Appendix 2 London Fire Brigade London Fire Commissioner London c.£200,000 Candidate Information Pack Contents Message from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan ................................................ 3 About the London Fire Brigade……………………..………………………………………………….4 Our Achievements & Priorities………………………………………………………………………… 5 The London Fire Commissioner………………………………………………………………………..8 Job Description ...................................................................................................... 9 Person specification ............................................................................................ 11 How to Apply ....................................................................................................... 13 The brave men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others, use their expertise and experience to manage operations, advise the public and prevent fires from occuring are the pride of our city. They need a wise, progressive and compassionate leader to direct their work and ensure they have what they need to deliver for Londoners. The outgoing Commissioner, Dany Cotton, has provided exactly that, and has been an inspiration both to her team and to me personally. Her 32-year career shows the best of what our fire service can be – allowing a talented female leader to rise up through the operational ranks to head the busiest fire service in the country. Many challenges remain for the London Fire Brigade. That is why we continue to work to improve the culture of the organisation to make it more welcoming to people from all walks of life, so the Brigade can reflect the community it serves. The Brigade has been deeply affected by the tragic events at Grenfell Tower in June 2017. While ensuring our firefighters and other affected staff have the support they need to deal with the personal effects of the fire, we are also working to learn lessons from that night and the underlying issues. We now look to the next Commissioner to take on the challenges of the future, while embodying the principles of openness, progress and inclusion. The rewards will be huge, both for the next Commissioner themselves and for London, and I hope you will consider carefully this opportunity to serve. Sadiq Khan Mayor of London About the London Fire Brigade We are London's fire and rescue service - one of the largest firefighting and rescue organisations in the world. We are here to make London a safer city. Our mission and vision London Fire Brigade is here to help make London the safest global city. Our vision is to be a world class fire and rescue service for London, Londoners and visitors. A number of factors are important to us and they influence how the Brigade will meet the challenges of making London a safer place to live, work and visit. How does that work in practice? London Fire Brigade’s main role as a fire and rescue service is to make London the safest global city. This means working to make sure London has the lowest number of fires, and fewer injuries and deaths caused by fire. The Brigade can do this by influencing safety in the ‘built environment’ – buildings, roads, transport systems and so on – and through education and regulation. London Fire Brigade is a trusted partner, helping to create a safer, healthier London by working with local communities to promote healthier lifestyles. The Brigade raises awareness of safety and wellbeing considerations in a whole range of activities, from water safety and road safety, through to caring for the most vulnerable residents & educating and informing tomorrow’s young Londoners. London Fire Brigade will maximise what it can do by working with individuals and businesses to help them identify what they can do for themselves to ensure their own safety and the safety of others. And the Brigade will continue to provide services to meet the needs of all communities. In addition to the aims of reducing the risk of fire and the risk from fire, the London Fire Brigade will also deliver a wide range of services, information and advice together with emergency partners to contribute to: The lowest numbers of deaths and injuries from road traffic collisions. The highest survival rates in cardiac arrests in the world. The lowest levels of crime and disorder. Did you know? We protect and serve 8.6 millions Londoners Our Key Achievements & Priorities The London Fire Brigade can only be as good as its people and over 80% of our staff are proud to be part of LFB. The public think we are delivering a good service and 87% feel positive about us. These are some of the findings from our most recent staff survey and YouGov polling. When asked if they had heard of us, 93% of the public said that they have. These results demonstrate our high profile as a fire and rescue service, and the Grenfell Tower fire has subjected us to even greater public interest and scrutiny. This has often been challenging. Grenfell continues to influence our immediate and longer term priorities, including how we campaign for improved fire safety and how we support our staff. We have taken actions to address questions of public safety raised by Grenfell. This is part of our wider work to influence the fire safety landscape for the foreseeable future in a way that has not been possible previously. We have taken every opportunity to advise building owners and local authorities to act properly in relation to unsafe cladding and on fire safety in general. As a result of the Hackitt Review, which we also responded to, we are advocating a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve building regulations. We have reinvigorated our campaign for sprinklers to be fitted and retrofitted in purpose-built blocks of flats and in all buildings housing vulnerable residents. Other actions include the creation and work of the High Rise Task Force carrying out fire safety checks on over 1,000 buildings; fire safety engagement activities working with the London Council Fire Safety Group; operational response changes to Pre Determined Attendance; the procurement of new equipment such as Fire Escape Hoods and Drones, and the review of the Brigade’s policies and associated training materials, relevant to high rise firefighting and our control room function. All of this work builds on our reputation for successfully campaigning and engaging audiences, with a notable result achieved from our work over the last year to make it easier for people to protect themselves from potentially lethal faulty electrical appliances. In 2018, the government announced plans for a new public database of faulty white goods, a key demand of our Total Recalls campaign. Our work continues to ensure manufacturers act in relation to faulty products and produce them to the safety standards required in the first instance. We see these actions and all of the hard work our staff have done as significant achievements in the last 12 months. And in addition to our Integrated Risk Management Plan, this work will remain a priority throughout the coming year in preparation for Phase 2 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. In the coming year, we will continue our drive for improvement through a number of other major service changes. We believe a strong and successful culture is influenced by how our staff understand and engage with our objectives; how they are trained and developed to be their best at work; how they are treated and how they feel, and what opportunities exist for them to achieve and to progress. We have a number of initiatives underway to embrace these key factors to success. Key to this is ensuring we have a workforce that is representative of the city we serve at all levels. We place huge emphasis on ensuring there is opportunity for all of our staff as well as ensuring those we choose to employ reflect the diversity of London. Working with the Fire Brigades Union, we are implementing agreements for the majority of our workforce to move from a role to rank based structure, removing barriers that have blocked career progression, improving productivity by reducing standby movements and creating on-station officer led training. We are also at a key stage in our review of the development and maintenance of professional skills. In the coming year significant changes will be introduced in two phases, firstly focused on fire station based requirements and then in relation to Control and other specialist staff. These changes will align with our commitment to develop a fresh approach to leadership and this will be linked with the findings of our staff survey, focus on improving the culture of our organisation and influence other plans such as talent management and succession planning. Prevention as a cornerstone of our service remains a priority. We regularly review fatal and accidental dwelling fires and we have clearly identified common characteristics between many of the people who die in such fires. We can do more to reduce these preventable fires, by identifying those people and making changes within their homes. To achieve this our partnership working with local authorities, care providers and others is crucial. Our Fire Cadets programme is expanding from 4 pilot boroughs (2013) to every borough by 2020. It’s been successful, including over £1.1m investment from the Mayor (February 2019) to set up 15 new cadet units. We remain ever vigilant and prepared to respond to terrorism. The actions of the Brigade during not one but four terrorist incidents in one year remind us why we must keep the Capital’s resilience and our preparedness to response to new and emerging threats a priority. Last year, we moved to a new and unique governance structure. The London Fire Commissioner is the fire and rescue authority for London. The Mayor sets our budget, approves our IRMP (The London Safety Plan) and can direct us to act. There is a Deputy Mayor for Fire and Resilience and over the last year we have been held to account by the London Assembly’s Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee.