Organisational Culture in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

5. Strategic Priority six from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Framework 2022⁽¹⁾ sets out the Scottish Government’s expectations for the Service in relation to people. The Priority states

‘SFRS should continue to be a Fair Work employer and develop as an employer of choice. It should promote the equality, safety and physical and mental health of all its staff. SFRS should continue to maximise the effectiveness of its approach to workforce and succession planning and should be a learning organisation with equal opportunities for all. SFRS should ensure it enables innovation and change through its People Strategy. SFRS should actively strive to be an organisation that is more representative of the people and communities of Scotland that it serves.’

6. The Framework also states that the ‘SFRS should continue to actively develop the culture of the organisation to embrace the values of being inclusive, diverse and fair and ensure these are fully embedded across the whole workforce.’

The SFRS stated Values

7. In April 2016 the Service published its stated values; Safety; Teamwork; Respect; and Innovation. We were advised that these were developed using feedback received from the Service’s first cultural audit of its workforce in 2014. The Service defines the values as ‘It’s about how we approach our work. The words we say and how we say them. The actions we take and the way we do them.’ Apart from some very minor cosmetic changes, the SFRS values document remains unaltered since its initial publication and retains a review date of December 2017. The Service’s values framework provides staff with an explanation of how each value would be demonstrated as a minimum expected standard, and describes additional behaviours for those aspiring to be in, or those already in a leadership role.

8. The values have organisational prominence because they are used as branding in the majority of Service communications and routinely in the signature strip of staff emails. As part of this inspection we wanted to test the workforce’s attitude towards, and understanding of, the values, and appraise the view of the workforce on the importance, or not, to them. We also wanted to assess how the Service measures staff compliance with the values and to see how closely the values mirror staff experience of working in the organisation.

9. Leadership, both at Board level and in senior management, is key to establishing a strong sense of organisational values and ethical behaviour. Research evidence points to the significant role of leaders in setting objectives and creating a supporting and nurturing organisational culture. Board⁽³⁾ and Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) members, in particular, have a central role to play in ensuring that organisational values are integral to the SFRS’s performance and strategic aims. As espoused by the Institute for Business Ethics:

‘Senior leadership ‘set the tone’ by referring to the values and expectations of the company when they address employees – and by living those values too. Ultimately, the actions of leaders speak louder than words. Messages are strengthened when leaders visibly follow the same rules as everyone else.’

10. As part of its 2024 colleague experience survey (CES), the Service asked a series of questions related to the four values. Staff were asked to consider matters such as feeling able to speak out and on equality and diversity. We cover the subject of surveys in further detail later in the report and also say more about the workforce view of the values. In this report we make reference to our findings based on our discussions with staff, we also make reference to the Service’s own staff survey responses. There are times when these might not align.

11. The Service launched a draft strategy for the period 2025–28 for public consultation on 6 February with a closing date of 2 April 2025. The draft strategy has an outcome that: ‘Our people feel valued and supported by SFRS in a culture that embraces diversity and inclusion, empowerment and accountability and drives joined up working.’ We cover these themes later in this report.

12. The Service has a Dignity and Respect policy (initially named the Dignity and Integrity at Work Policy and renamed in 2022) which sets out the Service’s expectations with regard to the value of respect. The policy is linked to a separate document relating to bullying, harassment, and discrimination, which is covered later, when behaviours displayed fall short of what is expected. The objectives of the policy are to promote a culture of dignity, integrity and respect and to clearly define the standards of behaviour required within the workplace, to signpost support and guidance in a culture where employees have the confidence to raise concerns knowing they will be treated seriously.

13. A number of Service policies have supporting documents such as Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessment (EHRIA), Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), and Privacy Statement. Responsibility for completing these rests with the policy owner in consultation with relevant subject matter experts. They should also be completed and agreed where relevant, before the policy is published. During our inspection we noted that not all policies had these in place. We also noted that some of the supporting documents do not reflect the policy content. For example, the EHRIA for the appraisal policy makes reference to the consideration of reasonable adjustment needs for staff, however; the policy; the managers handbook; and the staff handbook, are all silent on reasonable adjustments and how to account for them. Whilst we acknowledge that the Service has a document entitled ‘Guide to reasonable adjustments and supporting staff with a disability’ which makes reference to reasonable adjustments during the appraisal process, it is not clearly signposted within the policy or handbooks themselves.

Recommendation 1

We recommend that the SFRS, when creating and reviewing policies and procedures, ensures that all supporting documents such as EHRIA, DPIA and privacy statements etc, are also created and maintained in line with governance arrangements and guidance, where required.