Fire Brigade Leaders to Step Up

[Ian Mathew]

Why is it during this extremely busy period within the Brigades, that not one Commissioner or Chief Officer if they still exist, have taken the opportunity to demand more funding, more fire engines and more firefighters. 

Are they all now just political puppets tells the public that “they” are coping to please the Government?

[Aspire]

They have, just yesterday I was reading a telling thread from Chris Blacksell, Chief of a Brigade up North that was clearly endorsed by an ACFO from Herts. It gave a great insight into FF pay and his thoughts.

Our Commissioner (LFB) has also called for a pay rise more than once.

I’m sure there must be more, thats just off the top of my head in the last couple of days.

[Matt]

Too many won't speak out, in fear of the back lash from the political lot in my opinion.

Chris (Humberside) is retiring in the next month or so, plus hes already retired took his lump sum and returned as Chief Exec but this time time is up, got nothing to loose if you get where I am coming from.

I did see comment from Justin Johnson (Lancs) around the time Chris posted but not seen many of the others speak up.

Totally agree its perfect time.

[Rory-495]

I mean... our commissioner wrote in a newspaper that his daughter would be bullied if she joined LFB and made most of the firefighters feel unsupported. He has also made the LFB promotion round all about his transformational delivery plan and not really about being a leader or officer. I would be genuinely surprised if he did anything to rock the boat and demand better for us. But he won't even acknowledge that we have a staffing crisis!

[Aspire]

4 hours ago, Rory-495 said:

He has also made the LFB promotion round all about his transformational delivery plan and not really about being a leader or officer.

At the risk of departing from the theme of the thread, i’d suggest the 2 are inextricably linked!?

4 hours ago, Rory-495 said:

our commissioner wrote in a newspaper that his daughter would be bullied if she joined LFB and made most of the firefighters feel unsupported.

He could/should have delivered the sentiment of this in a totally different way but what he was actually trying to express is a real issue. I had a discussion with some crew’s on station last week about that very comment and they fuming, understandably so. Given the chance to delve a little deeper behind the statement, they understood the issues we face. The problem is that stations just get the headlines and not enough people take the time out to do the detail with you, we must do better, or transform!!!

[Bgjm21]

5 hours ago, Rory-495 said:

I would be genuinely surprised if he did anything to rock the boat and demand better for us. But he won't even acknowledge that we have a staffing crisis!

This is the worst of it all, as with most uk brigades a focus on transformation and writing in news paper about diversity equality and all we do wrong, whilst much more pressing and important issues such as appliance staffing fall by the wayside. Shameful state. This is the same brigade that recently ran out of appliances or very nearly did? And that’s what he’s talking to the press about. Doesn’t inspire much confidence. Perhaps he’s afraid if he doesn’t follow script he will be pushed out as his predecessor was?

Senior officers on the news touting about how brigades up and down the uk coped when assistance messages went unanswered and attendance times were quadruple what they should be as folk were forced to watch containable fires spread into their homes. Now once again we now have senior officers feathering political nests and masking the huge cuts we’ve all faced. Incredibly poor as usual and entirely unsurprising, lions led by donkeys. 

And also before anyone says… I’m not saying that equality and diversity has no place, it is undeniably important that we are a level playing field for all and that anyone who is capable should have equal opportunity and treatment, but when things are as dire as they are it seems a bizarre head in the sand style focus.

 

[Aspire]

12 minutes ago, Bgjm21 said:

And also before anyone says… I’m not saying that equality and diversity has no place, it is undeniably important that we are a level playing field for all and that anyone who is capable should have equal opportunity and treatment, but when things are as dire as they are it seems a bizarre head in the sand style focus.

That you had to say this probably tells you that it reads that way, although glad you recognised it. D&I is hugely important as to how we better protect communities, but again, I think most Brigades do a terrible job on really explaining why.

It just translates/manifests as ‘represent the community we serve’ come ‘don’t employ white male’, which is not the case.

Its not a race to the bottom, both topics should be able to be spoken about not being good enough. The newspaper comment was long before LFB ran out of machines.

[Bgjm21]

It very much seems to be a race to the bottom though. Chief fire officers are regularly heard critiquing watch based culture, equality (or lack there of), etc both internally and externally to the press. However it is exceedingly rare to have the same level of dialogue when it comes down to appliance numbers and staffing shortages. I think what irritates a lot of folk, myself included is how unbalanced focus seems to be. You and I are both in agreement, diversity is important for a range of reasons but more important than sufficient fire cover? Of course it isn’t. Yet which of the two does the fire service senior management nationally seem to spend its political capital and time focusing on. 
 

As the topic says it’s time for officers to step up in my opinion. Yes spend time on inclusion etc but it’s long past the point that the same time and effort was also thrown towards ensuring we have a fire service that is capable of doing its most basic level of response, something that nationally has been found wanting.

[Aspire]

I get your frustrations and respect your points 👍🏾

[Rory-495]

Honestly, the transformation plan goes over my head. I grafted all through development, went straight on my level 1, did my LGV and prepped for EFAD and eventual promotion. Gave it all up and now leaving the LFB as they block practically every new idea or issue that's raised by firefighters who actually do the job. Friends who went for the LFF round (I couldn't apply as I was detached to babcock as I couldn't leave my station) were told that while they did very well on the incident command side of the job (surely the most important bit as a FIRE brigade) as they were not showing enough competence in the transformation plan they didn't get promoted. 

Now, I'm not blowing my own trumpet, but I can study hard and understand most FRS gibberish, but reading the transformation plan and reading "the plan" for WMFS was like 2 different languages. One was clear, concise and informative, one came across as corporate gibberish. 

I hate to say it bit 4 years in and aged 28 I was tempted to leave the fire brigade because of my experiences in LFB. I'd say Andy Roe and senior management was a major contributor. I know of a few FF who have left on development also. So I wasn't surprised that nothing was said about the issues we are facing

[Bgjm21]

I’m in not a huge amount longer than you @Rory-495, in a completely different brigade and unfortunately considering the same, fire service is just broken just now. The great bits of the job (actually going out the doors) are currently so outweighed by everything else that’s happening. Really disappointed to even be considering it.

[Kinmel]

14 hours ago, Rory-495 said:

Friends who went for the LFF round were told that while they did very well on the incident command side of the job (surely the most important bit as a FIRE brigade) as they were not showing enough competence in the transformation plan they didn't get promoted. 

North Wales led the way at adding promotion criteria,  "Corporate Awareness" is their hurdle designed to prevent substantive promotions at every rank. They cannot leave the posts empty, so they give long term temporary promotions instead.

To quote the FBU... "More than 50% of the service’s operational managers are in temporary roles, despite having satisfied national competencies – some for up to four years and up to three grades higher than their permanently contracted jobs."