Fire tragedy exposes damning failure by Devon and Somerset fire service

A report has raised deep concerns about the culture, leadership and resourcing of the service

“Senior leaders continue to model poor behaviour while failing to support firefighters who have experienced harassment, discrimination or bullying at work,” an inspection report has found in a damning assessment of Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service (D&SFRS).

The report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has raised deep concerns about the culture, leadership and resourcing of the service, which covers one of the largest fire service areas in the country, serving over 1.8 million residents.

In a comprehensive inspection, the watchdog noted that “the service hasn’t made the progress we expected since our 2021 inspection” and was failing in several key areas, particularly in promoting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), supporting victims of bullying, and prioritising fire prevention for those most at risk.

The inspectorate stated: “We were disappointed to find that the [service’s] equality diversity and inclusion team didn’t have sufficient staff resources. The service hasn’t made enough progress in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and there are insufficient staff resources in this team; in addition, staff don’t have confidence in the grievance or promotions processes.”

This assessment came amid striking figures that painted a troubling picture of the internal culture. According to a staff survey conducted as part of the inspection, only 52% of respondents felt that senior leaders consistently modelled and maintained the service’s values—compared with 91% of colleagues. Alarmingly, 16% of staff reported feeling bullied or harassed in the past year. The report noted that “the primary reason for not reporting the bullying or harassment was concerns it would make the situation worse.”

HM Inspector Roy Wilsher acknowledged that some work had been done since the last inspection, particularly around cultural improvement, but warned that more was required. “Although we are pleased to close this cause of concern [from 2021], there is still more work to do. The service still needs to make sure that all staff are trained and supported to identify and challenge inappropriate behaviour,” he said.

In a particularly tragic example of failure in the service’s fire prevention efforts, the report cited a fatal incident: “A fatal fire review revealed that despite historic engagement, the service hadn’t made a home safety visit to an individual who was on the backlog list. Months later, before a visit was made, the occupant died in a fire.” At one point, there were over 7,000 outstanding home safety visits, and although a backlog-clearing effort was undertaken, “it wasn’t prioritised based on risk.”

Alex Smith, Fire Brigades Union (FBU) brigade chair for Devon and Somerset, issued a scathing rebuke of the service’s leadership in response to the report: “When the bells go down, our firefighters are called to action and we respond. Meanwhile, the senior management of Devon and Somerset fire service are putting their fingers in their ears and ignoring the call to action.

As the inspectorate’s report highlights, senior leaders continue to model poor behaviour while failing to support firefighters who have experienced harassment, discrimination or bullying at work.

Instead of taking action to improve the service, management have focused their attention on attacking the terms and conditions of the workforce. This has come to their detriment.

Rather than resource fire safety visits to improve public safety, as the report calls for, they are choosing to threaten to reduce retained firefighters’ pay and change the shift patterns of wholetime staff.

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service senior management must stop attacking the terms and conditions of their workforce and start actioning cultural change at the top.”

Despite the serious concerns, the inspectorate did find areas where the service was performing well. It praised the emergency response capability and highlighted “consistently high on-call availability” and effective collaboration in major incident responses.

Nevertheless, the overarching message is that the leadership must take urgent and meaningful steps to rebuild trust internally, address deep-rooted cultural problems, and refocus on delivering core responsibilities such as fire prevention and safety. The service remains under scrutiny, with the inspectorate pledging to “keep in close contact to monitor its progress in addressing the remaining cause of concern and associated recommendations.”

Gavin Ellis, Chief Fire Officer for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue, said: “We welcome the Inspectorate’s report, which is an important check-in against our improvement plans. It’s great to see our emergency response praised. It’s important for us that when people call 999, they get a good Service.

“Operational colleagues across the Service work hard every day to maintain cover and competency so that they’re ready should anyone in our communities need them.

“We’re pleased that our work to improve culture across the organisation has been recognised and the cause of concern removed. The Inspectorate has recognised that we have better reporting lines, including our Speak Up Guardians, which have successfully helped people to raise concerns. We know we still have more to do to gain confidence from people to report issues, to ensure our culture is consistent across the organisation and to better support our people to develop and thrive.

“Regrettably, the Inspectorate has issued a cause of concern about our prevention activities. Preventing emergencies is a huge focus for the organisation and our people are dedicated to keeping people safe. The recommendations made are process issues and we have already acted to ensure we are better at targeting our prevention work and evaluating its effectiveness.

“Our latest analysis shows that 85% of the referrals we receive from partners are from people who are either high or very high risk.

“Overall, we have a great foundation to keep on improving. The Inspectorate recognised the Service’s self-awareness and commitment of our staff and senior leaders to improve.”