In an exclusive interview with F&RM, Professor Jagtar Singh OBE reflects on his time in the fire and rescue service and discusses the necessary steps for creating a more diverse and inclusive working culture
Fire and rescue services (FRSs) in England have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, as conversations around employee equality, diversity, and inclusivity take centre stage. While earlier whistleblowing reports highlighted the severity of issues some FRS staff have faced in their workplaces over the years, it was not until the grim revelations of a damning report into the workplace culture of the London Fire Brigade (LFB), labelling the Brigade as “institutionally misogynist and racist”, that these concerns were amplified. Described as a “watershed moment”, it led to a domino effect across England’s FRSs, and subsequent investigations by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) began uncovering a legacy of failings.
From a firefighter in the West Midlands to Acting Chief Fire Officer for Bedfordshire, Professor Jagtar Singh OBE spent almost 30 years in the fire and rescue services. In an exclusive interview with F&RM, Singh shares his personal experiences of inequality and the challenges around culture and staff that FRSs face in light of recent criticisms.
A legacy of past failings
Having graduated with a degree in Business Studies and Management, Singh describes how he struggled to find work despite sending out more than 200 applications. The struggle for employment led to a chance encounter to join the local fire service, which at the time accepted candidates with a GCSE in Maths and English. “I learned in the very early days of the recruitment process that you were going to be discriminated against in the fire service if A: you were Black or Asian, and B: you had a degree,” he recalls.
“I joined the Fire and Rescue Service in 1977,” Singh outlines. “It was a time when equality and diversity had absolutely zero value.”
While undergoing his training, Singh admits he was bullied by one of his instructors, who would regularly put him “on report” in the morning because “there was a bit of fluff on my tunic, or my shoes had picked up a drop of dirt as I walked across the yard for the parade.” Each time it happened, Singh would have to write an apology note. It happened so regularly that Singh ended up preparing a stack of apology notes in advance.
After passing his exams, Singh got his first placement at Billesley Fire Station in Birmingham where “there was one guy at another watch who would constantly make racist comments,” he says. Speaking about some of his interactions with different watches during these early years, Singh explains: “Such comments would absolutely not be condoned nowadays and would be seen as a dismissible offence, but back then it was banter. Well, it’s not banter when it gnaws at you day in and day out – it’s a microaggression.”
Various research papers have examined the impact of microaggressions on an employee’s productivity and performance over time. In particular, a 2022 study published in the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine stated that microaggressions are “often unconscious but accumulate over time” and can create “a sense of inadequacy as well as a lack of belonging”.
Back then, Singh admits he did not have the confidence to call out such racist comments. Eventually, he met an “amazing ally” and mentor, Max McCutcheon, who paved the way for him to go further in his firefighting career. “I went to Highgate [Fire Station], and there was another amazing leader, Joe Hamilton. He was a different kind of leader [to Max], with a different style. He looked after me and was a great ally.”
Singh shares that he was encouraged to join a training centre and teach firefighting to students, noting that the opportunity allowed him to pick up a whole host of new skills to support his firefighting. He then joined the ethnic relations team, which had been set up to deal with inequalities in the Birmingham City Council area. These inequalities were around accessing funding for social care, road safety, and reducing the harmful risks of fire.
“Those were the early days of our community relations officers,” Singh states. “We were able to reduce our fire safety deaths by engaging with diverse communities and talking to them about stuff they had never spoken about before.”
In between placements, Singh continued taking training courses at the Fire Service College in Moreton-in-Marsh: “I enjoyed the management course so much and there were vacancies, so I applied to join the College. Another twist of fate: Here’s me with a degree in business studies and management thinking they’ll select me to go on the management faculty. I’m successful, but the guy who invited me to join had to fight with the operations guy who thought, ‘No, I want diversity in my team. I want Jag in my team.’ So, they fought over me and I got the operations role, which was something that wasn’t my strength.”
Singh admits that joining the College was a beneficial move, as it allowed him to work with a diverse group of talented people. It also gave him a level of seniority that when he eventually returned to his brigade, he took up the role of divisional commander. Finally, after many years of working in fire, Singh successfully applied for the role of Deputy Chief Fire Officer at Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service. He notes:
“People would say that I had been fast-tracked, but they don’t realise that white chief fire officers in the country got to that office in 16 years. It took me 24. When they see a person of colour, or if they see a woman go into a senior role, they assume there was some sort of favour given to them. Well, to those people, let me just say this: I’ve had to work twice as hard to get twice as far as many people.”
Mental health and well-being
By its very nature a profession that epitomises the core values of public service, the recent reports into culture have forced FRSs across England to look their fallibilities directly in the eye.
In the introduction to the Independent Culture Review of London Fire Brigade report, published in November 2022, Nazir Afzal OBE wrote: “At its best, LFB is a beacon of distinguished service, selflessness, and bravery. But there is a growing recognition that cultural challenges are holding the Brigade back.”
Alongside claims of racism and misogyny, Afzal’s report shared concerns about “poor treatment of neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ colleagues, supported by evidence of poor and unfair treatment of marginalised groups”.
Mental health and well-being were also key areas of concern. The report revealed that within a period of five years, six members of LFB staff have taken their own lives, however no data had been collected on the cause of death. There was also “no information that could be shared on the circumstances of suicides or attempted suicides”.
One of the recommendations for the LFB was to “make it a priority to try to understand the reasons for suicide by ensuring that a clear and robust system of reporting is established”. Additionally, the report stated that the Brigade should “capture the learnings in a Guidance document that includes a communication plan and action plan to support staff in the event of a colleague’s death by suicide.”
Having advocated for better mental health for firefighters, Singh shares the measures he believes are needed to ensure firefighters and staff can better manage their well-being. It begins with an individual having a good awareness of their own mental health through self-assessment. If they are going through a problem, to ask, ‘How can I self-help?’, with many tools available to do this, Singh adds.
“The next level is the supervisory responsibility regarding mental health and well-being. So what do supervisory officers know about their firefighters? What are they doing? Then it’s the team itself. Fire and rescue services work in teams, whether it’s operational, the control room, or HR – they all work in teams. So does the collective team know what to do about it? Finally, it’s a board issue. What has the board put in place to look after the well-being of their staff?”
Efforts by FRSs towards improvement have been made, with LFB accepting all 23 recommendations of Afzal’s report, including the establishment of an advisory panel and the appointment of an independent chair, but many agree with Professor Singh that progress has been “too slow”.
Soon after the LFB Culture Review, HMICFRS also published a report entitled ‘Values and culture in fire and rescue services’, based on existing evidence and inspections of all 44 FRSs in England since 2018. Echoing parts of Afzal’s report, the Inspectorate found numerous examples of bullying and harassment in all services, some “significantly worse” than others. It stated that a quarter of England’s FRSs showed instances of racist, homophobic, and misogynistic behaviour that was “often excused as banter”. The sector was also referred to as a “boys’ club” with fearmongering preventing people from reporting bad behaviour, the report found.
Of particular note was one staff member who described how raising a complaint about offensive behaviour would be deemed “career suicide”. Commenting on the findings, HM Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services Roy Wilsher OBE QFSM warned: “I fear this could be just the tip of the iceberg”. He added that the sector needed to “get a grip on how it handles misconduct matters”, and that “staff should feel able to report allegations without fear of reprisals, and any fire and rescue staff found to have committed gross misconduct should be placed on a national barred list to protect other services and the public.”
In response, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) announced a “renewed ‘call to action’” to “improve culture” across FRSs in the UK, with NFCC Chair, Mark Hardingham adding that the Inspectorate’s report “makes for difficult reading”.
Also commenting was the general secretary for the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Matt Wrack, who said: “Firefighters must be able to go to work without fear of bullying, harassment and discrimination. Just as much as fire contaminants and other dangers, this is a matter of health and safety and basic rights at work.”
Issues of governance
In August 2024, HMICFRS published a new thematic report, ‘Standards of behaviour: The handling of misconduct in fire and rescue services’, analysing how cases of misconduct were handled in the FRS. As part of the investigation, the Inspectorate reviewed relevant policies and processes and analysed case file grievances, disciplines, whistle-blowing, and public complaints. Interviews were conducted and focus groups held with different staff members at various levels of the organisation.
The report found that staff had no confidence in the misconduct processes, fearing they might be “labelled a troublemaker or…shunned by their work colleagues”. Wilsher noted there was not enough training for those involved in misconduct processes, such as managers and supervisors, and that services needed to learn from previous misconduct cases with the learning shared across the sector.
“Overall, the picture we have found is that services are prioritising tackling misconduct and are making some progress. But many services still have more to do. My hope is that the findings and recommendations in this report can provide practical steps that services can take to bring about the lasting change fire and rescue service staff and the public deserve,” he said.
In March 2024, then Minister of Crime, Policing, and Fire Chris Philp MP was quizzed on the ongoing concerns about culture in FRSs. In particular, he was asked whether the governance structure for FRSs was “fit for purpose”. Philp said that moving towards a police, fire, and crime commissioner model may be a better solution “because you have a single, individual elected person – not a committee, but one person who is obviously accountable and has a stronger incentive, therefore, to make sure it gets sorted out”.
He went on to cite the efforts and resources put in by the likes of LFB and other FRSs to make a positive difference in this area. Singh agrees that the NFCC has been notably proactive in its approach, with Hardingham stating that “tackling poor culture remains the number one priority”.
“At NFCC, we accept without caveat that good culture relies on good leadership. We know that across fire and rescue services there has been a lot of activity focused on driving up standards in culture, but our message today is that there remains more to do.”
In April 2024, the NFCC launched three new EDI toolkits as part of the delivery of its Culture Action Plan and its “commitment to support fire and rescue services in embedding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across the fire sector”. The toolkits cover supporting disabled colleagues, menopause awareness, and religion and belief in the workplace “to remove the barriers that keep people from thriving in the workplace”.
Singh believes it also requires asking the right questions. Data collection on its own is not the solution: “A dashboard is just data. [We need to know] what actions are you going to take? Which datasets are you going to try to influence and move who’s accountable and responsible? There are more steps to be taken.”
“I don’t look for commitment now, I look for outcomes. I look for resources committed,” he adds.
Looking ahead
Most recently, in November 2024, an independent review of Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service (GFRS), this time led by West Midlands Employers (WME) and supported by Gloucestershire City Council (GCC), found that “while GFRS is not institutionally racist today, racism still exists, and the service continues to grapple with the legacy of its past failings across the service”.
So, what further steps do FRSs around the country need to take to support EDI in their workplaces?
“There is no binary answer to that question because it is a complex issue,” Singh admits.
“Sure, the lessons I learned at the Home Office about accountability, governance, and structure could offer a binary answer to this. But it is key to remember that even before Nazir Afzal’s report, fire and rescue services already had the data and knew where their problems were. What they needed to do was just consider what oversight they had on these issues. For example, if we overlay the recent learnings from the Post Office crisis, we see instances of wilful neglect. It essentially means that if you are not asking the questions that you should be asking, then you are guilty of wilful neglect.
“Let’s go back to the FRS and consider a scenario where there have been x number of deaths in y number of years due to suicide. The data is there. If they simply accept these deaths as occurring on duty and are part and parcel of being a firefighter, then they are guilty of wilful neglect.”
He explains: “What they should be doing is asking themselves the following questions: Are we an outlier? Is this different from any other sector? What were the causes of the death by suicide? Is it anything to do with work-related stress? Is it to do with personal relationships? Is it to do with finances? Should our officers have spotted this, and could we have done something about it?”
HMICFRS is now looking higher up the ladder as part of its inspection programme and framework for 2025–27. In a recent consultation, it proposed to “evaluate how each FRS is affected by its fire and rescue authority’s governance, oversight, and scrutiny arrangements” and whether leadership needed to be assessed at all levels of FRS.
In November 2024, the Inspectorate hosted fire service leaders to discuss and share knowledge for supporting improvements in the sector. Wilsher spoke about how “strong and effective leadership” could lead to “improvements in the fire and rescue sector” and reiterated that fire services and other organisations such as the NFCC, the Local Government Association, unions, and the government also had a role to play in ensuring improvements could be made.
Also in attendance was Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire, Dame Diana Johnson, who spoke about integrity, culture, and reform in the fire and rescue services. She later said she looked forward to “working more closely with the sector to deliver meaningful, enduring change.”
Staying accountable
Following his tenure at the Home Office, Singh realised that he had reached the peak of his professional career as a fire officer, which led him to retire and take on a new career challenge with the NHS. In September 2024, he stepped down as Chair of the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT) following a 10-year tenure that saw him push for the implementation of the (EDI) agenda at the Trust.
Working across public services has enabled Singh to engage with many different individuals and organisations about the need for better inclusivity and accessibility. However, by his own admission, Singh says that healthcare services are “poorer in dealing” with mental health and wellbeing, with FRSs offering greater opportunities for EDI implementation. As an example, Singh cites the Fire Fighters Charity as an excellent platform for seeking mental health support.
Singh also sits on the board of the Asian Fire Service Association (AFSA), an organisation dedicated to representing diverse voices within the fire service, representing the fire service in media and government, and improving services and engagement with the wider community.
“In all the years [of talking about] equality and diversity, the thing that always frustrates me is that there are examples of good practice, but they don’t get spread,” Singh states.
Understanding how to share and spread good practice is key, he believes. Whether by bringing people together and sharing knowledge and best culture practices or by challenging instances of poor behaviour in the workplace head-on, the sector holding itself accountable for past failures is a vital step towards alleviating the cultural challenges that public services, including the FRSs, face.
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Professor Jagtar Singh OBE is the Former Chair of the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust