This morning, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) shared their report into the findings of an inspection they carried out of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service in November 2024.
When the Commissioners joined the service, they requested an independent holistic inspection of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service by HMICFRS to identify areas for improvement. This is the first time this has been done in Wales, and used the HMICFRS inspection regime applied elsewhere in the UK.
We’re listening, learning, and seeking to lead the way in fire and rescue service transformation of cultures, and we are committed to delivering exceptional service while transforming internally to reflect our values of inclusivity, transparency, and accountability.
Addressing colleagues yesterday, Fin Monahan, Chief Fire Officer said, “The report is a hard read. The main areas for us to improve in the report are understanding the risk of fire and other emergencies and protecting the public through fire regulations.”
“We appreciate the feedback from colleagues that informed the report, and we thank the inspection team for the independent clarity they have given across 11 areas covering efficiency, effectiveness and people.”
“I welcome this report, this is the first time we have been exposed to this deep inspection regime. Let’s remember a lot of time has elapsed since the inspection. It began before my arrival and concluded during my second week in the Service; it is a snapshot in time from six months ago. Much has changed since then.”
“I would like to reassure you. We have a robust plan for dealing with these recommendations in the form of our overarching strategy, which is a first for this service. It has 60 work strands and now guides the strategic plan and all other activities in this Service. We have already moved out on much of this work.”
Some examples include:
- The most important action is that we have already started, and are three months into, delivering a service wide community risk management plan (CRMP), which is vastly different to a station level CRMP. This will be examining all the service wide risks to the community and firefighters that will allow us to determine our capacity to prevent, protect and respond.
- We have made significant progress on our approach to learning – with the launch of a new Academy for Leadership and Personal Development.
- We are amalgamating two teams, to develop a service wide learning operational assurance team, to capture operational learning in a much better way to protect the public and firefighters.
- We have established a Future Fire Think Tank that is looking at how we plan our resources for and approach the challenges we are facing now and in the future.
- On the people front, we have piloted agile working; introduced a mediation package; launched Taking Care of Behaviours learning and much more.
The strategy, overseen by the Commissioners, brings together the overarching response to the:
- Transformation Programme, with nine key areas of work that deliver the recommendations of the Independent Culture Review from early 2024
- The areas of work identified in the self-assessment in preparation for the HMICFRS Inspection
- Thematic Reviews by the Chief Fire and Rescue Advisor for Wales from summer 2024.
Further background information on progress on improvements being delivered is available on South Wales Fire and Rescue.
ENDS
Notes to editor:
There is a lot of work already underway that addresses the recommendations in the report. They include:
- A new Chief Fire Officer, Fin Monahan, who is an expert in culture change and proven strategic leadership.
- A new strategy that outlines the work that is needed to meet the standards expected for a Fire and Rescue Service and looks ahead to the future.
- The strategy includes updated vision, mission and values and clearly outlines standards of behaviour aligned to the National Fire Chiefs Council leadership framework.
- We have made significant progress on our approach to learning – with the launch of a new Academy for Leadership and Personal Development.
- A new training session called Taking Care of Behaviours has been developed to outline expectations for all our colleagues. This has already been delivered to the senior leadership team, before it is rolled out to all colleagues.
- We are learning from others on how to best identify and mitigate risks and are seeking a new approach to managing and mitigating our key risks.
- Crews at all our stations are working with local community partners to identify risks and seeking to understand and mitigate them.
- On the people front we have piloted agile working; introduced a mediation package; launched Taking Care of Behaviours learning and much more.
- Improved our recruitment processes for senior leadership roles to be more transparent.
- We have consulted with colleagues on the promotion process and are developing a new framework.
- We are changing the way we communicate with our people, the people we work with, the media and people in our communities.
- We are seeking external expertise in our Future Fire Think Tank to look to the future and plan our resources and approach for the challenges we are facing now and in the future.
- We are establishing a Culture and Connections Board to amplify the staff voice to be heard at a strategic level and monitor the cultural climate.
- We are currently advertising for members to join an Independent Advisory Group (IAG) with knowledge, experience and expertise in area like cultural change’ diversity, inclusion, cohesion and equality, voluntary and public sector and inspection.
