Fire service wants more women and ethnic minorities in workforce shake-up

Staffordshire's top firefighter says his service will increase efforts to recruit women and people from ethnic minorities - after concerns were raised over staff diversity. Just 5.5 per cent of Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service's (SFRS) firefighters were from an ethnic minority in 2022/23, while only 8.5 per cent were women.

Across its whole workforce, 5.1 per cent were from an ethnic minority background, compared to 12.1 per cent in the local population. This issue was one of a small number of concerns raised during an otherwise very positive inspection of the service, carried out earlier this year.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said that while SFRS was improving how it dealt with 'disproportionality' in recruitment, it still had to do more 'to increase staff diversity'. Chief fire officer Rob Barber was quizzed on the service's efforts to tackle this issue during Staffordshire Commissioner Ben Adams' latest public performance meeting

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He explained how SFRS was now working closely with Staffordshire Police with a shared equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) team, saying that the police force was doing 'far better' in terms of the diversity of its workforce.

Mr Barber said: "In the report there are a small number of ideas to progress us even further forward, to move us from adequate to good. One of those areas is around equality, diversity and inclusion, and making sure that everyone within the workforce understands the positive nature of having a good EDI culture throughout organisation.

"It's not just about having equality impact assessments, it's not just about doing positive action activities. It's about making sure the organisation is inclusive as it can be, where everyone recognises that we all have different perspectives, different backgrounds, and looks at how we can bringing that all together gives you a good reflection of society as a whole.

"I do think the sector, nationally, is very male-dominated, and we need to make sure that changes. We're doing a lot of work with community engagement on how we can encourage people to join the fire and rescue sector as a career. Very often the community just see it with a narrow focus and think you have to be a firefighter, but there are far more roles within the service than that."

But Mr Barber also criticised the inspectorate for focusing on the diversity of the operational workforce, as opposed to the organisation as a whole. He said: "Everybody plays their part in making Staffordshire the safest place to be, whether you're the cleaner or the chief fire officer, you're still playing your part in terms of that organisational machinery. So I think we need to educate the inspectorate about just looking at the operational side of things."

The inspectors' report, published in September, included gradings in 11 different areas. SFRS was rated as 'outstanding' for the way it responds to major incidents, 'good' in six other areas, and 'adequate' in four more. In relation to major incidents, the inspectors said SFRS has 'effectively anticipated and considered the reasonably foreseeable risks and threats it may face'.

Mr Adams congratulated Mr Barber and his workforce on the positive report, as well as welcoming the approach to tackling the diversity issue.

He said: "There aren't going to be many inspections better than this one this year, or for some time to come, because the process is getting more difficult. To see progress in almost every area, with the outstanding rating and most other areas coming under good, really is tremendous. So a big thank you to all the firefighters, staff and volunteers."