|
Shawcross, V. (2001) Fire safety first - Protecting diverse communities from fire: Address by Valerie Shawcross, Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) LGA Fire Conference - 28 March 2001, http://www.fitting-in.com/shawcross.htm |
Shawcross, V.
(2001) Fire safety first - Protecting diverse communities from fire: Address by
Valerie Shawcross, Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority
(LFEPA) LGA Fire Conference - 28 March 2001, http://www.fitting-in.com/shawcross.htm
Good
morning.
I am very
grateful to the LGA for this, my first chance to speak publicly about the fire
service since I took over the Chair of the new London Fire and Emergency
Planning Authority.
I would like to
share my own view of the service in our changing community- from the
perspective of a pair of relatively fresh eyes.
I want to
describe some of the ways that the LFEPA is striving to make London a safer
city.
Although I am new to the fire service, I
was previously the Leader of a large borough and I understand that much has
been said already on the subject of
safety and risk.
Risk represents all of the different ways people can come to harm
in going about their daily lives. At work, at play, at home and whilst
travelling, there are a variety of ways that people can come to grief.
We are one of the services that should prevent
people being harmed. In short, while I am proud to have become Chair of an
emergency service, I am really most enthused about the possibilities of
saving life by reducing danger in our risky metropolis.
The tasks of
firefighting and rescue are something that the officers of the service do with
real excellence. This is borne out by the richly deserved plaudits given after
major incidents and by the public satisfaction statistics we all enjoy.
Well that was
good in its time, but the future can be better if we embrace change and make
the most of the opportunities open to us.
It is now six years since ‘In The Line of Fire’ and despite much
rhetoric, tangible progress is still stuck in the pipeline.
Let’s pretend
for a moment that we are able to look down on
our cities and see the risks
people face. In our hands we hold a
large lump of public money which people are willing to pay in order for us to
keep them as safe as we can.
Given a
choice, how would the public advise
us to spend that money in their interests:
·
If people
knew they could be given some simple
information that could prevent them having a fire would they expect us to
provide it- or for us to wait for them to have the fire and then try to rescue
them?
·
Would the
public ask us to deploy our resources
to protect them as people, or on the basis of the buildings that they live and
work in?
·
If there
were a much greater chance of them, and their loved ones, having a heart attack
than suffering from a fire, should they expect the nearest local emergency
service to be properly equipped, trained and resourced to come to their aid?
Especially if seconds and minutes made an absolute life or death difference?
·
If there
was a danger of them being injured in a car crash, should they expect local
emergency services to be equipped
specifically to help them, and have a statutory duty to do so?
·
If they, or
their daughter or son, was from an
ethnic minority, or was gay , would they think that harassment or
social ostracism were acceptable
behaviours in a public service organisation,
Or would they expect that we
would value all our staff and make a welcome place for them in our service?
·
Should the
public expect the emergency services to be rigid and unchanging -or to be
flexible, proactive and responsive organisations?
·
Would they
want 58 Authority’s to have their own overheads, uniforms and procurement
programmes or would they expect us to co-operate together and find economies of
scale?
·
If economic
decline and social breakdown were causing more and more young people to commit
vandalism and arson would they expect a responsible public organisation to try
to engage with the community and help some young people?
·
Would the women taxpayers in our community look
askance at a service which strove officiously to deny women access to
firefighter jobs (and yet women cope
perfectly well in the army, the police, the ambulance service and nursing)
·
I ask
myself whether the lone yachtswoman - Ellen MacArthur -would have passed the
firefighter physical entry tests? –
Let’s get real!
·
Would they
expect to see a Service with no national training strategy or modern job
descriptions?
·
Would they
expect to find an inspectorate which issued inspection reports but offered at
best limited national guidance on key management issues.
·
·
Would they
expect to see a service labouring under 50 year old legislation?
I know these are
the major issues which have been discussed within the service for some time. So
what is it that stands in the way of making progress?
Well, on some
issues, almost nothing. The people in this room can change our emergency
services if we all take responsibility and concerted action..
We all came into
public service to serve people, that’s what a modern agenda for the fire
service is all about.
We all know
about moving the service to fully embrace an integrated risk management
approach. Whilst this will mean looking
again at the balance of resources dedicated to preventative work and response,
the bigger issue that needs addressing is that of realistic resourcing for this
new approach and the broader role for the fire service.
In a nut-shell
this means that resources must follow risk. We have heard many times that how
the service is funded needs a fundamental overhaul and I fully endorse
this.
One set of the
key risk factors in our communities are related to social and economic
deprivation. A proper risk based
approach must also give us access to the resources of other social partners and
Government agencies dealing with social deprivation. For example, we can contribute to the regeneration of communities
and so should be players in Local Strategic Partnerships and have access to
regeneration resources. Equally, we
will be dealing with environmental risks to people arising from climate change
and therefore the Environmental Agency should be supporting our work and the
role we have to play in mitigating risk.
The name of the
game is “mainstreaming”, and to do this properly we must put people and their
safety first.
Who are the
“people” we are serving and educating? Do we understand them and what they
believe in? If we are really serious about reducing the risks that the public
face through this risk based approach, then we need to be much more engaged in
our communities. Members of our communities must also have a place in our
organisation.
We must
understand the communities we serve better, and the only way to do that is to
get out and mix with them. Our success as a service over the years in making
offices and shops safer through fire safety enforcement has to be mirrored now
in people’s homes. But we need a whole
new set of skills and approaches to achieve this.
The crime of
arson is an excellent example of this.
Arson causes an almost incalculable amount of pain and suffering in most
communities. Schools are lost, 80 per
year in London are attacked or severely
disrupted.
To tackle arson
properly we need to work together to make sure schools are properly built and
run with arson in mind.
Many arsonists
are young and delinquent. I have seen in the last couple of weeks excellent examples in Tyne and Wear and West Yorkshire of the fire service
working with YOTs and
probationary services to re-educate and rehabilitate offenders.
These kind of
initiatives are the way we can, as a service, forge real links with our
communities and combine this with achieving our objectives.
Looking more
broadly at Community Fire Safety, we need to
understand what different communities want from us and how best to
deliver our services to them. The days of a “one size fits all” approach are
long gone. We must tailor what we do to
meet the diverse needs of different communities. Indeed many of the people most at risk from fire are in groups that
can be difficult to reach - the elderly, certain minority ethnic communities,
and low income households.
We need, even,
to be equipped and trained to deal with
the needs of disabled people. How do your firefighters cope with communicating
with the deaf victim of an arson
attack?
The communities
we serve, and the expectations of those communities have also changed. I firmly believe that if we are to work with
London’s diverse communities and get our fire safety message across, our
workforce needs to reflect the communities it serves.
Understanding
what makes people tick, how people live their lives, speaking their language,
understanding their customs and traditions, and knowing how to influence them
to change behaviour - is key to the success of community fire safety.
As our
understanding of community fire safety has developed over recent years, I’m
sure all of us have come to recognise the importance of basing our campaigns
and activities on properly researched information. We need to understand who is
most at risk and where they live. This approach means that we must target our
resources at those most threatened and to do this we have to try different
methods.
Here is an
example of a TV advert aimed at the Bangladeshi community.
We targeted the
Bangladeshi community specifically as our data told us three things
·
smoke alarm
ownership was significantly lower than the London average.
·
the number
of fires in the community is high and
·
using
traditional fire safety methods to reach this community were not working as
successfully as elsewhere particularly for the women and older people who may
not speak English as a first language.
By using a
combined approach of different media, local station-based CFS initiatives and
the involvement of other partners, such as local authorities, health
authorities and voluntary agencies, I am confident that we will reach and
influence the people we specifically target.
I believe we will achieve much more if our
staff actually come from, and relate to, those communities.
Despite efforts
over many years to recruit from the whole community, the fire service in London
has recruited mainly white men and – not surprisingly – we are still a popular
career choice for this group. Other communities in London don’t have a traditional link with the fire service and
most of them don’t see the fire service as a career choice. If we don’t develop
links with these people our trainee applicants would continue to be white men.
To get where we
need to be means our new intake of firefighters must contain a predominance of
ethnic minority and women candidates. Current legislation does not permit
"counteracting" discrimination. If our trainee courses
disproportionately contain black, ethnic minorities and women in the right
quantities to achieve the targets then we may lose a legal challenge under the
law by an aggrieved and
unsuccessful white male applicant.
I believe that
it is unfair to discriminate against one group of people for many years, even
if unintentionally, and then say that it is open to legal challenge when
sensible steps are taken to redress the imbalance. We could end up with a position
where we are facing legal challenge by a white man for discrimination whilst we
still have a workforce which is still almost entirely made up of white men!
This is perverse and I call upon my parliamentary colleagues to expedite changes in legislation as has
been achieved in other European countries to help us to achieve our goals.
We have recently
looked in some detail at how people make their career choice in London and the
impact this has on our recruitment efforts. We looked at the different communities
within London and, specifically, at our recruitment target groups so we could
understand how people see London’s fire service and what stops them from
wanting to join us.
·
Our
community outreach and development work must be based on well developed understanding
of the communities we want to target.
·
All stages
of selection process are reviewed by, amongst other things, spot checks to ensure quality and fairness
·
We must
explore the possibility of running a “preparation school” or access courses for those in the target
groups so that when they come to apply to be firefighters they are well
prepared.
·
We need to
improve facilities at our fire stations - particularly for women.
·
We need to
make the culture of our fire stations healthier and more welcoming for women
and ethnic minorities.
Firefighters
have hidden behind the big red doors for too long and our traditional, rather
one dimensional, engagement with the community at incidents must change. Community fire safety means that we must mix
with those we are here to serve and change the culture on stations. I must emphasise here that this is not a
criticism of our firefighters; this lack of proper engagement stems more from
the limiting framework that the fire service has fostered over the years.
We have recently
agreed a 30 point strategy to overhaul the way we recruit. This new strategy
includes;
·
the need to
change the way the public see the role of the firefighter,
·
the
national changes required to support the different role of the firefighter and
·
the
different recruitment efforts that will enable us to target people on a
community by community basis.
We believe that key changes at national level are needed to
support achievement of the recruitment and retention targets. These include
·
an immediate
review of the “Qualified Fireman’s Job Description”
·
substantial
amendment or abolition of the appointment and promotions regulations - If we need someone to be able to speak
Gujerati at a particular station then shouldn’t this skill be seen as a highly
desirable “extra” and be weighted accordingly during selection?
·
early
completion of the work the Home Office are doing on the physical entry
requirements
Our need for a
more diverse workforce to support our fire safety work in the community is undisputed.
I believe the success of our community safety activities and how well we
are able to protect communities from fire will be directly measured by the
diversity of our workforce.
The fire service
is perhaps a unique failure when it comes to equalities among public sector
organisations. Where others have
achieved diversity, fire brigades remain bastions of white men and in some
areas have an hierarchical,
introverted, militaristic
culture - which even today’s army would think illiberal.
This has to
change for the benefit of the whole community.
One of the major
issues which has affected me since I have taken this position has been
organisational culture of the fire service. I have visited a number of fire
stations both in London and up and down the country thanks to the support of a
number of other fire authorities. I have seen a wide variety of attitudes and
behaviour. In some cases, I have been personally very uncomfortable whilst
visiting stations. I have on occasion observed disaffected, somewhat childish
behaviour, with middle aged men giggling together like teenagers at the back of
a class. I found myself feeling uncomfortable and excluded. I got a brief
glimpse of what it must be like for a young woman firefighter coming new to
that team
I have been
shocked that a few firefighters who are
physically trained and who take responsibility for decisions and actions to
save human life in emergencies - will shy away from social contact and
educational activity in the community -which will equally save life!
I have also been
to stations, like ones I saw in West Midlands, where I have seen real community
understanding and a sincere will to reduce death and injury. Enthusiasm,
maturity and commitment was evident. There was a real sense of pride and achievement
which the team really wanted to share with me.
In the first
cases the staff were managed within a rigid controlling hierarchy with
activities prescribed for them to do. Certain hours of the day were allocated
to various activities and they were “supervised” by officers who wanted to
constrain them to a rigid framework.
In the latter
cases staff had been given autonomy and responsibility. They had been granted
relative freedom to identify priorities and achieve outcomes and
a chance to be creative and develop their communication skills.
If we want to
bring about the kind of culture we need to pursue community fire safety. I
think we have to really lead the service in a new way. I know this was the core
recommendation of the thematic review of Equality and Fairness and I think it
is spot on target.
We also need a
statutory basis for this new service; one which partners will recognise and
that gives us a clearer platform to work with them.
This statutory
basis needs to enable us to tap into other funding streams that are more than
ever before, available to support initiatives that promote the development of
the communities we serve. These funds
must augment our existing resources to support this new role and our working
with others.
Working with each
other is one major area where I think we could all improve, with firefighters
themselves and with other organisations in the community.
Much has been
said in the past of the need to work with local authorities, the police and
other agencies and groups who can help us reach our target groups. Community fire safety, the Crime and
Disorder Act and the new focus on arson reduction give us even more reason to
get involved and work with others.
To support
partnership working in London we are re-organising ourselves around the London
borough structure; the Metropolitan Police have been moving to this structure
over the last few years so it would help to encourage greater partnership
working.
We must be
willing to engage in a two-way process, we may be asked to do things for other
agencies and we must be prepared to be less insular in order to do this. Just
as our work with local communities is focussed around getting out of the fire
station and into the neighbourhood, so we must be willing to meet people on their
own terms and engage into the agenda they have, be it regeneration or community
development.
Fire is often on
the periphery of others agenda’s.
The LGA can
surely play a part in making sure local authorities, housing associations,
police authorities and others are aware of us, understand our needs and are
aware of how fire can impact on their agendas.
The Fire Service
has to change - it seems to me that we are living on borrowed time. But there
is nothing to fear from these changes for firefighters, professional staff or
members.
The changes we
need to make are wholly positive, exciting, and will lead us to better serve
our people and to save more, many more lives.
The choices are yours!