Memorandum by the Commission for Racial
Equality (CRE) (FRS 60)
1. BACKGROUND
The Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) is not short
of research findings on equality and diversity issues or consequential
recommendations or action plans.
In 1994 the Home Office published a report by
Tom Burke. The FRS whilst still under the Home Office was subject
to a thematic review in 1999. Following that, Professor Bain in
his independent review published in 2001 also made adverse comments
on the state of equality and diversity. All are referenced in
the appendix of this submission. In addition the appendix includes
other reports that are drawn to the Committee's attention containing
additional and supporting information.
All the research reports point to the Service's
performance as being one of the poorest in the public sector in
respect of equality and diversity. All provide excellent guidance
and route maps for integrating equality and diversity as a key
issue. Few have had any far-reaching impact. As often as not the
FRS appears to resent the exposure their findings have generated.
The CRE strongly supports the Committee's decision
to review and focus on diversity. This memorandum relates to paragraph
2c of the inquiry's terms of reference. The CRE would be pleased
to work with the Committee and provide additional evidence if
needed.
The memorandum sets out some of the key respects
in which the FRS shows persistent poor performance on equality
and diversity, and race equality in particular. It indicates some
measures that we consider important and notes some of the good
practice initiatives that have been developed recently but argues
that these must be integrated into a coherent overall strategic
approach.
2. LEADERSHIP
This is a recurring theme in many investigations
and research reports on diversity in the FRS. We are concerned
that the fire service has little understanding of how leadership
within diversity should manifest itself. The FRS has largely failed
to recognise true champions of diversity at any level. A public
body such as the fire service should be able to identify and demonstrated
achievement by its champions. Many Chief Fire Officers will claim
they have the role of leadership but all too often this is more
rhetoric than reality and not matched by performance or outcomes.
The CRE expects public organisations such as
the FRS to at least be able to demonstrate positive leadership
and commitment. The basis for this is in the statutory duty, in
place since 2001, requiring public bodies to take pro-active steps
to promote racial equality. Committed leadership is crucial in
demonstrating the legitimacy and credibility of equality and diversity
both externally to private and community and voluntary sector
bodies in the locality and internally to the organisation's own
people.
Leadership at central government level has also
been muted. The ODPM has not sent out a clear and unequivocal
signal that poor performance in the area of equality and diversity
is not acceptable.
3. POLICY AND
PROCEDURES
Parts of the Service have responded to the recommendations
made in reports that are referenced in the appendix. This has
been done well in some Fire and Rescue Authorities, but many have
just copied policies from other FRAs or public bodies and these
have either been applied inappropriately or remained mere paper
policies, and appear to have had little impact if any on equality
and diversity within many fire services. Many county authorities
have simply relied on their county councils' overarching policies
for compliance but these often fail to address the key and specific
issues for the FRS.
The requirements of the general statutory duty
to promote race equality introduced through the Race Relations
(Amendment) Act 2000 have proven to be particularly poorly addressed
by FRAs and we believe that compliance with the general duty and
with the specific duties cannot be found in many FRAs, and certainly
not a thorough embrace of the recommendations of the statutory
code of practice. Until quite recently a substantial number of
FRAs did not even have Race Equality Schemes. In 2005 up to 60%
of FRAs had not completed any race impact assessments. One FRA,
following an intervention by the CRE based on alleged breach of
duty, is now demonstrating what it is possible to achieve and
what managers are capable of if challenged.
The CRE is shortly to embark on a monitoring
study looking at the compliance of FRAs (among a range of other
public sector bodies) with the statutory duties. We shall be putting
particular emphasis on evidence that FRAs have robust arrangements
for undertaking race equality impact assessments which they have
effectively implemented.
4. REVIEW AND
MONITORING
The FRS has been criticised by many including
the Audit Commission for not applying best practice in performance
management in general. For equality and diversity this is particularly
true. Little evidence exists that a systematic approach is adopted
to managing diversity or for evaluating initiatives. The FireWorks
research supports this view. The ODPM and the CPA have not placed
diversity sufficiently high in its priorities for monitoring or
audit. In the first quarter of 2005 the Audit Commission carried
out CPA inspections of the FRS using a methodology supported by
a diagnostic tool on equality and diversity. However the references
in the Commission's reports on individual FRAs in this area are
patchy, often minimal, and inconsistent. One FRA reviewed and
reported as excellent did not even have a strategy on diversity.
The ODPM/ Fire Service Inspectorate should have
carried out a follow up thematic in 2003. This still has not been
done and in the 2004-05 Framework document a number of commitments
were made that would have supported this area but again to date
none has been carried out. These were:
(b) Review of equality officer role
(c) Develop a peer assessment tool
(d) Develop a bespoke tool to support the
local government agenda.
In the 2005-06 draft National Framework document
all have disappeared, seemingly signifying that the failure to
carry out the reviews and to drop rather than carry them forward
means that the ODPM no longer believes these issues to be important.
We believe that the National Framework document
is a key driver in England and this should have clear and reliable
commitments as to what ODPM will do and what Regional Management
Boards and FRAs are expected to deliver on equality and diversity.
This is particularly important in the case of the boards as these
bodies are not themselves listed as subject to the duty to promote
race equality and unless one of more constituent FRAs provide
leadership on the issue it can easily fall from the agenda. We
also believe that the framework, which is effectively a statement
of policy, should be subject to a race equality impact assessment.[29]
The CRE will be making a submission to the ODPM during formal
consultation on the Framework document.
5. CULTURE
The culture of the fire service in spite of
all the work that has been carried out, is still in places xenophobic,
male, macho and bullying and to the extent that this is true it
is not capable of sustaining or supporting equality and diversity.
In the current climate it is not surprising to find the FRS failing
to meet the government's and its own agenda on diversity. At the
same time, culture is often used as an excuse for poor achievement.
It is our view that the leadership does not
understand the component parts of the cultural web that exists
in the Service and does not know what impacts on it. They have
failed to identify the critical success factors for changing the
culture and more importantly what the role of Members of fire
authorities and Chief Fire Officers is in changing the culture.
ODPM needs to give clear indications on the type of culture the
service should be aiming for and how it should be training staff
and elected members to achieve the change. ODPM and fire authorities
need to consider how this is to be monitored and audited. The
time is right for a full cultural audit to be carried out and
the development of clear, short and medium term plans to bring
about real cultural change.
We believe the cultural audit tool that has
been developed by ODPM and CFOA has the potential to provide the
springboard for change, However this is not the whole answer as
discussed above.
6. THE BUSINESS
OR SERVICE
CASE
The FRS has no clear business/service case for
equality and diversity. Much of the research has highlighted this
issue. It is welcome that the ODPM will be leading work in 2006
to develop a business/service case. This should then provide one
of the key building blocks for the FRS to understand and tackle
the many issues relating to diversity that it currently faces.
7. RECRUITMENT
AND TARGETS
The FRS has probably the worst figures in the
public sector on the representation of black and minority ethnic
staff in uniformed posts. Currently the Service has a workforce
that is less than 2.4% ethnic minority, with a very similar proportion
for women. Statistics for 2003-04 show that (excluding the "other"
category) non-white, ethnic minority applicants for wholetime
posts made up 11.3% of all applicants. However, only 2.7% of the
ethnic minority applicants were successful compared with 6.2%
of white applicants. These figures are unacceptable. They cannot
be and are not condoned by government or accepted by the public.
But determined action is needed if the FRS is to match the changes
seen in the police force, prison service and the ambulance service
over the last 10 years.
We can only conclude that this is linked to
the issue of leadership referred to earlier. Where the FRS sees
a need, in our experience, it can and has made the change. The
manner in which the culture of health and safety and community
safety have changed in the FRS in recent years are clear indicators
were leadership is found on a theme, achievement is matched by
energy, commitment and resources.
The targets first set in 1999 under the Home
Office regime—7% of ethnic minorities in the workforce by
2009—are no longer fully owned by the FRS, though they still
appear, for example, in the ODPM's public service agreement. We
understand that the ODPM has undertaken a long-delayed review
of targets and will issue a new strategy dealing with recruitment,
retention and promotion in 2006. We support the review but are
cautious in our optimism in case this should lead to a watering
down of the current targets and the strategy have little impact
on its own if not supported by other initiatives and also by robust
monitoring, audit and inspection. The CRE will be participating
in consultation on the strategy.
We are more optimistic that the development
of the service case will have an impact on this. A better understanding
of why the Service should reflect the community can only lead
to more within the service committing to the agenda and making
a contribution.
The FRS has had an excellent beacon of best
practice on this issue in the outreach team of London Fire and
Emergency Planning Authority. London has in our view achieved
some very notable results in the numbers of women and ethnic minority
staff despite the organisational and political environment they
have to work in.
We strongly recommend that a national outreach
team be established and charged with supporting local and regional
recruitment. The model of best practice in London and the manner
is which the National Fire Safety Centre has integrated faith
issues (see paragraph 10 below) should be used to develop the
approach.
8. TRAINING
No clear training strategy exists in the FRS
in spite of the reviews that have reported this to be an issue.
The recently concluded FireWorks project reported this to be a
major issue and a barrier to achievement. The service has no clear
needs analysis on diversity or vision as to what it is attempting
to achieve through training. The training in FRS varies from a
few hours to a comprehensive training programme. No measurement
is made against objectives.
The service needs to adopt the principles that
the FireWorks team have recommended and the ODPM should provide
clearer guidance as to what is expected.
No training courses have been developed nationally
to support specialist officers or the leadership of the service.
In addition we are unaware of any training on diversity that is
provided across the service for members of fire authorities who
have a critical role on diversity. It is not surprising that in
this vacuum we have such poor understanding at the very top of
the service.
9. SUPPORT GROUPS
The FRS has many support groups and some like
the Networking Women in the Fire Service are working at a strategic
level and making a difference. Others such as the groups under
the Fire Brigade Union are still tied very closely to the trade
union and are not making the impact at strategic level that similar
groups such as the Black Police Association are in the police
service.
Support groups in the FRS are not as well supported
as their counterparts in either the police or the prison service,
where national officers have full time paid posts. These officers
are then able to make a much better and more consistent contribution
to the diversity agenda. In the FRS this is left to willing volunteers
or to paid union officials who are tasked with supporting national
trade unions objectives which on occasion can be in direct conflict
with the very people they represent.
We believe that government should determine
what good practice there is in the public sector and disseminate
this to all. We believe that by forming strong and visible support
groups with government backing the diversity issues can be integrated
in all services more quickly and support can be provided for those
whose treatment is unfair treatment or falls short of good practice
expectations.
10. GOOD PRACTICE
We have previously provided some examples of
good practice. A fuller list is proposed below and more will be
available when the ODPM commissioned report Diversity Matters
is published late 2005 or early 2006.
The service clearly needs a focal point
of contact and a national champion. The benefits of taking this
approach have already been spelled out. The National Health Service
and the Cabinet Office have appointed national champions working
at the strategic level and they are having an impact. Nearly all
the referenced reports in the appendix support this recommendation.
In addition we believe that the secondment of a senior officer
to ODPM 2004-05 has shown the potential there is for a role of
this kind.
ODPM have commissioned a report to
highlight best practice. This has not yet been published but should
be available to the Select Committee during the period of this
inquiry. We believe that this is an excellent example of what
can be done if resources are allocated to this task. This should
be a regular activity of the ODPM.
The Fire Service has carried out pioneering
work in this field which will be covered in some detail in the
forthcoming "diversity matters" report. There are significant
outcomes not only in respect of engagement with the communities
locally but also in terms of enhanced recruitment and retention.
The recent National Fire Safety Centre strategy we believe to
be best practice in the public sector as are the CFOA conferences
on this topic.
Clearly outreach in the London Fire
Brigade is working and making a difference, this should be used
as a model by regional management boards for regional application
where that is appropriate. The ODPM should show some leadership
and use the national fire safety model and the Army recruitment
model to support this work.
(v) Integrated Personal Development System
Although we have some concern around
quality assurance we believe that this is again is an important
cog in the changing of the culture of the service. All the role
maps have a diversity element and no person may move on to a new
role until competence in diversity is demonstrated. This is a
positive development.
(vi) National Point of Entry Test
The new tests will support the agenda.
Any divergence from the national standard will have an adverse
impact. We support these role related tests however have concerns
that application may be diluted by stakeholders who do not apply
them as they are intended.
(vii) Core Values and the Diversity Case
The ODPM and CFOA have demonstrated
leadership in championing the need for theses and the model adopted
for the recently issued core values will be a good platform for
the development of the service case.
11. SUMMARY
Although there are many points of criticism
in the above—and justifiably so we believe—nonetheless
it is right to recognise that the FRS has made some significant
progress over recent years. For example, bullying and harassment
are now the exception rather than the norm and racist behaviour
is no longer openly tolerated. The changes of this kind are to
be welcomed and supported. There is now a clear opportunity to
move the agenda forward and the Committee's inquiry has the potential
to accelerate change. This will not happen, however, unless the
service moves to a "can do" approach to the equality
and diversity agenda backed up by a national strategy that commands
a consensus and integrates the contributions of all stakeholders
and contains a clear commitment to organisational change rather
than dithering over what to do.
There is much notable and good practice that
is not yet fully shared across the fire service and the FRS can
also learn from the examples of good practice existing in other
parts of the public sector. The appointment of an effective champion
of equality and diversity and the development of leaders capable
of bringing about root and branch change as well as sharing and
communicating of best practice are we think necessary conditions
of real change.
If the service was to take a strategic approach
under the areas set out above and an action plan was to be developed
with a clear audit and reporting line to ODPM and ministers, the
momentum on equality and diversity would increase and take the
issues from the periphery to the heart of the modernisation agenda,
and then the Fire and Rescue Service could become the beacon of
best practice that it aspires to but to which it cannot presently
lay claim.
29 See the CRE website www.cre.gov.uk for a guidance
tool. Back
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