Below is an internal news item shared with staff of West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) by Councillor Catherine Miks, Vice Chair of the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority (WMFRA). It’s being shared as it is important that the messages here are shared with the public, as well as our staff.
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Dear colleagues,
May I first say thank you to all of you for doing the critical work to keep our communities safe over what I recognise has been a challenging time. Whilst the past few weeks have been unfamiliar territory for all of us at the Fire Authority, we recognise that it is on top of a challenging year where the service has attracted media attention for issues which do not support you to do your important roles. We should be creating the environment for excellence and recently the Fire Authority have instead been the focus. I hope to correct that.
I completely understand that the decisions we have taken have a personal impact on staff across the organisation. However, we always knew this would not impact the vital day-to-day work of the organisation due to the outstanding professionalism and people within WMFS. If you are not told it enough, let me say it again: what you do is remarkable, essential and never taken for granted. Thank you.
I, too, find myself in unfamiliar territory. Until a new Chair of the Fire Authority is elected at the next WMFRA meeting in November, I will act in this role and felt it was important to try and offer reassurances, clarifications and apologies.
Firstly, while I am disappointed in the series of events and consequent decisions of both Oliver Lee and Councillor Brackenridge to resign, I recognise that these were their decisions to take, and ours to navigate. I thank them both for their work for WMFS, I wish them both well and understand there will continue to be discussions and scrutiny around their previous roles. You will understand these are sensitive matters and that I am a little restricted in how much I can say about them.
So instead, let me talk about moving forwards. My desire, and the Fire Authority’s, is to operate more transparently. This includes both improving working relationships with senior officers, which have clearly recently been strained, and the balance between operational and political decision making. We also want to improve the relationships with the bodies that will undertake reviews of our governance, and with you. This will improve the Fire Authority’s ability to govern the service appropriately and will begin with returning to weekly meetings with senior officers.
This will bring some of the desired stability to the top of the organisation so that the focus of the media and three million people we protect is rightly where it should be: on your outstanding work.
In the background, our recruitment process for a new CEO/CFO continues and I am confident that the right candidate will be appointed to lead the service and continue with the focus of one team moving forward. Meanwhile, our partners at HMICFRS, the Local Government Association, National Fire Chiefs Council and others will continue to provide support to myself, Simon and the leadership team of WMFS.
I also wanted to address the commentary online around comments I made in a closed Authority meeting in February this year, when I suggested “everyone has at some stage put something on their CV that they regretted putting on there and shouldn’t have”. I will be clear; I do not condone anybody being dishonest on their CV, and have never and will never do so myself.
After eight months, a recording of some of my comments, including these, have come to light, and I feel they were taken out of context as we were discussing the late Wayne Brown.
I remember thinking at the meeting, as I listened to someone else referring to the content of Wayne’s CV, how sad Wayne who only weeks before took his own life was not here to give his side of the story, rightly or wrongly. My concern that day along with my colleagues was that I hoped we had done everything we could to support him, not about his CV which I knew when we had all the facts we needed to, and would, address.
We all felt able to speak freely at this meeting while still mourning the loss of a colleague I worked closely with. It saddens me still.
Councillor Catherine Miks
Vice-Chair, West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority