"It's a canny challenge": FIRE talks to Tyne and Wear's Chief

Focus on Tyne & Wear

Walking his rare Dutch Herder dog and battling against the sound of wind and passing cars, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service’s Chris Lowther talks to Political Editor Catherine Levin about the challenges of being a Chief Fire Officer

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FIRE talks to Tyne and Wear’s Chief

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“It’s a canny challenge”:

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hris joined Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service in 1997; he had always wanted to be a firefighter and he has been there ever since.

He became Chief in 2017 and, given the high retirement rates of his peers, he is now one of the longer serving chiefs in the country. He also has a key role on the national stage heading up the Operations Committee of the National Fire Chiefs Council.

Reflecting on his tenure as Chief so far, Chris said: “I realised from the beginning that I had to work out what kind of Chief I wanted to be.” He said that he had no intention of putting in for the job when he was ACFO. Tom Capeling was Chris’s predecessor. He told Chris that being Chief was a lonely job. “He was right. You are number one and you’ve got to think so hard because of the impact a decision can make. I didn’t appreciate that before I started.”

Some of that loneliness can be alleviated by having 48 other chief fire officers to turn to. Chris agreed but said that because the turnover of chiefs is so high, this is a risk to the Fire and Rescue Service, particularly in terms of corporate memory. The solution, he said, lies in a change to the pension rules and that is certainly not trivial or at the top of the government’s to do list.

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service has recently consulted with the public on its proposed integrated risk management plans. Chris calls the transformation of his service TWFRS 2025 and like all good transformation

strategies, it includes pillars, in this case inclusion, an all-hazards approach to firefighting and digital and data transformation.

He makes a blunt and no-holds barred introduction to the subject of inclusion.

Diversity and Inclusion Challenge “We have a majority white, male workforce and that’s not representative of society and must change. We need to ensure we attract a diverse group of people who represent the North East community. I know I am where I am, in part, because I am a white man and everything about the Fire Service and society historically was set up to allow people like me to succeed. That’s fundamentally wrong.

I also have talent, skills and abilities and these should be the determining factors, not a person’s gender or for that matter any other characteristics or heritage. I’m really passionate about changing our focus.”

In the June edition of FIRE, there was a feature about the dearth of women principal officers. It included an interview with Tyne and Wear’s ACFO Lynsey McVay. She is one of only 20 women to hold an operational principal officer post in the UK. She is an outlier nationally and locally in Tyne and Wear, and Chris is a fierce supporter of Lynsey.

“I think Lynsey is one of the most talented fire officers I’ve ever come across.” That is quite a bold statement from Chris. He elaborated: “Lynsey is driven and has an ability

“We are more than a just fire and rescue service. I’m really keen on expanding our offer to the community and I’ll be working with police and local authorities to work much smarter as public servants” www.fire–magazine.com

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Elevating Collaboration Looking back on the experience of dealing with a global pandemic, Chris said it was a great opportunity to expand the way his service worked with other organisations during a time of crisis but also in the future. “We are more than just a fire and rescue service. I’m really keen on expanding our offer to the community and I’ll be working with police and local authorities to work much smarter as public servants.”

Having the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Kim McGuiness, as a member of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Authority helps the relationship at a political level.

Chris agreed it was helpful to have the PCC on the fire authority, but expressed strong views about the value of collaboration between services. “Collaboration must be meaningful and deliver benefits for communities and those involved or it’s not worth its salt. Integration is also what we need to be looking at.” He does not mean a PCC takeover of fire but a more integrated approach to providing a community response. He is quick to say it does not mean that fire should come under PCC governance, rather they should do more work together.

This leads nicely to a discussion about the Fire White Paper and what it might say about governance of fire and rescue services. The PCC for Northumbria covers both Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service and Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service, so combining them under a single PFCC would be a challenge, not least because Northumberland is part of the county council and that brings an extra layer of complexity. Chris says it will take a great deal of political will and cash to make any changes in the North East.

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Learning Organisation One way, of course, that all fire and rescue services have learned about how to improve has been through inspection. Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service received its inspection report in June 2019 and was rated Good under all three pillars. Chris is sanguine about the inspection, as he anticipates their second visit later this year. “I consider inspection to be consultancy. We listen hard and we seek to improve.”

He explained with a refreshing honesty: “We need to know ourselves as a service. There were elements in the first inspection report that were a surprise to me.” He described the feedback from the inspectors about how the service deals with risk information and said it was unpleasant to hear the criticism. He is determined to improve things and has done so since then. This is all part of a service improvement plan that contains responses to both inspection findings and Grenfell recommendations.

He added that peer review within the family group (the Metropolitan services in his case) and the outputs from the NFCC’s National Operational Learning service are

extremely important to the continuous improvement of his service.

“At the same time as committing to diversifying the workforce, I am also increasing the standards for recruiting firefighters. I want them to be skilled for the future and not just for now.”

Like many services, Tyne and Wear did not recruit firefighters for a long period of time and just two years ago ran its first recruitment campaign in over a decade. It was an opportunity to start on the journey to diversify the workforce. One third of the first cohort of 30 to go through training school did not fit Chris’s white, male norm of days gone by, so it is a good start.

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to focus; she is extremely personable and really gets things done. She thinks in great depth which is what is necessary at the higher end of the Fire and Rescue Service. Lynsey will help drive and shape the future in this service. I don’t think she knows what impact she can have in the future.”

He recognised the difference between his journey to the top and that faced by women in the service. “Lynsey’s had to fight but not in the way that I’ve had to fight. It often feels like female fire officers feel they must constantly work to prove themselves because of their gender.

That’s ridiculous.”

Chris said that the Fire and Rescue Service he joined 24 years ago no longer exists. He thinks that the recruitment of this new generation of firefighters offers an opportunity to drive change. He explained his approach to dealing with discrimination in his service and how it must be a welcoming place for anyone to work.

“There is no overt discrimination in my service. I would not tolerate it, that would be a dismissal issue. I’m not naïve enough to think there’s not numerous covert, subtle, systemic problems that I need to fix. I lead a culture where we address each and every one of them.”

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Focus on Tyne & Wear 24 years ago, firefighters don’t do now. The need to train and prepare as well as focusing on community outcomes is critical.”

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Reform and the White Paper Responding to a request to speculate about what might be in the White Paper, Chris shared what he had said to the Fire Minister in a recent open forum. “All I’ve heard for years from chiefs, from civil servants and from politicians is the word reform, but in terms of tangible differences I haven’t seen anything done. In the meantime, I’m going to get on with reforming my service so that it’s fit for the future and meeting community needs.” He makes the point that ministers and civil servants all move on before anything gets done and he is right, it is destabilising for any long-term reform.

The White Paper is likely to cover the recommendations contained in Sir Tom Winsor’s State of Fire report. One of which is to revisit the role of the firefighter – a controversial topic at the best of times. The Tripartite Agreement between the NFCC, FBU and the National Employers demonstrated what additional activities firefighters could do. Whether that translates into a long-term proposition is going to be harder to work through. Indeed, if fire and rescue services can get their staff to volunteer to become vaccinators without a national agreement, then perhaps that is the way forward. It is clear that when a major event occurs the Fire and Rescue Service can and does play an important role.

Chris has clear views on this topic. “I wouldn’t ask any of my staff to do anything outside of any health and safety regime. I wouldn’t ask them to do anything that is outside of improving community values. We also need to recognise that things change. What I did as a firefighter

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Festival of Rescue Bringing the interview to a close and with three miles left to walk, Chris enthuses about this year’s UKRO competition. Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service is hosting UKRO in Newcastle on September 17-18.

This is a huge source of pride for Chris. “I really want to showcase the North East. I’ve termed it the Festival of Rescue as it’s more than just a competition, I want to immerse the community in fire and vice versa. This is legacy stuff for my service. I want to create something people enjoy and remember.”

He has great ambitions: “I want every kid to want to be a firefighter after they’ve been to the Festival of Rescue.”

Chris said he is aiming to bid to host the World Rescue Challenge in 2025. With the president of the World UKRO body attending this year’s challenge, he added: “I want it. I will be using all my North East charm, as well as showcasing the UKRO 2021 Festival of Rescue event to demonstrate what the North East has to offer and the warm welcome that everyone can expect.”

If Chris’s passion is a measure by which to gauge his success in both hosting this year’s games and securing the 2025 challenge, then he is pretty much there already.

For more information on this year’s competition visit: www.ukro.org

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“I really want to showcase the North East. I’ve termed it the Festival of Rescue as it’s more than just a competition… This is legacy stuff for my service. I want to create something people enjoy and remember”

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