Cumbria 2021/22

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at promoting the right values and culture.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service required improvement in its 2018/19 assessment.

Fire and rescue services should have positive and inclusive cultures, modelled by the behaviours of their senior leaders. Health and safety should be promoted effectively, and staff should have access to a range of well-being support that can be tailored to their individual needs.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service values aren’t accepted or understood by everyone

The service has adopted the National Fire Chiefs Council’s new Core Code of Ethics as its values. It is carrying out ongoing work to further accept and understand them. In our staff survey, 86 percent (297 of 346) of respondents were aware of the service’s statement of values. Despite this, values aren’t translating into an effective culture throughout the organisation. We found that the visibility and approachability of managers varies across the service and there isn’t a strong culture of challenge.

During our inspection, we learned that some senior leaders demonstrate the service’s behaviours. Of the respondents to our staff survey, 66 percent (197 of 297) said that senior leaders consistently model and maintain the service’s values. The staff survey also showed that 49 percent (168 of 346) of respondents felt unable to challenge freely. During our inspection, some staff members told us they don’t challenge leaders as they believe nothing will happen.

Staff can access services to support their well-being

The service has well understood and effective well-being policies in place that are available to staff. A range of well-being support is available to support both physical and mental health. The service can access the county council’s occupational health team, and several other external providers, such as the Fire Fighters Charity, can give specialist support. Staff told us about critical-incident debriefs following exposure to traumatic incidents. In our survey, 91 percent (315 of 346) of respondents told us they would be confident that the service would offer well-being services after an incident.

Staff feel able to access services to support mental well-being. To ensure these provisions remain effective, the service should make sure it holds well-being conversations with all staff. In our staff survey, 42 percent (144 of 346) of respondents told us they discussed their health and well-being with their manager less than once a year or not at all.

Staff understand and have confidence in health and safety policies

The service has effective and well understood health and safety policies and procedures in place. It monitors the health and safety of the workforce through the health and safety welfare committee, which reviews performance quarterly and deals with any issues.

These policies and procedures are readily available and effectively promoted to all staff. The service uses a systematic approach to report, record and investigate accidents and near misses. Staff we spoke to have confidence in the health and safety approach the service takes.

It also makes sure all staff receive a basic level of health and safety training, and those with line management responsibilities must complete an Institution of Occupational Safety and Health course. Our survey showed that 90 percent (311 of 346) of respondents felt their personal safety and welfare is treated seriously at work.

The service needs to improve the way it monitors staff working hours

The service doesn’t monitor staff who have secondary employment or dual contracts to make sure they comply with the secondary employment policy and don’t work excessive hours. We were told the service has a system to monitor working hours of staff, however IT problems prohibited us from viewing it during the inspection. A system does exist to monitor secondary employment and dual contracts, however more work is required to ensure this is understood by everyone within the service.

During our inspection staff told us they were working beyond – and in some cases, double – their contracted hours.

The service doesn’t consistently apply its absence management procedures

As part of our inspection, we reviewed some case files to consider how the service manages and supports staff through absence.

The service has an absence policy, but staff, including managers, don’t widely understand it. We found several inconsistent decisions had been made because of a lack of guidance, meaning managers had used their discretion. In these cases, managers hadn’t always followed policy. For example, managers don’t always complete return to work interviews or make occupational health referrals, even for long-term absences. In many cases, the way managers keep in touch with employees during periods of absence is inconsistent and not subject to formal recording.

But overall, the service has seen a big decrease in staff absences over 2020/21 – the overall decrease has been 34 percent compared to the previous 12 months.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service is inadequate at getting the right people with the right skills.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service was good in its 2018/19 assessment.

Fire and rescue services should have a workforce plan in place that is linked to their integrated risk management plans (IRMPs), sets out their current and future skills requirements and addresses capability gaps. They should supplement this with a culture of continuous improvement that includes appropriate learning and development throughout the service.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service has a workforce planning group in place

The service has good workforce planning in place. This makes sure skills and capabilities align with what is needed to effectively deliver the IRMP. The service has a workforce development group, which is in the process of identifying future gaps in the establishment due to many upcoming retirements. Our inspection found some evidence of succession planning in some key roles. For example, a joint role with Sellafield power station had a three-month handover for the new post holder.

Since our 2019 inspection, the service has reviewed its policy on the use of temporary roles. This has slightly reduced the number of staff on temporary promotion, with 5 percent of staff being on temporary promotion as at 31 March 2021. At the time of our inspection, some senior roles had just been appointed. This should reduce the number of staff on temporary promotion as more promotion processes are completed to fill the gaps.

The service doesn’t see risk-critical training as a high enough priority

The service uses a training database to record how operational staff maintain their skills. At the time of our inspection, the service was moving to a newer version of the system and hadn’t yet migrated historical files.

Watch managers are responsible for managing the competency of their crews. But we found that they aren’t doing this as they can’t access the old system. Station managers who do have access to both systems told us they don’t have the capacity to review the competency of all the firefighters.

At the time of our inspection, the service had also changed the policy around breathing apparatus and when firefighters need to be reassessed. This had created further confusion about whether firefighters are competent or not. We found evidence that firefighters are out of date with their competency and are using workarounds to comply with the service’s risk control measures.

The service could do more to support staff with learning and development

Although the service provides some learning and development, it doesn’t meet the needs of staff or indeed the service. We found that many staff had been promoted without being given role-specific training or the option to shadow their predecessor. The service is aware of some of these cases. At the time of our inspection, it was in the process of developing a manager’s handbook for newly appointed station managers. We found there aren’t good enough processes in place to help staff access the resources they need to do their job effectively, such as applying HR policies and carrying out certain procedures, such as grievance and sickness.

Only some staff told us that they can access a range of learning and development resources they need to do their job effectively. This is likely to affect what the service can offer the public. For example, only 65 percent (225 of 346) of respondents to the staff survey agreed that they have received enough training to do their job effectively. We heard that non-operational staff don’t have access to the same opportunities as their colleagues. They can access the online platform for e-learning, but they have no way of recording any other training they have completed.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at ensuring fairness and promoting diversity.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service required improvement in its 2018/19 assessment.

Creating a more representative workforce will provide huge benefits for fire and rescue services. This includes greater access to talent and different ways of thinking, and improved understanding of and engagement with their local communities. Each service should make sure equality, diversity and inclusion are firmly understood and demonstrated throughout the organisation. This includes successfully taking steps to remove inequality and making progress to improve fairness, diversity and inclusion at all levels of the service. It should proactively seek and respond to feedback from staff and make sure any action taken is meaningful.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service seeks feedback from staff, but this isn’t always effective

The service has developed several ways to engage with staff on issues and decisions that affect them. This includes methods to build all-staff awareness of fairness and diversity, as well as targeted engagement to identify matters that affect different staff groups. The service uses several communication methods to share information with staff. These include emails and a weekly newsletter, and it puts important information on the front page of its rostering system. But staff feel that communications could be better. Not all staff can access emails or other systems from home, meaning they can’t view this information regularly.

Since our 2019 inspection, the service has established several staff networks, which help it with issues. But 51 percent of the staff (178 of 346) who responded to our survey don’t feel confident in the methods for providing feedback at all levels. Representative bodies and staff associations reported that the service engages with them on important issues, but they feel that the service could involve them earlier when dealing with problems.

The service should continue to review its approach to tackling bullying, harassment and discrimination

Staff have a good understanding of what bullying, harassment and discrimination are and their negative effect on colleagues and the organisation.

Compared to our previous inspection the number of staff who claim to have been bullied or harassed at work has reduced from 45 percent to 16 percent.

25 of percent respondents to the staff survey told us they had been subject to discrimination over the past 12 months. Of these staff, 42 percent (24 out of 57) did not report the bullying or harassment and 62 percent (56 of 91) didn’t report the discrimination. The main reason given for this was that nothing would happen or they would be labelled a troublemaker. Representative bodies don’t feel the service has appropriate processes in place or takes appropriate action to eliminate bullying and harassment.

Our inspection found that grievances hadn’t been dealt with within the timescales set out in its policies. This has led to some negative impacts on staff well-being.

The service acts positively to improve diversity in recruitment

The service takes some action to understand and remove the risk of disproportionality in recruitment processes. We found evidence that reasonable adjustments had been made throughout selection processes.

The service has put considerable effort into developing its recruitment processes so that they are fair and understood by potential applicants. But it accepts that there is more to do. We found evidence of some positive action. The service held ‘role model days’ before a recent firefighter recruitment process, which resulted in a significantly higher proportion (56 percent) of successful female recruits.

The recruitment policies are comprehensive and cover opportunities in all roles. Recruitment opportunities are advertised both internally and externally. This has encouraged applicants from diverse backgrounds, including into middle and senior management roles.

The service has made some improvements in increasing staff diversity at all levels of the organisation. From 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2021, 3 new joiners (4.8 percent) self‑declared as being from an ethnic minority background, and 18.5 percent were women. For firefighter recruitment in the same period, 16.5 percent of all new recruits were women and one new recruit was from an ethnic minority background. The percentage of female firefighter recruits in 2020/21, 34.9 percent, was an improvement on previous years. On 31 March 2021, 0.6 percent of the whole workforce were from an ethnic minority background and 12.6 percent were women. This is an improvement on five years ago.

Many staff don’t understand the purpose and benefits of diversity

Despite some of the positive work the service has done since our 2019 inspection, we consistently found during this inspection that staff don’t support the service’s efforts to improve workforce diversity. Many staff we spoke to incorrectly believe the service lowers its entry standards to recruit individuals with specific protected characteristics. Some were explicitly not supportive of positive action events. The service needs to do more to make sure its existing staff understand and support the action it is taking.

The service is making slow progress in implementing improvements to equality, diversity and inclusion

The service needs to improve its approach to EDI. Some senior leaders show a strong strategic intent and there is an EDI strategy in place, but this isn’t yet resulting in the improvements the service needs. It has taken steps to establish staff network groups, but it doesn’t use them to their fullest extent. Strategic leads need to give these groups more structure and direction.

Although the service uses some equality impact assessments (EIAs), it doesn’t properly measure the effect of its processes on individual protected characteristics. We reviewed various EIAs and found very few had been completed. Those we did find were poor in quality and detail. And at the time of our inspection, very few managers had attended mandatory training on how to complete EIAs. This means it can’t effectively understand how changes to policies and procedures may affect particular members of its workforce.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service requires improvement at managing performance and developing leaders.

Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service required improvement in its 2018/19 assessment.

Fire and rescue services should have robust and meaningful performance management arrangements in place for their staff. All staff should be supported to meet their potential, and there should be a focus on developing staff and improving diversity into leadership roles.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the service’s performance in this area.

The service manages individual performance well

There is a good performance management system in place, which allows the service to effectively develop and assess the individual performance of all staff. The service carries out performance reviews annually and sets staff targets and objectives.

Most respondents to our staff survey reported that they have regular discussions with their manager. But some staff told us they don’t always find performance conversations valuable.

The service is developing its promotion and progression processes so that they are fair

The service has put considerable effort into developing its promotion and progression processes so that they are fair and understood by staff. In a recent process, the service used external partners, including representatives from the county council, the police and Sellafield, as members of mixed interview panels. The promotion and progression policies are comprehensive and cover opportunities in all roles. But there is evidence that many staff feel the service needs to do more. Only 40 percent (140 of 346) of respondents to our survey agreed that promotion processes are fair.

Our review of certain selection processes showed the service managed them consistently, and records were available of all decisions and outcomes.

We found not all panel members had completed the recruitment and selection training required for all interviewers. The service may want to consider this.

The service could still do more to identify and develop high-potential leaders

In our 2019 inspection, we found the service needed to put in place a process to identify, develop and support high-potential staff. This was an area for improvement. Since then, the service has introduced some career pathways for staff, notably in the protection department. At the time of this inspection, the service was reviewing its talent management strategy, which it expected to put in place within 18 months. But we were told this strategy would only apply to operational roles and not those in support functions.