A decision to give three firefighters, including a watch manager, written warnings for deliberately damaging a colleague’s property has been criticised as a “slap on the wrist”. Former Avon Fire Authority (AFA) chairman Cllr Don Davies told councillors that the sanctions over the incident at the unnamed fire station felt unduly lenient and that the senior male employee would probably have been sacked in the private sector.
The incident was revealed in an annual report outlining formal disciplinary cases, grievances and employment tribunals involving Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AFRS) from April 2021 to March this year. Head of human resources Karen Shiel told AFA people & culture committee that one grievance was raised compared with five over the previous 12 months.
She said: “That’s a female operational member of staff who claims bullying and harassment both individually on her watch but also a wider culture of sexism and inappropriate behaviour. This case is still ongoing and there is an employment tribunal pending, so it will be very difficult to answer any questions on that case.
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“We have appointed an external investigator to deal with that case, which is almost concluded.” She said of the 11 formal disciplinaries last year, three related to the same incident of damage to an employee’s property while on duty, with the manager involved issued with a six-month written warning and the two other male firefighters given three months.
“One of those individuals was a manager and we expect a higher threshold in their behaviour, which is why there were different sanctions,” Ms Shiel told the meeting at Police & Fire HQ in Portishead. Committee member Cllr Davies, who stepped down as North Somerset Council leader last month and was previously AFA chairman, said: “A three-month warning doesn’t seem to be much more than a slap on the wrist, really, rather than saying it's inappropriate.
“I don’t know the facts of the case but certainly from my experience in the private industry, if the manager did what we think he did, it may well be that that person would not be working for the organisation. So I wonder whether we are in step between discipline and our cultural journey because what is unacceptable should be seen to be very unacceptable.”
Chief fire officer Simon Shilton replied: “It’s very difficult – each scenario has its particular detail which needs to be taken into consideration. However, the frustration we are picking up is that staff will see or hear about that and they perceive that as what could be an inconsistent approach for different scenarios.
“That’s why it reinforces the need for us to have a statement around what we mean by our zero tolerance approach and that consistency in how we apply our policy and procedure to instances of that nature. That might help to resolve that, but it’s very difficult that for confidentiality reasons we cannot communicate all the information across the service, because what that leaves is a little bit of a gap that people take to fill and make some assumptions and then they may see some inconsistencies which creates that lack of confidence around our approach.
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“So our zero tolerance aspect will help that.” South Gloucestershire Cllr Adam Monk asked if the incident indicated a problematic culture at the station or whether it was an event that “got out of hand and people thought it was funny”.
Ms Shiel replied: “In terms of that manager, absolutely we expect all of our managers to set the culture. Every workplace has a subculture. That is why the manager got a more severe sanction than the firefighters.
“There are lessons to be learned in terms of action plans and improvement plans and very much working with the station manager because there was some history to this and it relates to employee relations and around union membership, there were layers to this case. I think it’s a one-off in terms of that particular event but the messages need to be clear across all our workforce about tolerance in terms of what is banter and a prank and what is very clearly inappropriate and where that threshold is.”
Mr Shilton told the meeting on Thursday, June 9, that the wider messaging across the service on “accelerating our cultural journey and around personal responsibility and accountability” was one of his top priorities since taking over as chief and CEO in April. He said: “We will take a consistent and proportionate approach where that doesn't meet our expected standards of behaviour or conduct or performance in the workplace.
“That is a really key area and how everyone has a responsibility to uphold that and call that out or challenge that behaviour and in doing so that will build strong and positive relationships across our service, it will continue to reinforce being an inclusive service for all and where every member of our staff feels valued and that they can contribute.”
