Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service: Cause of concern revisit letter
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Letter information
From
Lee Freeman KPM
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services
To
Mark Baxter
Chief Fire Officer
Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service
Sent on
12 September 2024
Background
Between May and June 2023, we inspected Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service. During our inspection, we identified that the following cause of concern hadn’t been fully addressed and made the accompanying recommendations.
Cause of concern
Since our last inspection, the service has made enough improvement to address two of our previous recommendations. But it still needs to improve equality, diversity and inclusion. The following recommendations remain in place.
Recommendations
Within 28 days, the service should resubmit an action plan that details how it intends to:
- improve how it works with its staff and provides feedback in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion issues;
- improve the understanding and use of equality impact assessments in all aspects of its work and consider if its policies and procedures are inclusive and support those with protected characteristics; and
- make sure that there is a programme of positive action to support its recruitment.
On 2 January 2024, you submitted an action plan setting out how you would address the areas of concern and our recommendations.
Between 29 July and 2 August 2024, we carried out a revisit to review progress against the action plan. During the revisit, we interviewed staff who were responsible for developing this plan, including you as chief fire officer. We also interviewed managers and staff with responsibility for equality, diversity and inclusion, together with colleagues from their teams. This letter provides an update on our findings.
Governance
We found appropriate and robust governance arrangements in place to monitor progress of your action plan.
The cause of concern and areas for improvement are recorded and monitored in the service improvement plan. This is reported on and reviewed each month at the strategic leadership meeting. Progress against actions is also reported on at the performance board.
Action plan
The service has an action plan that covers the cause of concern. The service’s separate inspection improvement plan identifies senior officers responsible for each of the recommendations, with deadlines and staff assigned to each task. The inspection improvement plan includes updates on the progress of the actions made against the cause of concern and the associated recommendations.
The service is also monitoring its progress against areas for improvement identified in our last inspection. The service should continue to do this to make sure improvements aren’t made in isolation and are inclusive of the wider service.
Progress against cause of concern
Equality, diversity and inclusion
The service has made good progress against the remaining recommendations associated with the cause of concern.
Communication
The service has significantly improved how it communicates with all staff in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion issues. It has introduced weekly newsletters, an open and transparent question and answer platform, and confidential reporting systems. These changes have improved the way the service communicates with its staff. It has also put in place a clear process for staff to tell senior leaders about issues relating to equality, diversity and inclusion.
Equality impact assessments
Since our last inspection, the service has improved how it carries out equality impact assessments. It has provided a range of training to all staff involved in writing and reviewing equality impact assessments.
It has used external experts to provide support and guidance to the service and its staff when carrying out equality impact assessments. This has increased both the quality and understanding of assessments.
We found that the service is now working with staff network groups to support the equality assessment process. The assessments we reviewed were of a high quality with a robust quality assurance process in place.
Recruitment
We found that the service has made several significant changes to its recruitment team. It has brought in staff from outside the fire sector with recruitment expertise. This will enhance the team’s capability and support its positive action recruitment programme.
The service has been proactive about communicating the benefits of positive action to improve staff understanding.
The service has run positive action events and has been successful in increasing the number of women attending. We found that there has been an increase in the number of women successfully progressing through the firefighter recruitment process.
But we have found that the service has been less successful with positive action for other protected characteristics, such as ethnicity and sexual orientation. More work is needed in this area.
The service is aware of this and has told us it will continue to increase its work with all underrepresented groups within Lincolnshire.
We will continue to monitor the service’s progress in this area in the coming months. And we will also review this progress as part of our next inspection.
Conclusion
We were pleased to see the significant steps the service has taken in response to the cause of concern we issued.
We recognise the considerable work that the service has carried out to support these improvements. As a result, we now consider this cause of concern to be discharged.
We will continue to monitor the service’s progress as part of our next scheduled inspection of Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service. We look forward to seeing further improvements in those areas identified above that require further work.
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Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service: Cause of concern revisit letter