Branch Secretary Dan Sartin spoke to councillors about the council’s poor statutory inspection of its Fire & Rescue Service, focusing on how a number of corporate issues were causing problems for all WSCC services.
The Fire & Rescue Service has been rated as ‘requires improvement’ in 2 of 3 key areas (‘Effectiveness’ and ‘Efficiency’), and as ‘inadequate’ in the third – ‘People’.
Dan spoke for 5-6 minutes about how corporate issues which arise outside of the FRS department are impacting not just on FRS but on all council services. The HMI (statutory) Inspection picked up on the following themes which Dan expanded on:
- Failure to listen by the employer
- Staff disconnect with the council’s values and culture
- Problems with equalities and the employer’s approach to this
- Bullying
- Appraisals
Dan also spoke about:
- U-turns on cuts to prevention services
- Excessive cuts and under-valuing of admin support
Watch Dan’s 5-minute presentation here.