Organisational Culture in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

1. This thematic inspection examines aspects of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) that have an influence on its organisational culture. It is the first phase of an inspection on the subject of culture. The inspection has been carried out following a period of intense scrutiny within the emergency service sector across the UK regarding culture and behaviours.

2. The subject of conduct and behaviour of staff is important, however, we don’t want this report to focus on negative behaviours. This first report focuses on underpinning documents and policies that drive behaviours rather than the actual behaviours themselves. During this inspection we were clear to those we spoke to what our focus was, and that we were not looking at, or for, examples of misbehaviour or misconduct. Although misbehaviour was not a focus we did have an agreed protocol with the Service in the event that a member of staff raised a concern with us. We did not have to use this.

3. His Majesty’s Fire Service Inspectorate (HMFSI) is firmly of the view that the overwhelming majority of the SFRS staff come to their work in the belief that they are performing a valuable public service and wish to carry out their duty to the best of their abilities, respecting the public and their colleagues alike. Our inspection has been conducted following the publication of a number of reports highlighting the behaviour and conduct of staff within the emergency service sector (fire, police, and ambulance services) across the United Kingdom. Although the majority of the cases which involved the fire and rescue service related to services outside Scotland, the SFRS has previously had to respond to allegations of a bullying culture involving ex-senior members of the organisation, and we cannot assume that issues of inappropriate culture and conduct are not relevant to Scotland. We therefore believe this is an area of significant public interest. At the outset of this inspection we were of the view that we would not find a single SFRS culture. We are of that view firstly because the Service, as an organisation, is a merger of eight legacy fire and rescue services which each had their own cultures. The SFRS’s workforce also perform their duties using different duty systems and in different support directorates, to diverse communities which all exert an influence on how culture and behaviours develop and manifest themselves. Additionally we also believe that the size and complexity of the SFRS make it difficult to operate as a single organisation with a single culture. Our approach is grounded in academic research which suggests that organisational culture is a product of shared symbols and meanings emerging from interactions between different members. The interpretation of organisational culture is deeply embedded in the contextual richness of the total social life of the organisational members’ (Meek 1988). Notwithstanding the variety of interpretations available, a pluralist dimension to culture, acknowledging the role and existence of sub-organisational groups or sub-cultures is widely acknowledgedⁱ (Schein, 1996; Ogbonna, 1993; Wankhade et al., 2018).

4. The focus of this first report into culture is about describing the SFRS, how it sets out its corporate expectations, how it communicates these to its workforce, how it supports its staff, and how it ensures compliance through policies and process.