Operational Training and Development in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

6. In a SFRS context OTD has two distinct facets, which are Operational Training (OT) and personal development. OT sits as a distinct function within the Training, Safety and Assurance (TSA) Directorate, whilst development is the responsibility of the People Directorate Head of Function (HoF) with management happening across a number of teams forming part of the People Directorate. In the main, staff development is the responsibility of a team called Organisational Development (OD).

7. We understand the term OD is normally synonymous with the transformational aspect of Human Resource Management (HRM), with the aim of creating a planned, systematic approach to improving an organisation’s effectiveness, adaptability, and overall performance through people, processes and culture. This strategic approach does not apply solely to the SFRS OD team. To avoid confusion with broader HRM terminology, this report refers to the OD team as Talent Development (TD), which the Service also utilises.

8. It is understood that training focuses on improving employees’ skills and abilities for their current role, while development supports broader, long-term career growth (Appendix 1). Historically, both OT and TD sat together as Training and Employee Development, but the organisation has since divided them between two directorates of TSA and People, respectively.

9. Our inspection outline sought to consider the SFRS training vision and strategy and how it is applied in relation to operational skill acquisition, skill maintenance, training delivery and training asset provision within the Service. In addition, the inspection also considered the people aspects of development and how this is interlinked in relation to TD, talent acquisition as well as Modern Apprenticeships (MA) incorporating Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQ).

10. Our priority was to understand whether the Service is delivering its vision of developing people as its most important asset. It was also our intention to examine the relationship between training and development to understand how these two aspects interact to support employees in all parts of their role within the Service, from point of entry to exit. In doing so, we hoped to assess how effectively and efficiently both training and development support the Service’s vision as well as continuous improvement.

11. When undertaking this inspection, we followed established practice utilised in previous inspections. Our inspection framework provided a structure to our work, which was risk-based, proportionate and focused on the provision of OT and TD throughout the Service. During the course of this inspection and taking particular account of our stated purpose, we focused in general on the following areas:

•  organisational strategy, policy arrangements, delivery model, systems, assets and procedures for training and development that are currently in place;

• governance, and the structures in place to ensure appropriate management oversight;

• responsibilities for delivering training and development and the discharge of legal obligations;

• scrutiny, audit, monitoring and measuring performance to ensure internal compliance, oversight and continuous improvement;

• review and analysis of data which should support audit and monitoring;

• consideration of the SFRS as a LO; and

• staff development processes which support the application, understanding and implementation of training and development.

12. The inspection outline set out the terms of reference for our team to work within and guided our fieldwork as detailed above. As is often the case, new areas of interest arose during the fieldwork process and these are also set out within the report. This thematic inspection into the SFRS OTD provision and cultural aspects that could impact upon their delivery was based on key lines of enquiry. Ultimately our key lines of enquiry focused on strategy, management, performance, acquisition, maintenance, delivery processes as well as asset provision. The findings for each of these key lines of enquiry are set out within this report alongside complementary additional findings. Our report includes a number of observations, areas for consideration, as well as noted areas of good practice and recommendations.

13. Whilst conducting our inspection, we have come to appreciate that OTD is both an aspect of competent firefighting as well as leadership, management and command. As such, responsibility for it cuts across most staff groups within the SFRS. Furthermore, many uniformed staff have both command and management responsibilities intrinsic to their role, which required effective leadership in both. Whilst examining the evidence throughout this inspection we identified that nomenclature used in the vast array of documents can be interchangeable, confusing, and may seem complicated to the unacquainted. Consequently, we feel it necessary to provide a brief explanation to some terms for clarification.

14. For the purposes of this OTD inspection there are five main staffing groups and four main managerial categories. The first main staffing group is that of firefighter, which is the operational entry level of the Service and also forms the majority of career operational staff needing developed and trained. The remaining groups are managerial. These are Director, Strategic, Middle and Supervisory Manager as detailed in Table 1 below.

Table 1 – Role nomenclature comparison

15. Crew Commander (CC), Watch Commander (WC) and corresponding support staff grades are designated supervisory managers. Station Commander (SC), Group Commander (GC) and corresponding supports staff grades are middle managers. Area Commander (AC) and corresponding support staff grades are strategic managers and Deputy Assistant Chief Officer (DACO) and corresponding support staff grades are Head of Function (HoF) whilst Principal Officers (PO) and corresponding support staff grades are the Chief Officer, Deputy Chief Officer or Directors.

16. From a command aspect, all uniformed commanders from PO down to CC may be conferred the role and responsibilities of Incident Commander (IC) depending on the size, scale and type of incident. A Flexi Duty Officer (FDO) is a commander providing supervision for more complex incidents, normally working the Flexi or Continuous Duty Shift system. As such, FDO refers to those officers operating as SC or above.

17. Throughout the documentation related to OTD the terms ‘incident’, ‘event’, ‘training’ and ‘exercising’ are used routinely to describe aspects of service delivery that OTD should encompass. For the purposes of this inspection report and simplicity the term ‘incident’ can be applied to non-operational events that impact the organisation as well as training for, exercising for, preparing for and responding to operational incidents, including all operational control room activity that supports this.

18. It should be noted that during the inspection, the Service implemented changes to its senior management structure, altering DACO responsibilities for the SDAs. These adjustments did not materially affect our inspection or its conclusions.

19. Lastly, this report represents a snapshot in time, and many of the issues identified have long-standing, historical origins. While not explicitly referenced, we note that, during the inspection process, the Service proactively undertook analysis and implemented actions aimed at securing additional funding, capacity, and resources for training and development; this remains an ongoing effort. We also recognise that the continuing strategic service review programme and service delivery review project are likely to influence future training and development, with a strategic ambition to realign additional capacity that may be realised. However, our inspection findings are based on the service delivery standards and the organisation’s established training requirements in place at the time of our fieldwork and inspection process.