Fire chief warns of diversity challenge

SOCIETY: A senior officer at North Yorkshire’s fire service has admitted that there are “real challenges” to increasing diversity in his workforce.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has been accused of not being representative of the nation’s increasingly diverse society in the 21st century.

A SENIOR officer at North Yorkshire’s fire service has admitted that there are “real challenges” to increasing diversity in the brigade’s workforce.

Concerns have been raised that the ranks of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service are not representative of the nation’s increasingly diverse society in the 21st century.

It emerged earlier this month that only about one in 20 of the

North Yorkshire brigade’s frontline staff are women and less than four per cent are from non-white backgrounds.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Jon Foster has admitted that despite efforts to streamline the recruitment process, the issue of diversity is still an ongoing problem.

Mr Foster said: “In terms of attracting a more diverse workforce, it’s a very complex subject.

“And we have some real challenges in North Yorkshire that other services don’t experience.”

Speaking in a public accountability meeting this week, the county’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Julia Mulligan, stressed that greater efforts need to be undertaken to attract more women, ethnic minorities and members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community to pursue a career with the brigade.

Mr Foster said: “We want to open up to a diverse workforce, we want to encourage people to come in from other services because that brings with them a level of knowledge and expertise and it brings in the whole range of diversity of thought.

“But there’s also a negative effect of that, and that is a feeling that our internal staff feel then devalued, so that’s something we’ve got to be very cautious of and careful to manage as well.

“It’s not about saying that the people that we currently employ are not good enough, it’s about bolstering and trying to attract as much diversity as we can, but also valuing the staff who we already have working for us.”

During a previous meeting this month, it emerged that the North Yorkshire brigade had recruited in the same way since it was formed in 1947, and just 12 per cent of its overall staff are female.

Chief Fire Officer Andrew Brodie said measures had been launched to reduce the proportion of white men as it was crucial that the service reflected the communities it served so it could best understand their needs.

Mr Brodie also confirmed that the service had removed the requirement for GCSEs and driving licences at entry point as maths and English could be assessed in other ways and driving licences were not needed immediately.

Earlier this month, West Yorkshire Police’s Chief Constable John Robins admitted that more needed to be done to increase diversity in the force.

He said he would support positive discrimination to attract more black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people applying for roles within the force.

It’s about bolstering and attracting as much diversity as we can. Jon Foster, North Yorkshire Deputy Chief Fire Officer.