Dorset and Wiltshire 2021/22

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is good at promoting the right values and culture.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service was good 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.

Expected values and behaviours were well demonstrated across the service

The service has well-defined values that are understood by staff. Our staff survey showed that almost all respondents are aware of the service values. Behaviours that reflect service values are shown at all levels of the service. This was reflected in our staff survey where 92 percent (214 out of 233) of respondents stated that service values are constantly modelled and maintained by their colleagues, with 84 percent (196 out of 233) stating that line managers modelled and maintained the values. Staff are proud to work for Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service.

We were pleased to see the new national Core Code of Ethics had been introduced on 1 January 2022. The service:

• provided training to its managers;
• displayed posters across its estates; and
• produced a handbook and video that was published on its intranet site.

However, despite this, most staff that we spoke to didn’t know the difference between the service’s previous sets of values and the new Core Code of Ethics so the service should improve their understanding.

While most staff spoke positively of senior leaders, we also heard from some staff who didn’t feel confident in challenging them. Furthermore, 33 percent (77 out of 233) of respondents to our staff survey felt senior leaders didn’t model and maintain the service’s values.

Staff have good access to services that support their mental and physical health

The service continues to have well understood and effective well-being policies in place that are available to staff. A significant range of well-being support is available to support both physical and mental health. For example:

• there is a dedicated health and well-being team;
• staff can access support through occupational health;
• specialist counselling services are available; and
• there are specialist trauma practitioners.

Measures to promote staff well-being include a training package on managing well-being and performance that includes a mental health awareness session. Encouragingly, 95 percent (223 out of 234) of respondents to our staff survey said they can access services to support their mental well-being.

We were also impressed with the service’s innovations. For example, all well-being posters displayed have a QR code that staff can scan on their mobile devices. This takes them straight to well-being pages on the service’s intranet site.

Following a suggestion by a firefighter, the prevention team has developed welfare business cards, which have been shared with the police. This allows anyone affected by an incident, including the public, to access welfare support from the service’s partners.

The service has appropriate health and safety provisions in place

The service has effective and well understood health and safety policies and procedures in place. These policies and procedures are readily available and effectively promoted to all staff. The deputy chief fire officer chairs the health and safety committee, and it is only 1 of 3 fire and rescue services across the country to have British Standard ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety management standard) accreditation. This helps the service drive safety improvements. Both staff and representative bodies have confidence in the health and safety approach taken by the service. Our staff survey shows that 92 percent of respondents (215 out of 234) feel their personal safety and welfare is treated seriously at work.

In our previous inspection, we identified as an area for improvement that the service should have an effective system to record and monitor health and safety training. All staff receive basic health and safety training, managers receive enhanced training, and we are pleased that in this inspection all health and safety records could easily be accessed from the central training system.

Working hours should be regularly monitored

The service could do more to monitor staff working hours, including those who have dual contracts. As of 31 March 2021, 39 percent of wholetime firefighters had a secondary employment and 19 percent had a dual contract. The service has clear policies in place and staff are told that they should comply with regulations and not work excessive hours. But, disappointingly, during our inspection we spoke to staff whose hours weren’t regularly monitored. For example, we heard that rest periods before and after wholetime shifts weren’t always adhered to by staff in order to maintain their on-call availability. We also found examples where firefighters worked a dual contract and worked overtime despite having minimal rest periods in between. This is something the service should review.

Absence management processes are effective

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

We found there are clear processes in place to manage absences for all staff. There is clear guidance for managers, who are confident in the process and trends are monitored. Absences are managed well and in accordance with policy. HR staff provide additional support and most staff we spoke to knew how to report absence and spoke positively about the support provided.

The service told us that overall, it has seen an increase in the number of firefighter’s shifts lost due to absence over the 12 months between 2020/21 and 2021/22.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is outstanding at getting the right people with the right skills.

Dorset and Wiltshire 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 an effective understanding of current and future skill requirements

The service has strong workforce planning in place for all roles. This makes sure skills and capabilities align with what is needed to effectively deliver the IRMP, which it calls the CSP.

At the time of our inspection, workforce planning priorities included:

• workforce diversity;
• long-term succession planning
• a review of its approach to firefighter recruitment;
• improved retention of on-call firefighters;
• organisational agility in response to future finance; and
• leadership development and progression.

The service has an excellent understanding of current and future skills requirements and has an achievable plan to address them. Workforce and succession planning is subject to consistent scrutiny in the form of regular meetings to discuss requirements. The heads of departments review their staffing plans every quarter. This allows any issues to be addressed in a timely manner. Alongside its quarterly review, the departmental manager sets out their training requirements each year for the next three years, which is then fed into the central team. The workforce planning is forecasted five years in advance and considers many aspects, such as retirement profiles.

The service has established a culture of continuous improvement with examples of sustained service development and improvement. Through its value-for-money dashboard, the service can clearly demonstrate how resources are effectively used to mitigate the risks. The strong workforce planning makes sure the service is effective. We were pleased to see the service has enough trained staff in all departments across the service. For example, all outstanding safe and well visits built up over the pandemic have been completed and all high-rise premises in the service area have been inspected. This translates into a better service for the public.

Most staff told us that they could access the training they need to be effective in their role, including those in fire control and corporate staff roles. Training plans make sure they can maintain competence and capability effectively.

The service has introduced a training system which records all training for all roles in a central place. The service monitors staff competence through this system and quarterly performance reports are reviewed by the strategic leadership team. It regularly updates its understanding of staff’s skills and risk-critical safety capabilities through monitoring of competencies by line managers and the central training team. This approach means the service can determine gaps in workforce capabilities and resilience and can make sound and financially sustainable decisions about current and future needs. Encouragingly, the records sampled showed that staff’s competencies were all up to date.

There is a positive culture of learning and development

A culture of continuous improvement is promoted throughout the service and staff are encouraged to learn and develop. We are pleased to see that the service has a range of resources in place. These include online learning resources and access to external learning providers. This allows them to do their job effectively.

There is a clear training plan for all staff across the service, including prevention and protection roles. Continuous professional development is further discussed during the appraisal process. The service has a learning hub where staff can access any learning and development relevant to their roles. A monthly learning and development newsletter is sent to all staff with updates on what is available and staff can view and book courses through the central system.

Practical and online training courses are evaluated, and the feedback is used to create further improvements. For example, the service has identified that it needs to provide more support for neurodiversity.

We spoke to firefighters who were in development who spoke highly of the support they have received. Overall, 78 percent of staff (183 out of 234) who responded to our survey said they are satisfied with the level of learning and development that is available to them. However, as 45 percent of respondents (105 out of 234) said they had learning and development conversations with their line manager once a year or less, the service should consider how it ensures the training it offers continues to meet the needs of staff.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is good at ensuring fairness and promoting diversity.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service was good 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 is improving the way it seeks feedback and challenge

The service has developed several ways to engage with staff on issues and decisions that affect them, for example staff surveys. It has also developed a leadership consultancy group where members from all staff groups and locations, nominated by their colleagues, provide assistance and feedback on topics such as the new promotion process.

As we saw in the COVID-19 inspection, the service introduced a regular service-wide question time session with senior leaders. However, during our inspection, staff told us that they felt when they raised certain topics, such as the promotions process, some senior leaders were dismissive of their points and staff weren’t as engaged as before. The service recognises it needs to improve its approach to these sessions and has consulted staff on what improvements it should make. In our staff survey, 44 percent of respondents (102 out of 234) said they don’t feel confident in the system to provide feedback at all levels.

There are methods to build awareness of fairness and diversity among all staff, as well as work to determine matters that affect different staff groups. For example, the service has several staff networks in place, but some are still new so the full benefits are yet to be realised. Representative bodies and staff associations reported that the service works well with them.

Staff feel confident in challenging inappropriate behaviour

Staff have a good understanding of what bullying, harassment and discrimination are and their negative effect on colleagues and the organisation. There is a clear policy in place and there are guidance documents available for all staff. In addition, staff networks provide extra support.

The service has made sure all staff are trained and clear about what to do if they encounter inappropriate behaviour and encouragingly, we spoke to many staff who said they felt confident in challenging it.

In this inspection, 12 percent (28 out of 234) of staff survey respondents told us they had been subject to bullying or harassment and 13 percent (31 out of 234) to discrimination over the past 12 months.

In our last inspection, we identified as an area for improvement that the service should assure itself it has effective grievance procedures. We were pleased to find that most staff spoken to were confident in the service’s approach to tackling grievances, bullying, harassment and discrimination and disciplinary matters. The service put a performance management plan in place increasing staff confidence to raise grievances. In addition, HR staff are assigned to each geographical area to provide extra support and investigation officers received further external training.

The service recognises it needs to increase the diversity of its workforce

There is an open, fair and transparent recruitment process for staff or those wishing to work for the fire and rescue service. The service provides unconscious bias training to managers and for those who sit on interview panels. The service also evaluates each stage of its wholetime firefighter recruitment process and understands which stages of the process those from a protected characteristic aren’t passing. But the service hasn’t used this information to further enhance the measures they take to improve the workforce’s diversity.

Of the whole workforce, 1.5 percent are from an ethnic minority background (local population is 4.7 percent) and 17.9 percent are women. The service has previously arranged experience days and developed a buddying system where applicants from diverse communities can be paired with an existing member of staff, but it should do more to increase the diversity of its workforce.

We recognise the service has a predominantly on-call workforce. It has carried out an analysis of the difficulties in attracting diverse applicants in those areas. In October 2020, the service’s recruitment drive for wholetime firefighters disappointingly didn’t have any successful applicants who were female or from an ethnic minority background despite a social media campaign to promote opportunities.

The service needs to encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds into all roles including middle and senior level positions. These positions aren’t always advertised externally, meaning that the service isn’t attracting a diverse pool of applicants.

There is a good approach to equality, diversity and inclusion

The service has improved its approach to EDI and is making sure it can offer the right services to its communities and support staff with protected characteristics. For example, the service recently invited community leaders to provide information and awareness on various topics. The service has produced cultural guides to allow operational staff to increase their understanding of the communities in its station area but most staff we spoke to told us they don’t use them.

EDI is also integrated into the recruitment and promotion process and reasonable adjustments are made where applicable. There is a stakeholder panel that has representation from across the service, which provides assistance and independence in the promotion process. The training records we sampled showed all staff had received some form of EDI training.

The service has an effective process in place to assess the equalities impact on existing and new processes. The equality impact assessments we reviewed were completed to a good standard and both internal and external equality groups were consulted.

The deputy chief fire officer chairs the EDI committee every quarter and senior leaders are diversity champions for each network. We were also pleased to find that all estates had been reviewed and improvements were made to make sure they are inclusive.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is good at managing performance and developing leaders.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service was good 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 new one-to-one performance management process is effective

There is a good performance management system in place which allows the service to effectively develop and assess the individual performance of all staff. This one-to-one process, where individual staff meet with their line manager, was introduced following our last inspection and after engaging with staff. Managers encourage staff to discuss health and well-being, performance and behaviour, and development needs. Staff have received training and guides have been produced. The process is designed so that staff and their line manager can complete this as often as they like, but it must be completed formally at least once a year.

We were pleased to find that the new one-to-one process has been evaluated to make sure it is effective. Through our survey, most staff reported that they had regular discussions with their manager and that they were meaningful. Each staff member has individual goals and objectives, and regular assessments of performance. Staff feel confident in the performance and development arrangements that are in place.

The staff we spoke to during our inspection spoke highly about the ‘recognition button’ in the appraisal process. This allows all staff to recognise a positive contribution by a colleague. For example, a watch was impressed with a firefighter who provided cover for a shift. They added the information onto the system, which resulted in the individual receiving an automatic email with an explanation of why they had been recognised.

There is a fair promotion process, but many staff feel it is onerous

The service has put considerable effort into developing its promotion and progression processes so that they are fair and understood by staff. The service introduced a new promotion process and developed an online portal. Applicants can apply at any given time and progress at their own pace. There are user guides available for applicants. The files we sampled showed a clear process, that reasonable adjustments had been made and staff were given feedback.

However, from our staff survey, 46 percent of respondents (107 out of 234) said they felt the promotion process is unfair. Staff also felt it is too onerous, particularly when on-call firefighters are applying for wholetime roles. We were told of examples where applications weren’t successful as the testimonial by the line manager didn’t meet the pass mark. The service has made improvements following staff feedback, but it needs to build staff understanding and trust in the process.

The service has effective succession planning processes in place that allow it to effectively manage the career pathways of its staff, including roles requiring specialist skills. We also found that temporary promotions are used appropriately to fill short-term resourcing gaps.

The service is good at developing leaders

In our previous inspection, we identified that the service should put in place an open and fair process to identify, develop and support high-potential staff and aspiring leaders. We are pleased that the service has addressed this area for improvement.

Its effective succession planning processes allow it to manage high-potential staff into leadership roles. This is discussed during the one-to-one performance management process and a nine-box grid allows managers to consider existing skills and talent within their teams. Furthermore, staff in the promotion pool are monitored to match them against the future skills requirements.

The service has several leadership programmes, which have been reviewed and evaluated. These include:

• supervisory and middle management development programmes;
• bite-sized leadership forums aimed at middle managers;
• apprenticeship schemes; and
• coaching and reverse mentoring programmes.

We were pleased to find that 27 percent of staff across the service are on tailored development pathways.