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Speaking to Mark Hardingham, the new Chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, just six days into the job might seem a bit premature but having shadowed his predecessor for the last three months, he is well past the familiarisation stage and clear on what he wants to do. Political Editor Catherine Levin reports
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What’s top of the ‘to do’ list?
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FIRE talks to new fire chiefs chair
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ark Hardingham is not new to the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC); he has been Chair of the Protection Committee for the last four years and is firmly at the centre of the NFCC’s Grenfell activity. He leaves Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service after nearly eight years as Chief Fire Officer. Mark said it was about the right time to do something different. “It was still a bit of a wrench to leave Suffolk after such a long time.” He has been working in a shadow capacity alongside Roy Wilsher for the last three months to understand the role and said: “Roy has been brilliant. “I’m really pleased to be taking on this role. There’s going to be difficult stuff to do, but I am really looking forward to the next two years and hopefully the two after that.” With so much going on in the fire and rescue world at the moment, what is top of Mark’s ‘to do’ list?
Priorities He chose to highlight three major areas, starting with how the NFCC is leading and supporting fire and rescue services across the UK with organisational learning. He explained: “Everything from the significant events like the
Grenfell Inquiry, the Manchester terror attack and what I expect may well be an inquiry about Covid-19 and the fire and rescue services’ role in that. Also, the organisational learning that goes on every day.” Second on the list is the broad leadership role that the NFCC has to deliver its portfolio of change. “That includes all of the work of the Central Programme Office, with the Community Risk Programme, the People Programme as well as Digital and Data. It also embraces the Prevention and Protection programmes as well as Operational Guidance and National Resilience.” And the third item is the increasing use of data and evidence to inform the work that the NFCC does, with an increasingly digital first approach. He added: “There are off the shelf solutions that the NFCC can develop that can be used by all fire and rescue services.” Not satisfied with one list, Mark volunteered a second list focused on influence. “As you would expect, the first on this list is reform. Everyone is talking about the imminent Fire Reform White Paper in England. Front and centre for us is influencing what goes in it.” He added that the second item on the influence list is inspection, with the second round of HMICFRS visits already taking place. Mark said: “We engage with all the
“I’m really pleased to be taking on this role. There’s going to be difficult stuff to do, but I am really looking forward to the next two years and hopefully the two after that” 16 | May 2021 | www.fire–magazine.com