Merseyside Fire & Rescue 'determined to listen and act' after damning report
It found examples of bullying and harassment among staff in every fire and rescue service in England
Merseyside's Fire and Rescue service say they're 'determined to listen and act' after a damning report found evidence of bullying, harassment and discrimination in services across England.
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) say staff spoke of racist, sexist and homophobic comments and behaviour that went unchallenged or dismissed as 'banter'.
They're warning this may only be the 'tip of the iceberg'.
A Merseyside Fire and Rescue spokesperson say they investigate all reports of poor behaviour and deal with them swiftly and appropriately.
"We have asked an independent organisation to review how we do that and, in the process, assess the equality of its application – because we care.
"We have developed strong staff networks that speak directly to the most senior managers in the organisation, enabling our staff to raise issues and suggest change. We have delivered equality, diversity and inclusion training to all our staff and key decision makers have explored how biases affect decisions through immersive training and a reverse mentoring programme – we work with teams to help them understand the communities they work in. We have a strong safeguarding culture and expect employment checks for all staff as standard.
"Equality impact assessments are carried out against all our policies, informing our plans to deliver our Service and we are also supporting staff to encourage them to see themselves as ‘guardians of our culture’ by being active bystanders and challenging unacceptable behaviour. We are convinced such an approach can be an effective way of preventing unacceptable behaviour happening and demonstrating the standards we hold so dear.
"We believe we have come a long way, but we know we still have more to do.
"Since last November we have reviewed the Independent Culture Review of London Fire Brigade in tandem with the report, An Inspection of vetting, misconduct, and misogyny within the Police and more recently the Casey Review that looked at the culture within the London Metropolitan Police. The Values and culture in fire and rescue services will form part of our comprehensive review of our own culture. These reports combined will in turn help us deliver a single integrated, clear and widely understood strategy for workforce culture and transformation which we are determined to deliver.
"The future direction for our culture work will now focus on embedding a series of culture principles and build on our inclusive approach for all diverse groups increasingly based on our data, insights and engagement outcomes.
"We are determined to listen and act. We are not immune to such behaviour; we know that and so we are definitive that if such behaviour is affecting our staff, or we are doing things that impact on them negatively based on organisationally embedded behaviours we want to hear about it. Our immediate intention is to introduce an independent confidential reporting line.
"We will also continue to access external help, working with experts and stakeholders to ensure we not only receive support but also critical external challenge to help on our journey towards continuous improvement.
"Our ambition remains clear; to transform our culture to one where we know all our staff feel a strong sense of belonging and our diversity becomes our superpower; this in turn will enable us to perform at our best.
"We are clear there is no place for racism, misogyny and homophobia in our Fire and Rescue Service."
The service's plan to introduce an 'independent confidential reporting line' follows the inspectorate's finding that staff were reluctant to speak up about, or challenge poor behaviour, as they felt doing so would affect their prospects, have adverse consequences for them or lead to a 'negative mark' against their name.
35 recommendations have been made in the report that focuses on evidence collected in inspections carried out since 2018.
His Majesty's Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services Roy Wilsher said:
"Our findings shine a light on deeply troubling bullying and harassment in fire and rescue services across the country - and I fear this could be just the tip of the iceberg.
"Firefighters can be called upon to do an incredibly difficult job. They should be able to trust each other implicitly, just as the public need to be able to trust them.
"Unfortunately, our findings show this is not always the case. Instead, we found trust and respect is too often replaced with derogatory, bullying behaviour, often excused as banter.
"Services told us about misconduct cases over the past 12 months. More than half of these concerned inappropriate behaviour, such as bullying and harassment, associated with a protected characteristic.
"This is shocking enough but I am not confident that this is even the whole picture.
"Despite the fact fire and rescue staff often have contact with the most vulnerable members of society, there is no legal obligation for services to run background checks and we found an inconsistent approach to this across the country," he said.
"We're calling for appropriate background checks on existing and new staff as a bare minimum.
"The majority of fire and rescue staff act with integrity and we are in no doubt of their dedication to the public.
"However, the shocking behaviour we uncovered makes it clear the sector cannot wait another day before it acts.
"We have made 35 recommendations and would urge chief fire officers, the Government and national fire bodies to implement them as a matter of urgency."
Mr Wilsher said specific fire services are not named in the report due to many examples of behaviour being reported to inspectors confidentially by staff.
Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said:
"It is welcome that His Majesty's Inspectorate is beginning to address these issues, and to acknowledge the scale of the problem.
"Our equalities sections have also raised concerns about these issues for many years.
"It is clear, both from our experience and from the contents of this report, that the failure to address discrimination and harassment in the service goes right to the top.
"Some Fire Service leaders are part of the problem, and have systematically failed to address discrimination, harassment and bullying in the service."