Agenda item

The Chair welcomed Ann Millington, NFCC People Lead, to the meeting.

Ann introduced the NFCC’s People Programme Inclusion Strategy and said that it had six main objectives which would help create an inclusive and positive workplace:

1.    Strengthen Leadership and Line Management to support organisational change and improved community outcomes.

2.    Develop cultural values and behaviours which would make the Fire & Rescue Service a great place to work for all our people.

3.    Ways of working that are able to respond to service needs.

4.    Provide excellent training and education to ensure continuous improvement of services to the public.

5.    Continue to support the Health and Well-being of all our people.

6.    Strengthen our ability to provide good service by diversifying our staff and creating a fair & equal place to work.

Ann said that an Action Plan was being drafted to accompany the Strategy and she urged colleagues in the room to comment on it when it comes out.

Ann stressed to Commission members the importance of inclusion and diversity – it was core to service delivery and should be at the heart of the activity of every fire & rescue authority, not just a tick box add-on. Bad behaviour, especially towards women needed to be challenged more. She added that inclusion was also now a legal requirement and it was vitally important that effective Equality Impact Assessments were carried out by Fire & Rescue Authorities.

Ann cited the example of people able to self-rescue from an incident and pointed out that people unable to self-rescue were potentially at greater risk. There are a variety of reasons people may be unable to self-rescue including pregnancy, disabilities, mental health issues, and learning difficulties. She said that Equality Impact Assessments and prevention plans must take this sort of thing into account, otherwise authorities could be vulnerable to legal challenge, with services getting considerable value from engaging with their communities on these issues.

Ann concluded by making a plea to Commission members about authorities’ commercial work, and in particular, procurement. She said that some authorities needed to be much better at managing contracts and entering into joint procurement arrangements with other local authorities. She added that there was lots of money to be saved by doing these things more efficiently and the Home Office would want to see evidence of this before contemplating increases in central funding for Fire & Rescue Authorities.

The following comments and questions were raised by members:

·         Inclusion needed to be part of regional meetings and should be a key part of the Fire Commission’s work.

·         Inclusion was too often not seen as a priority and whilst organisations were signed up, it was just to tick the box. A commitment to diversity and inclusion should also be a key part of the recruitment process for new Chief Fire Officers.

·         What could the Fire Services Management Committee and the Fire Commission do to help deliver change in attitude and practice at fire & rescue authorities? Ann said that the LGA needed to be clear that some of the existing bad practices wouldn’t be tolerated.

·         Good practice needed to be shared more widely to enable others to learn from the best.

The Chair thanked Ann for her presentation.

Decision

Members of the Commission noted the presentation.