Note for Editors:

• In a new report, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) said that most fire and rescue services have taken steps to improve standards of behaviour and root out misconduct.
• But the inspectorate found there are still pockets of abhorrent behaviour, and it has called for further improvements to make sure misconduct is handled effectively.
• Inspectors also found that:

occurrences of unacceptable behaviours including sexist, racist and homophobic language were most common within watches (a group of firefighters assigned to work on the same shift). Staff described examples of toxic cultures where managers failed to challenge behaviour so they could remain popular;

there is a widespread lack of confidence in misconduct processes which prevents staff, particularly women, from speaking out;

supervisors and managers aren’t sufficiently trained to manage staff performance, poor behaviour and welfare issues. Staff that manage and investigate misconduct need the right training; and

services need to learn from their misconduct cases. They must do more to understand why unacceptable behaviour happens and what needs to change to prevent it happening in future.

• HMICFRS has made 15 recommendations to chief fire officers, fire and rescue authorities and others. These include the need for each service to have access to a professional standards function to support fair and transparent misconduct investigations, and to introduce the right training and support for all staff investigating misconduct.
• Tristan is the Chief Executive of the Fire and Rescue Association which represents firefighters across the United Kingdom, which has long campaigned to eradicate harassment and bullying in the fire and rescue service.