This year’s wholetime recruitment drive has been the most
accessible campaign to potential applicants Avon Fire & Rescue
Service (AF&RS) has ever launched.
For the first time ever application forms have been available to
any member of the public for a series of days at a
number of locations across the Avon area. During all previous
recruitment campaigns applications packs could only be collected
from one location, on one given weekday. Despite this more than
1,000 people would regularly apply to join the service.
Alongside the new application process AF&RS has also
organised five ‘Have a go’ days which have been laid on to
raise awareness about the fire service. In a bid to increase
AF&RS’s workforce diversity, four of the days have been
specifically advertised to Black and Minority Ethnic (BME)
communities and women. The fifth ‘Have a go’ day is open to
all.
The service currently has a uniformed workforce which comprises
97% white males. Under Communities for Local Government (CLG)
targets that are set for all fire and rescue services, AF&RS is
expected to make steps towards a uniformed workforce comprising 15%
female and 3% BME staff.
Barbara Brown, Head of AF&RS’s Equalities and Diversity Team
said: “The stark reality is that we are some way off these targets
and aside from our moral obligation and business imperative to
better reflect the communities we serve, we could also potentially
face criticism and other intervention from external sources if we
didn’t take steps to address these imbalances.
“There are a whole
host of myths about working for the fire service among BME groups
and women and these ‘Have a go’ days set out to dispel some of
those. Although we are legally obliged to take these type of steps
in order to encourage under represented groups to apply, we chose
to extend the have a go days to all applicants with our session
this Friday. We believe these days are an effective way of
communicating with all potential applicants, and have proved
successful within the fire and rescue service and other public
service organisations.
“This year’s recruitment process has been the most accessible we
have ever run and far from making it more difficult for white males
to apply, by having forms available for a number of days
at various locations, instead of on one day at one location,
we are in fact making it easier for everyone.
“The ‘Have a go’ days are not part of the formal application
process, but are an exercise in informing. Whether or not people
choose to attend one of these sessions will have no bearing on how
their final application is handled.
“As soon as the applications are submitted the name, sex and
ethnicity details are removed and all potential training school
candidates are dealt with in exactly the same way.”