By Aileen Robertson

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM, homophobia and misogyny in Fife Fire and Rescue Service will take years to wipe out completely, a fire chief said yesterday.

But the Fire Brigades’ Union said Fife was leading the way in promoting equality in the workplace.

Fife Council’s police, fire and safety committee was updated on the steps being taken to address the findings of a damning fire service audit carried out in 2005.

Frank McFarlane, community safety area manager of Fife’s fire service, said the audit revealed the “bleaker aspect” of the service.

He said the report followed a study of fire services south of the border, completed a decade ago, which described English and Welsh brigades as “racist, homophobic and misogynistic.”

He said, “In 2005, there was not a significant improvement on 10 years ago.”

Despite Fife’s efforts to improve opportunities for women and minority groups, Mr McFarlane said it was “the best of a bad lot.”

However, he said this was different to the service’s treatment of members of the public, who receive its assistance irrespective of race or gender.

He said, “The fire service is unlikely to attract a diverse workforce. It remains a poor performer in terms of women and ethnic minority groups.

“But it is a paradox in that problems of discrimination are within the service and when it comes to service provision there is no such discrepancy.”

Other issues covered by the survey included work-life balance and fairness of management. Of the 595 people employed by the fire service, 259 responded.

Seven out of 10 of those who responded felt their work-life balance was good but 16% felt they had been unfairly passed over for promotion.

“Management get a bit of a hammering in this report,” said Mr McFarlane.

The report’s findings led to the formation of a cultural audit working group, which is chaired by Councillor Margaret Kennedy.

Scott McCabe, Fife brigade secretary for the firefighters’ union, welcomed the work being done by the group. He said discrimination could be tackled by the service’s continuing effort to monitor the situation, educate employees and challenge unacceptable behaviour.

“The Fire Brigades’ Union fully supports and endorses the work of the cultural audit working group in the past six months,” he said.

“The FBU has, nationally, been pushing diversity and culture issues for the last 10 years. Fife is actually leading the way in terms of culture issues. No other brigade has even thought about doing anything like this.

“Many negatives may have come out of the report but the cultural audit working group is a positive thing to come out of that.”

Chief Fire Officer Jimmy Campbell said, “In my opinion, of all the changes the fire service is undergoing, this is the greatest challenge. This is an underlying cancer that will sit there and eat away at us unless we cut it out and it will take a number of years to change.”