In July 2023 NFCC published the Culture Action Plan. The plan was produced following an NFCC Fire and Rescue partnership culture summit held in March 2023, where all UK fire and rescue services (FRSs) and wider partners, including Government, the representative bodies, unions, networking groups and other key partners, came together to discuss the key challenges and concerns in relation to culture and inclusion in FRSs and identify actions to address them.

Prior to the conference, we had already been working through our People, Culture and Leadership Co-ordinating Committee to deliver a wide-ranging programme of change to develop people and leadership and improve culture across FRSs. However, following the Independent Culture Review of London Fire Brigade, the sector recognised that much more was needed to deliver the step change needed to transform FRSs to be open, inclusive and welcoming places to work. As a result, Mark Hardingham, Chair of NFCC, made a public commitment that culture would be our top priority. We then published an Organisational Culture Statement and, following the partnership summit, developed and published the NFCC Culture Action Plan.

We have kept the plan under review throughout the last year and, as a result of feedback from our independent challenge and support panel and wider partners, have included an additional workstream on Lived Experience.

While NFCC has no mandate to insist that fire and rescue services carry out specific actions, the adoption of NFCC tools and guidance is often noted by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) as evidence of the implementation of positive practice.

This report provides an end-of-year progress update on the plan and sets out next steps. A further update will take place following the next NFCC Culture Conference in July. This will include proposed areas for action for the next phase of work.

When we published the NFCC Organisational Culture Statement in July last year, it included the intent that…

everyone deserves to work in safe environments that are free from bullying, harassment and discrimination, abuse and harm, where they feel supported, welcome and able to thrive. This, in turn, enables us to support fire and rescue services to provide the best possible service to the public – services that are inclusive, professional and inspire confidence and trust.

I am really pleased that positive progress has been made in delivering against the NFCC Culture Action Plan and want to acknowledge the hard work, focus and commitment made by UK FRSs and partners over the past year. But I would also want to recognise that – in terms of delivering the transformation set out in our culture statement, as a sector we still have a significant way to go. Too many people are still being let down and too often we are hearing that change is not happening fast enough or consistently enough. The year one review of our Culture Action Plan is an important opportunity for us all to take stock, review the progress made and – most importantly – to identify what more is needed to deliver the step change we are all committed to.

This report nevertheless shows that real progress has and is being made in delivering against the Culture Action Plan that NFCC developed jointly with national partners and fire and rescue services last year. We have rightly put significant resource into delivering the plan and have re-structured our NFCC team to ensure it has the priority focus it needs to further develop and embed the work underway. We have worked closely with leads in fire and rescue services to ensure we develop products that will have a positive impact in their services and, where needed, to tackle unacceptable behaviour to provide an inclusive workplace environment free from abuse and harm.

Alongside delivering against the plan, we have attended and given evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Senedd’s Equality and Social Justice Committee as part of their scrutiny of the culture of fire and rescue services. We have worked closely with HMICFRS to support their ongoing inspections, including the thematic inspection of misconduct expected to be published soon. We have worked with government to support the reforms set out in the White Paper including work around the Code of Ethics, Fire Standards, safeguarding and wider culture and inclusion developments. We have worked with the national employers and trade unions through the Inclusive Fire Service Group and have engaged with other organisations who are responding to similar cultural challenges to share our learning. And we continue to work with our Independent Expert Advisory Panel who have been outstanding in providing us with the perspectives of their challenge and support that helps us to ensure we deliver on our collective intent.

Culture has been described as ‘an ocean fed by many rivers’. In the fire service context this means the causes, both positive and negative, are wide-ranging and, consequently, changing culture will take time. Whilst improvements are happening across the fire and rescue service, the experience of some who work in the sector still falls short of anyone’s expectations that all fire and rescue services must be safe, inclusive places for people to work. We continue to see independent reports into individual fire and rescue services that have provided a place where the voice of those who work in fire and rescue services is amplified and has laid bare disturbing examples of unacceptable behaviour.

Looking forward it is important that all those organisations with responsibility for fire and rescue services work together to deliver improvement. We should not seek to blame one another, as doing so will only let down those who most need the culture to improve, and who expect and demand for us to work together. Leaders across all parts of the sector own the responsibility for the culture in fire and rescue services and the same responsibility for making it better.

In 2022, as I approached the end of my first term as Chair of NFCC, I set out my vision for the fire and rescue service in the years ahead, and said…

this is a time for leaders to be learners – to learn by listening to the experiences of others, to learn by not having all the answers, to learn by not pretending this will be easy, to learn by being prepared to be vulnerable and to learn by being prepared to use the influence and leverage of leadership to create a better future.

This remains true and while poor behaviour is being challenged more than ever before, leaders in the sector need to do more to ensure that it stops – and stops now.

In closing, thank you to all those who have played their part in the hard work of the last twelve months. This will continue as we deliver on our collective commitments. We want to ensure the fire and rescue service, and all those who work within, remain proud of delivering an excellent public service that retains the trust and confidence of the communities we are all here to serve.

To ensure external oversight and scrutiny of the plan and its wider work around Culture and Inclusion, we established an independent Challenge and Support panel. The panel provides external challenge, advice, and support to the NFCC on its work around culture and inclusion. It is chaired by Anthea Sully, CEO of White Ribbon. Other panel members are:

• Sal Naseem – Former Director at IOPC; advisor and consultant on DEI; Assistant Director, Birmingham Council
• Sue Fish – Former Chief Constable Nottinghamshire Police; consultant on diversity, inclusion, transformation
• Baljit Ubhey – Director of Policy and Strategy, Crown Prosecution Service
• Professor Katrin Hohl – University of London, Prof of criminal justice and criminology
• Alex Johnson – Retired Chief Fire Officer; Vice chair, Women in the Fire Service
• Eimear Meredith-Jones – Deloitte partner; EDI lead

Their focus has been on key areas including:

• Voice of the victim / lived experience: Discussions on how NFCC can listen to and include the voices of victims / lived experience in our work, and support FRSs to do the same. This has led to the development of a new workstream (details in section 5 below).
• Leadership – including the importance of challenging ourselves; bringing in external voices / thinking; being ready to disrupt current ways of doing things to bring about transformation.
• Learning from other sectors: Including learning from NHS; policing; charitable sector etc.
• Providing feedback and advice on key products coming out of the Culture Action Plan.
• What research / evidence tells us – including learning from work around violence against women and girls.

The panel will continue to meet bi-monthly. It is an 18-month panel and will close at the end of 2024 at which point they will produce and publish a final report summarising their work and any further recommendations.

In addition, progress against the plan is reported into:

• Quarterly meetings of the NFCC Trustees (the independent Chair of the Trustees is Nick Ross CBE) and NFCC Council.
• Review meetings with the Home Office.
• Progress update reports into the LGA Fire Services Management Committee.
• Regular updates to Chief Fire Officers and NFCC members.

We recognise that there is still a significant amount of work needed to transform the culture of fire and rescue services. Recent culture reviews and HMICFRS reports are showing that the pace of change is not fast enough and too many people are still being let down. That said, we are also seeing areas of strong culture performance and other progress being made. London Fire Brigade has made positive progress with their culture transformation plan which was recognised by HMICFRS as they were recently taken out of the HMICFRS ‘engage’ process due to the positive progress being made. Other FRSs have received positive outcomes in inspections in relation to values and culture i.e. Greater Manchester, Kent, Lancashire, Merseyside and others as inspections continue.

In addition, building on our current People, Culture and Leadership programme, and drawing learning from wider sectors, we are establishing a dedicated People, Culture and Leadership Hub within NFCC to drive forward this work into the medium and longer term.

We also recognise that culture transformation can only be delivered in partnership, working alongside key partners such as the National Employers, LGA, Home Office, staff representative bodies, trade unions etc. NFCC also continues to be a member of the independently chaired Inclusive Fire Service Group, where we work together to take forward a wider programme of work.

The Culture and Inclusion Conference takes place on 15th and 16th July in Birmingham and will focus on progress made against the NFCC Culture Action Plan, wider sector developments and reflections over the past year. This is an NFCC-led, sector-wide event focusing on continuing the journey to enabling a truly inclusive UK Fire and Rescue Service.  We would like every UK fire service to be represented at the conference, alongside key external partners and encourage attendance from senior leaders, EDI/culture leads and FRS colleagues who can bring different perspectives and thinking about Culture and Inclusion to the conference.

Confirmed speakers include the Fire Minister; Anthea Sully – CEO of White Ribbon and Chair of our Independent Challenge and Support Panel; HMICFRS who will update on The State of Fire report, misconduct thematic inspections, and spotlight recommendations progress; Day two will be Siobhan Melia, Chief Executive of the South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, who will focus on learning from the sector.

Further information on the conference and the full programme of speakers will be released soon and booking details will be available on the NFCC website.