Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service’s (DFRS) vision is to ‘Make Derbyshire Safer Together.’ The Services’ ‘Our Plan 2023-26’ (Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP)) details how we will do this, with the Service recognising the importance of an effective Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) strategy combined with our Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) objectives to support its delivery and ongoing work against our Service Priorities.
Derbyshire Fire Rescue Service is committed to improving our culture of equality and diversity for the communities of Derbyshire and our employees. Our commitment and responsibility is governed by legislation including:
- The Human Rights Act 1998 – to ensure the fundamental rights and freedoms that everyone in the UK is entitled to
- The Equality Act 2010 - to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion is central to all we do
- This is further enhanced under section 149, Equality Act 2010 Public Sector Equality Duty to:
- Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other unlawful conduct prohibited under the Equality Act 2010
- Advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
- Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
- Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations 2017
- The British Sign Language (BSL) Act 2022 – to promote and facilitate the use of BSL within public sector organisations
Delivery, Monitoring and Review
We recognise that inclusion involves everyone. All employees have a responsibility for EDI as outlined in the Core Code of Ethics for Fire and Rescue Services.
We have incorporated national learning, guidance and good practice from organisations including the National Fire Chiefs Council, Local Government Association, His Majesty Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue, Asian Fire Service Association, and Women in the Fire Service.
The work of the strategy and associated action plans will be monitored via internal performance boards, strategy scrutiny meetings, review of equality impact assessments, relevant community forums, and the Inclusion and Equality Forum – a subgroup of the Fire and Rescue Authority.
Our statutory responsibilities require us to publish and report on the Gender Pay Gap and progress against our equality objectives*. These objectives underpin our commitment to embed EDI throughout DFRS. This strategy contains our high-level commitments to EDI and enables all Service areas to adopt PSED objectives within their own strategies.
*Our annual Gender Pay Gap and PSED data report can be located here.
PSED Objective 1 - We will improve our understanding of all our communities to keep them safe from fire and other emergencies
PSED Objective 2 - We will improve our understanding of our workforce and create an environment where all can achieve
PSED Objective 3 - We will improve the representation of the workforce to reflect the community we serve; to provide the diversity of thought, skills, and experiences required to make everyone in Derbyshire safer
PSED Objective 4 - We will identify opportunities to utilise digital technology to create a more inclusive and accessible environment
PSED Objective 5 - We will identify opportunities to improve the quality and relevance of data used to inform our decisions
Our Vision - Making Derbyshire Safer Together
The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy will reflect our vision, values, Service priorities and the Core Code of Ethics.
Service Priorities
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Keeping our communities safe from fire and other emergencies
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Having a well-equipped, trained, competent and safe workforce available for operational emergencies
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Putting people first to maintain an outstanding culture of equality and inclusivity
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Managing the Service and the challenges within the current and future financial constraints to deliver value for money
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Continuous improvement through challenge and inspection
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Meeting the data and digital challenge as it evolves
Our Core Values
- Leadership: We listen, develop and champion our people
- Respect: We value the opinions of our people
- Integrity: Our actions will always be well intended
- Openness: We won’t hide anything and will share our experiences and knowledge
- Teamwork: We will achieve more together
- Ambition: We will always do the best we can
Areas of Work
Theme/activity PSED Objective 1 |
What are the objectives/ commitments (‘we will’ statements in Our Plan) in our strategy? | How are we going to achieve this? | What does success look like and how will it be measured? |
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We will improve our understanding of all our communities to keep them safe from fire and other emergencies
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By developing and implementing an EDI communication and engagement plan to celebrate diversity within the Service and our communities By implementing station plans and delivering engagement activities with communities across the county By ensuring attendance at relevant community forums and events and identifying gaps where we need to improve community links By collecting, monitoring and analysing equalities data By ensuring incident and equality data drives our Prevention, Protection, Response and Operational Preparedness strategies By building on known and emerging risks to create a tailored plan that meets the needs of all our communities |
The Service has an improved understanding of the communities we serve The Service is better informed about the diverse nature of our communities and how we adapt our services to meet their needs There is an increased engagement with the Service This will be measured through our performance reporting mechanisms |
Theme/activity PSED Objective 2
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What are the objectives/ commitments (‘we will’ statements in Our Plan) in our strategy? | How are we going to achieve this? | What does success look like and how will it be measured? |
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We will improve our understanding of our workforce and create an environment where all can achieve
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Through our People, Workforce, Learning and Development, and Communication and Engagement strategies By ensuring that equality impact assessments are completed for strategies, policies, processes and projects By implementing actions from relevant employee related schemes and assessments e.g. Disability Confident scheme By introducing a service level agreement for employee support networks utilising NFCC best practice By measuring progress through relevant key performance indicators linked to people metrics and producing an annual Public Sector Equality Duty and Gender Pay report |
The Service has robust policies and procedures that promote inclusivity The Service uses the equality monitoring data to support decision making There is an increased engagement with employees We have proactive employee support networks that promote positive change Effective equality impact assessments identify impacts and enable us to act on them There is an increased confidence in employees sharing their equality data This will be measured through participation levels and outcomes of employee networks, quality and completion rates of equality impact assessments and via our performance reporting mechanisms |
Theme/activity PSED Objective 3 |
What are the objectives/commitments (‘we will’ statements in Our Plan) in our strategy? | How are we going to achieve this? | What does success look like and how will it be measured? |
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We will improve the representation of the workforce to reflect the community we serve; to provide the diversity of thought, skills, and experiences required to make everyone in Derbyshire safer
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Through our People, Workforce, Learning and Development Strategy, and Corporate Communication and Engagement strategies By developing and implementing a framework for positive action that includes attraction, recruitment and progression within the Service to deliver improvements in workforce representation By addressing any findings and implementing actions from the Gender Pay Gap Report By developing and implementing further learning and development opportunities By providing scrutiny and transparency through relevant internal and external meetings and scrutiny boards, including Workforce Planning Group, People Performance Board |
There is an increased diversity within all duty systems and levels within the Service We have educated and informed employees who proactively embrace and promote equality, diversity and inclusion and a good workplace culture The Service acts on findings to reduce discrimination and improve equality of access to opportunities This will be measured through data collection and analysis across recruitment, retention and progression activities, via our performance reporting mechanisms |
Theme/activity PSED Objective 4 |
What are the objectives/ commitments (‘we will’ statements in Our Plan) in our strategy? | How are we going to achieve this? | What does success look like and how will it be measured? |
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We will identify opportunities to utilise digital technology to create a more inclusive and accessible environment
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Through our People, ICT, Learning and Development, and Corporate Communication and Engagement strategies By ensuring access to a range of accessibility tools to provide effective and efficient service delivery By providing information in accessible formats where appropriate By undertaking equality impact assessments to identify where potential improvements in accessibility can be considered |
Employees and communities can access service information Employees and communities are able to engage in communication and consultation activities This will be measured through qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and via our performance reporting mechanisms |
Theme/activity PSED Objective 5 |
What are the objectives/ commitments (‘we will’ statements in Our Plan) in our strategy? | How are we going to achieve this? | What does success look like and how will it be measured? |
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We will identify opportunities to improve the quality and relevance of data used to inform our decisions
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This will be managed through our CRMP: and our People Strategy ensuring our decisions are informed by the current and available data |
Success in this area will allow for adequate assessment of our people and our community data sets through all areas of our work, with any gaps and disproportionality in data easily identified and mitigated against This will be measured through an increase in effective data sets that facilitate service delivery |