South Wales Fire and Rescue Service win prestigious public relations award

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (SWFRS) is celebrating today after winning the prestigious Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Public Sector Excellence Award at the CIPR awards evening dinner, held last night in London.

The Service came first in the Public Service category, receiving the award for the highly successful ‘Project Bernie’ initiative.  CIPR Excellence Awards are known as the most credible in the PR profession. “In the face of fierce competition, budget reductions and the social shift in communications, winning an Excellence Award is the ultimate measure of your (the Service) professional success”.
 
‘Project Bernie’ is a SWFRS and partnership initiative that aims to tackle and stop deliberate grass and mountain fires over the Easter Holiday period, in the valleys of South Wales. Using a cartoon sheep (Bernie) as the project logo and ‘grass is green, fire is mean’ as the project strapline the engagement project has been tailored for the communities that historically suffer from a high amount of deliberate grass and mountain fires.  The initiative uses new social marketing techniques in education, enforcement, operational tactics, and training along with partnership working to ‘change behaviour’ - in this case reduce deliberate grass and mountain fires.

CIPR said of Project Bernie “This was a brilliant submission! This campaign tackled a deep rooted, locally accepted crime that of young people setting fire to grass in the valleys of South Wales. In partnership with the University of Cardiff and Alexander Consultants, South Wales Fire & Rescue service, researched, planned and combined extraordinary creativity with academic rigor to achieve outstanding results. This has set a new standard in behavior change campaigns”.

Andy Marles, Chief Fire Officer, SWFRS and Chairman, South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority, Cllr Anthony Ernest said ; “The issue of deliberately set grass and mountain fires is a deep rooted and often culturally accepted problem in the valleys of South Wales.  The Easter holiday period traditionally sees the number of deliberately set grass and mountain soar and results in South Wales’ fire crews being stretched to breaking point. However, these fires are not victimless crimes, deliberately set grass fires are extremely unpredictable and can spiral out of control within minutes and can divert our Firefighters from attending a real emergency – someone trapped in a house fire or a crashed car, where there is a potential life risk”.

“We are therefore extremely proud that the hard work and planning that has gone into delivering the activities of ‘Project Bernie’, as well as the creative PR, design and communication foundations behind the highly successful initiative has been recognised and awarded by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations”.  Winning this CIPR's Public Sector Excellence Award is a prestigious endorsement that will give the whole Service an incredible morale boost and demonstrates just how valuable our internal PR, design and communications work and community safety initiatives and activities is. All those involved in the project, including all of our partners should be very proud of what they have achieved”. 

Cllr Anthony Ernest continued; “To win this award in such a competitive category makes it even more admirable.  Operation Bernie has galvanised many public organisations into working co-operatively with SWFRS, and the achievements attained are evident in the statistics achieved. Public awareness of Wildfires is now at its highest level ever, and this excellent campaign has contributed to this in a number of innovative ways”.

Martin Henderson, Head of Risk Reduction SWFRS and Dave Ansell, Social Marketing Project Manager SWFRS said; “We are extremely pleased that ‘Project Bernie’ has been recognised in this way by such a credible and professional body”. 

“The Bernie project represents the preventative community safety strand of our work. It important to note that the new operational tactics, equipment and resources were used to full effect and prevented escalation and fire spread in many instances.  Tackling the issue of deliberate grass and mountain fires is therefore now just as much about prevention, education and enforcement as it is about new operational equipment and tactics – it is by recognising and adopting this principle, and through the continued hard work of our partners and staff that has lead to the success of ‘Project Bernie’ ”. 

“The Services combined Wildfire Strategy is starting to bear fruit and to receive external recognition for the efforts of South Wales Fire Rescue staff is a great accolade – and we’ll pause for a moment to note that, but the work goes on”.

You can find out more information on ‘Bernie Project’ by visiting www.bernie.uk.com and show your support by becoming a friend of Bernie on Facebook (Search Bernie South Wales http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000809563220), and adopt the pledge “I am helping and supporting Bernie in reducing deliberate grass fires across Wales” and you can now also follow Bernie on Twitter!