Equality and Social Justice Committee, 4 March 2024 | Open Senedd

Open SeneddCymraeg

Equality and Social Justice Committee, 4 March 2024 | Open Senedd

Matt Wrack

Yes, thanks very much, Chair, if I can just put this into context. So, I think, with incidents like this, there are various ways in which the Fire Brigades Union becomes involved. One of those that I think is important to mention in this context is support for the victims, because, in most of the cases across the fire service in the UK, the victims of such incidents will also be members of the Fire Brigades Union. So, if you look at our annual report each year, you will see—. We don't report every case, but we report, for example, employment tribunal cases, where we have pursued, on behalf of victims, cases against their employer, often for a failure to act on complaints that they have raised. So, we are involved on that level regularly on behalf of groups of our members who have suffered such behaviour.

Secondly, within our own rules, there are rules against bullying, harassment and discrimination, and we have certainly brought cases against members, and we have had, for example, officials of the union who have been barred from holding office in our union when found guilty of such offences under our rules.

And then, thirdly, there is the policy to which Cerith referred, 'All Different, All Equal'. I think it's important to explain the background to that. The debate on equality and diversity goes back to the early 1980s, and it has been long and it's been difficult and there have been lots of failures in the fire and rescue service. We developed that policy as a union precisely because, in one case, representation was withdrawn from an individual and the union was taken to an employment tribunal. So, the policy that we have, which is very thorough, and has to be careful, is precisely in response to legal challenges that the union faced on this very issue.

So, we require our regions to ensure that an investigation is conducted; we have to then train people to conduct that investigation, and we've taken legal advice on the standards that we could apply if, for example, we're determining that we may consider not representing an individual member. And I'm sure you'll appreciate that it's correct and appropriate that the union goes through all those various steps. And again, we report each year in our annual report the number of applications under that policy, the number of hearings that have taken place and the number of occasions on which representation is withdrawn. And again, I'm sure you'll appreciate that to withdraw that representation is quite a significant step for a trade union to take, considering the fact that most people will join a trade union in order to get representation if they face discipline. So, it is a difficult policy. I'm not aware of any other union that has such a firm policy on this, by the way. I think it has been controversial, even within the Fire Brigades Union at times. We've maintained it and that's the policy that's in place.

An additional problem that we've faced in recent years, I think, as was mentioned to us by some of our south Wales officials recently, is that the number of discipline cases has grown generally in the fire service for some reason. That means there are greater demands on trade union reps at local level, including cases that might, in our case, come under 'All Different, All Equal', and therefore there is a greater demand for investigators. How do people get time released from work to carry out such investigations? There needs to then be a meeting of the regional committee to determine that's the case. The individual has a right of appeal, so, that may go to the executive council—sorry, the final appeals committee—to assess whether that decision to withdraw representation was correct or not.

So, there are various processes; it is not simply a straightforward decision that we find a WhatsApp message, for example, and can then automatically withdraw representation—or would want to—because, as I say, we have faced legal action on this very issue in the past.

11:07Watch #Official Record

Cerith Griffiths

Yes, the thematic reviews were on the back of the chief fire and rescue adviser producing a report saying that—. This was looking into a broadened role for firefighters and suggested some changes that needed to be made with start and finish times. It wasn't that it was resisted, but I think south Wales recognised that this would need to be done in social partnership, that they would need to consult with the trade unions on this matter, and that there would be some resistance from the Fire Brigades Union and other representative bodies. Now, that review was done. South Wales didn't see the need to make those changes, and understood that if they did make those changes, which would have seen some opposition from Fire Brigades Union members in south Wales, they recognised that there would be industrial strife for some years to come, and the changes weren't warranted or weren't seen to be warranted as much as they were being driven by the chief fire and rescue adviser and his team.

We need to be able to take staff along with us. When you make change, and the changes that were being seen, as I say, to a broadened role, I think that needed to have occurred first, but they put the cart before the horse, in essence, and tried to make a change that was going to be resisted, and then you'll just get further resistance along the line. And it was quite surprising when I saw that the terms of reference for the commissioners, going forward, was to implement these changes. Now, we're talking about cultural changes, and you need to have staff buy-in at all points with that. To try and implement changes to terms and conditions that didn't look as if they were being done in social partnership—. They say that it has to be done that way, but when it doesn't look that way, that's the perception you're going to get from staff, and staff then are going to resist that and some of the cultural changes you wish to make are going to be also resisted as well. So, I think it needs to be done in the right order, and unfortunately, this seems to be not being done in the right order.

11:20Watch #Official Record

Matt Wrack

Thanks, Cerith. I think if I could make a couple of points on this question. First of all, in terms of responsibilities at Government level, I think more could be done to monitor the fire and rescue service. The figures on diversity that we get from the Welsh Government are not as good as those we get from Westminster. I'm normally a major critic of the Westminster Government, but actually on this issue they do better than the Welsh Government, in publishing on diversity. I don't see why it's a problem to collate that level of information. The Welsh Government should be doing that. I think there needs to be greater emphasis on diversity in recruitment. If you look at the south Wales report figures, they're not that much different in terms of women from the rest of the UK fire and rescue services. So, some progress has been made since 2010, but our view is that equality, particularly in terms of recruitment, has generally stalled across the whole UK since 2010. So, I think there are responsibilities at Government level.

And then, within the fire service, the single biggest issue I would argue for is to address the failure to act. I'm aware, and I've occasionally had to have discussions with chief fire officers, of individual cases where the issue has been raised by an individual employee that may have been an obvious breach of discipline, and there has, nevertheless, been a failure to act. In some cases, that failure to act is then passed off: 'Let's have a cultural review instead.' That's precisely the reason why we end up needing cultural reviews, because, for some reason, and I think it's at the very top of fire service organisations, there is an acceptance that, in some circumstances, we will not act. Whether that's because of misogyny or discrimination from the people concerned, whether it's because it's too difficult an issue to deal with, or whether it's because of personal past friendships, I don't know. There may be elements of all of that, but that is led from the top by chief fire officers, and they have to face up to that.

11:39Watch #Official Record