WANT MORE RISK TAKING?SENIOR OFFICERS MUST SHOW LEADERSHIP THAT HURTS.

BY PETER STANLEY Very clearly the signals from Government, the HSE and CFOA are that they want to see more risk taking particularly by junior and middle level commanders at incidents where life and property is at risk.The recent information regarding heroic acts published on the HSE website is an example of this. The generally expressed opinion I hear within the service at senior level is that the risk pendulum has swung too far in the direction of aversion. Public opinion, led in part by the Daily Mail, who have illustrated their campaign against health and safety madness in particular by the somewhat biased reporting of a selection of re service incidents(the rescue of Alison Hume,Walpole Park in Gosport and the Carshalton Pond) seems to concur. So what are rst strike and junior commanders supposed to make of all that, working inside a culture of strict standard operating procedures, operational guidance, generic risk assessment and subject to severe stricture if things go wrong as has been illustrated by the Atherstone case currently being tried. My personal opinion is,having trained, assessed and worked with a large number of rst strike and junior commanders in recent years, the leaders of UK Service PLC and the general public are pushing at an open door as far as encouraging re ofcers to ght res and rescue people in even the most difcult and risky environments. For me though whilst it is vital for the safety of reghters and the general public that re commanders accurately calculate risk against gain and attempt to rescue people in difcult situations to save life and protect property, there is a perception that if it goes wrong that they will not be backed by senior ofcers. If the risk aversion pendulum is to be brought back to the midpoint two things will have to happen. Firstly the junior and middle level commanders will need to be highly trained to get risk judgements right and accept that sometimes reghters have to be committed into high risk situations where the gain is worth it.Whilst we are on the
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subject of this group it will also be critical that individual re and rescue services select suitable people to lead rst strike and mid level operations. In my view it isnt good enough just to go to the pool of re ghters and ofcers who have chosen to apply at any one point in time and gamble that they will have a real chance immediately or in the long term of going on to succeed as good quality rst strike and mid- level incident commanders. Selection of re commanders has to be much more focused and precise than that. After all incident command qualities are well known. Anybody interested in them can nd a long list in Fire Command by Brunacini. Incident Commanders need to be identied and developed right from the start of their careers.There is no certainty that at a moment in time over forty years an individual who was hired as a reghter may decide incident command responsibility it is for them and then apply.The aim should be a sophisticated and continuous process of selection,training and assessment with a clear focus on what the organisation and the community need from its re incident commanders. Secondly and the point of this article, senior and principle ofcers will have to show leadership that hurts here.They will have to routinely and very publicly back their risk takers when things go wrong,even when they know that the junior commander has made a poor or wrong decision at an operational incident.And on those occasions where the perception is that it could be damaging their own status and career. One thing is sure. Senior ofcers can back their junior decision makers ninety nine times out of one hundred but if they fail to do so on the hundredth occasion,thats what the organisation will remember and point to as an example of a general lack of support. Explaining to the wider public audience that a junior commander has made an error of judgement which has resulted in a difcult and sometimes entirely unacceptable outcome is not impossible or damaging in the long run in my view.The public are not witless and the majority understand that junior commanders make risk critical decisions every day at operational incidents, that they are human and mistakes are inevitable if the re service is to provide the sort of re and rescue service they want.
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Of course a senior or principle manager cannot prejudice a criminal or civil enquiry but certainly with well chosen words, delivered in the public arena, can send a powerful signal to the junior commander who is being held to account for their operational decisions that they are valued and supported.