Fire chiefs too afraid to act on own initiative
LONDON Fire Brigade commanders are still “strikingly” afraid to act on their own initiative despite criticism of their rigid leadership at the Grenfell Tower disaster, a watchdog has claimed.
A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services found the brigade had been slow to implement the lessons of the 2017 blaze.
Echoing recent concerns raised by a public inquiry, it accused the London Fire Brigade (LFB) of an “organisational failing” for not regularly assessing the competence of incident commanders. Officers who marshalled the response to Grenfell Tower were previously said to have treated fatally flawed safety advice as an “article of faith” in a damning report issued by the inquiry.
On the night of the fire in June 2017, successive incident commanders chose not to revoke the stay-put advice given to residents for nearly two hours, a move the inquiry judged could have saved “many more lives”.
The inspectorate visited the LFB between May and July, noting in its report, published today, that commanders were allowed to “adapt and deviate from operational policy when necessary”.
However, the report concluded: “While staff understand this policy, only six cases were reported in two years, which is strikingly low.” It added: “We were told that organisational culture inhibits commanders from using operational discretion.
“Incident commanders aren’t confident that the brigade would support them in using operational discretion.
“Moreover, not all staff feel that the tone of the brigade’s post-incident debrief meetings, which review such decisions, supports a learning environment.”
Inspectors were particularly scathing of the LFB’S current effectiveness for protecting the public through fire regulation and called it “worryingly inadequate” at “getting the right people with the right skills”.
It is understood that Dany Cotton, the LFB commissioner, had seen the report before she announced the decision to step down at the end of the month ahead of her due retirement date in April 2020. Ms Cotton had faced sustained pressure to go after she was singled out for criticism by the Grenfell inquiry over her handling of the fire that killed 72 people.
Matt Parr, HM Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services, said: “This is a disappointing report: there are too many areas where the London Fire Brigade needs to make improvements.” He added: “Many of its projects are wasteful, projects get started and stalled. The organisation as a whole is slow to learn.”
The report said LFB “has clearly learnt lessons from the Grenfell Tower incident” but has been “slow to implement the changes needed, which is typical of the brigade’s approach to organisational change”.
Elsewhere, the inspectorate found most of the senior commanders said they had not had any incident training “for several years”.