire ministers were there.
Mental Health Kicking off with a session focused on mental health, London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton provided a stark reminder about her experience at the tragic Grenfell Tower fire. “We need to be aware and vigilant of the impacts on mental health,” she cautioned. “People don’t just get over it.” Dany’s willingness to share the impact of the fire and its aftermath on her own mental health shows tremendous courage and leadership. It has opened up a conversation about mental health that is long overdue. Ian Hayton, Chief Fire Officer for Cleveland Fire Brigade, shared the stage with Dany. He set out some alarming statistics about sickness in the Fire and Rescue Service. He showed a graph indicating an estimated 344,003 lost duty days for 2017/18. This equates to a £65m per annum financial loss due to sickness. Linking this to mental health, Ian talked about Oscar Kilo, a resource funded by Public Health England to host
“Dany’s willingness to share the impact of the fire and its aftermath on her own mental health shows tremendous courage and leadership. It has opened up a conversation about mental health that is long overdue” 8 | April 2018 | www.fire–magazine.com
Government & Politics
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“When we come to look at the future of BME staff in the Fire and Rescue Service, we are currently looking at Groundhog Day” Hackitt Review Working Groups
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Design, construction and refurbishment – Early consultation with FRS weight to comments
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Occupation and maintenance – Hand over, maintenance, responsible person, FRS role Competency – For all including inspecting officers, fire safety input for professions
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Regulation and guidance – Clarity of enforcement, levels of action, clarity on guidance
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the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework and bring together those responsible for wellbeing. More detail can be found here: https://oscarkilo.org.uk/. See pg 29 for FIRE’s Focus on Mental Health and Wellbeing.
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Hackitt Review It was good to see Dame Judith Hackitt at this conference. She spoke about her Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (which was analysed in the February issue of FIRE). She reprised the findings of her interim report and confirmed her intention to publish the final report by the end of May. There is a lot of work going on through six working groups (see above right) reflecting the main areas of concern. There was a lot of interest from many organisations and individuals to join the working groups, but with the short timescale and demanding schedule of work, she decided to keep them small and agile. The NFCC is represented on each one. Members asked questions about sprinklers and while Dame Judith talks about layers of protection, she does not overtly promote sprinklers. “I have some sympathy with
Products – Testing regime, desktop studies, sign off of products used Residents voice – Whistle blowing and being listened to
this view,” she says. “I don’t think it’s for government to specify what should be done or not done; sprinklering the building is one option.” Inspection Last year, the conference was dominated by impending inspection and little was known about how it would work. One year on, much has happened and three fire and rescue services are piloting the process: Suffolk, Staffordshire and West Yorkshire. HMI Zoe Billingham took to the stage with CFO Mark Hardingham and Cllr Matthew Hicks from Suffolk County Council who is responsible for the fire service. For Cllr Hicks, fire inspection feels like ‘business as usual,’ as the council’s other functions are inspected on a regular basis. Suffolk is in the middle of its inspection. It is a process that includes two rounds of data collection and a strategic briefing as part of a discovery week replete with self-assessment. Rounding all this off with a week of actual inspection, it is a tough process and involves a lot of resources. On that latter point, Zoe is keen to know how much time and effort is really involved as she has said previously that she wants the process to be proportionate.
www.fire–magazine.com | April 2018 | 9
The Current Timeline for Inspection Three pilot inspections
March to May 2018
Publish inspection programme
March 2018
First tranche of 15 inspections
Summer 2018
Second tranche of 15 inspections
Autumn/Winter 2018
Third tranche of 15 inspections
Spring 2019
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Police and Crime Commissioners The final session focused on police and crime commissioners and the moves by some to take on fire governance. The chairs of Shropshire Fire and Rescue Authority and Hereford and Worcestershire Fire and Rescue Authority shared their dismay at the PCC for West Mercia’s business case for taking on the governance of both of these services. They, along with many other of the local elected officials in these two counties, are vehemently against the PCC’s move and the business case remains stuck with Secretary of State waiting for a decision.* The LGA is not a fan of the government’s policy around PCCs taking on fire governance: this is hardly a surprise, turkeys and Christmas and all that. With no PCC to provide balance, John Campion will have felt his ears’ burning, that is for sure. It was a lost opportunity. There is real merit in considering the wider subject of governance changes and with the first and only Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Roger Hirst attending the conference (and paying his subs to the LGA like all the fire and rescue authorities), this session should have been a better contribution to the wider debate. Grenfell, governance and inspection dominated this conference, but unlike previous years there was no mention of fire reform. Perhaps it is a given, that fire reform is a constant and does not need to be given special mention. Somehow that does not feel quite right. There is a sense of Groundhog Day when talking about improving diversity: Micky Nicholas is right to describe it in that way and that is why FIRE is focusing its next Congress on Changing the face of the fire and rescue service (see page 11 for more details). What is really important is that it does not become the metaphor to describe building regulations and fire safety post Grenfell; getting that right first time round is vital.
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Diversity and Inclusion ‘There is no reason why every organisation in the UK should not have a workforce that proportionately reflects the diversity of the communities in which they operate, at every level,’ Baroness McGregor-Smith in Race in the Workplace, 2017 This quote was a well-timed reminder that the struggle to improve diversity is not confined to the Fire and Rescue Service. Micky Nicholas, Secretary of the Black and Ethnic Minority Members’ Section of the Fire Brigades Union, spoke eloquently during a keynote session on recruitment and inclusion. “When we come to look at the future of BME staff in the Fire and Rescue Service, we are currently looking at Groundhog Day.” He is right: this time last year the conference was talking about diversity; at the 2015 conference Adrian Thomas revealed his Independent review of conditions of service for fire and rescue staff in England. And again in 2018 the topic is there, different speakers, some different delegates. Same old refrain, but no silver bullet. Micky reeled off statistics to expose how far fire and rescue services have to go to truly reflect their communities. While he prefaced his list with a commitment not to name and shame particular services, he was close to it. It was a depressing litany of the predictable. He concluded: “The UK Fire and Rescue Service continues to fail on a large scale to encourage and attract BME candidates.” Sam Rye is Secretary of the National Women’s’ Committee of the Fire Brigades Union. She talked about recruitment and retention of women. “Recruitment is poor. We need to embed recruitment and awareness in everything we do. We need to continue to raise awareness that this is a job for women.” She went on to say: “We need to educate our current workforce and our communities that women are an important part of the Fire and Rescue Service. “We can’t talk about recruitment without talking about retention.” Sam touched on some of the reasons why women leave: poor maternity policies, poor facilities, the effect on women working through the menopause and inflexible working practices. She urged delegates to be bold about what a firefighter looks like.
*As FIRE went to press the Home Secretary gave the go-ahead for the three PCCs: John Campion for West Mercia, Matthew Ellis for Staffordshire and Jason Ablewhite for Cambridgeshire.
“The UK Fire and Rescue Service continues to fail on a large scale to encourage and attract BME candidates” 10 | April 2018 | www.fire–magazine.com