Found: Lead member: Scott of Bybrook, Baroness | Answering member: Thornton, Baroness · Barran, Baroness · Wilcox

Found: imposed at a later date for the purposes of setting fee limits.95 Speaking on behalf of Labour , Baroness Wilcox

Found: ......................................................................................... 23 Baroness Wilcox

Found: regulations made by the Treasury. ” BARONESS SMITH OF LLANFAES LORD WIGLEY LORD HAIN BARONESS WILCOX

Found: stated Government objectives. 58/3 HL Bill 136—R—I BARONESS TWYCROSS BARONESS THORNTON BARONESS WILCOX

Found: BARONESS TWYCROSS BARONESS GARDEN OF FROGNAL BARONESS WILCOX OF NEWPORT BARONESS THORNTON 1

❓ In #LordsQs from 2.35pm: Baroness Wilcox of Newport questions the government on the impact of the #HS2 rail project in Wales. ? Watch #HouseofLords online https://t.co/WEKjCzmyLO 1/4 ? https://t.co/2cScKUVuur

Found: Letter dated 03/05/2023 from Baroness Barran to Baroness Wilcox of Newport regarding an issue raised

Found: Letter dated 03/05/2023 from Baroness Barran to Baroness Wilcox of Newport regarding an issue raised

Found: OPW 22 December 2022 Dear Nicholas, Further to the Oral Parliamentary Question tabled by Baroness Wilcox

Found: SW1A OPW 22 December 2022 Dear Paul, Further to the Oral Parliamentary Question tabled by Baroness Wilcox

Found: o The recruitment process itself was undertaken by the 4 Commissioners: Vij Randeniya, Baroness Wilcox

Found: OBE (former Chief Fire Of ficer for the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service), (iii) The Baroness Wilcox

Found: They are: Baroness Wilcox, formerly Leader of Newport City Council;Kirsty Williams, formerly Member of

Found: White General Practitioner Committee Wales Steven Evans-Jones Expert Patient In addition: Baroness Wilcox

<p>In my oral statement the following week, I explained the seriousness of these findings. It's not just that some members of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service staff behaved appallingly, it is that the organisation failed to deter, detect or deal with that. Basic standards of good governance and management had failed, creating a toxic workplace culture in which discrimination, abuse and other misconduct went unchecked. I therefore indicated that it was not a question of if the Welsh Government would intervene, but how.&nbsp;I have reflected fully but urgently on the options available. I have also considered the fire and rescue authority’s formal response to the report, which it agreed unanimously on 15 January, and have had further exchanges with the chair.&nbsp;I am pleased the FRA’s response formally accepts the report’s recommendations in full. It could hardly do otherwise given the weight of evidence in the report, but I have seen little that adequately addresses the wider concerns I set out previously.</p>
<p>Sadly, I do not have confidence that the service has the internal capacity or capability to oversee its own recovery. Management at all levels, up to and including the highest, have been implicated in the identified failings. They cannot be both the problem and the solution. And the chief fire officer’s stated intention to retire is clearly insufficient to stimulate the wholesale change in processes, values and culture that will be necessary.</p>
<p>The authority’s plan calls for support from the Welsh Government, the Welsh Local Government Association and others. That is reasonable. But such support needs strong foundations and clear and committed leadership to drive through change, and I see no evidence of that. When I discussed this with the chair at a recent meeting, he said only that he was obliged to trust the personnel and processes that were in place. This gives me no assurances at all.</p>
<p>I am also seriously concerned that these failings jeopardise the service’s ability to function safely and effectively. There are, of course, many firefighters in south Wales who are absolutely dedicated to their work. But staff who are demotivated, mismanaged, badly led and exposed to discrimination and abuse will always struggle. The lack of proper management control and tolerance of bad practice that the report identified has wider ramifications beyond issues of misconduct and discrimination. That is unacceptable in any public service, especially one charged with protecting people from serious harm. The authority’s plan does not mention this risk at all. The chair has given me general reassurance that there is and will be no effect on core services, but no more than that. That is not good enough. These risks are real and immediate, and I have two recent examples of how the identified management failures directly and seriously affect core services.</p>
<p>Firstly, our chief fire and rescue adviser is a highly regarded and experienced former chief fire officer. He is also the statutory inspector of the FRAs in Wales, charged with making recommendations to them and me. In recent years, he has produced reports on the lessons of the Grenfell Tower fire, on improving service capacity and on firefighter training. Each of them contains fully evidenced recommendations to improve service standards and firefighter safety. It is therefore disappointing that South Wales Fire and Rescue Service has rejected many of these recommendations out of hand. Such a response would suggest the organisation is uninterested in better ways of fighting house fires or minimising the risk of fatigue, or ensuring that firefighters have the skills they need.</p>
<p>Secondly, false alarms have long outnumbered actual fires. Attendance at them commits firefighters to activity that wastes time and resources for prolonged periods. There are proven, simple and safe ways of reducing attendance, and our 2016 national framework for fire and rescue services called for action to do so. North Wales Fire and Rescue Service complied straight away and its attendance at false alarms fell markedly. Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service has belatedly done the same. South Wales Fire and Rescue Service has done nothing meaningful. The number of false alarms it attends has risen consistently in recent years, and it is clearly the worst performer in Wales and among a group of broadly comparable fire and rescue services in Wales and England. This reflects the same management insularity and tolerance of bad practice identified in the review. It has not just led to staff misconduct and discrimination, it is also affecting service quality and efficiency, and the safety of firefighters, and we must act to address that.</p>
<p>Finally, we have the fire and rescue authority itself. It must show strategic leadership and hold senior management to account. It has clearly done neither. The failings date back to 2015, yet the authority took no action during that period. Instead, it unanimously rejected some of the chief adviser’s recommendations last March, and a few months later gave senior officers a significant pay rise. That action now looks very ill-judged.</p>
<p>The authority’s response establishes a committee to oversee the report’s implementation. It also proposes to co-opt external expertise onto that committee, which is positive. But, I see no sign of the underlying weaknesses of governance changing. As with management, authority members cannot be both the problem and the solution.&nbsp;</p>
<p>All of this gives me little confidence that the review’s recommendations will be fully and sustainably implemented, and that the wider failings in management will be rectified, or that the risks to service delivery and firefighter safety will be averted. In fact, there are already further worrying signs. I and, no doubt, other Members of the Senedd will have received correspondence from many current and former members of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service staff raising serious grievances that they feel were never properly investigated. As I have said before, doing so shows great courage. I therefore asked the chair to ensure that these cases would be reopened and reconsidered as part of the recovery, and he agreed, yet there is no mention of it in the authority’s agreed response. In addition, in its 15 January meeting, several FRA members argued strongly against the appointment of someone from a non-firefighting background as chief officer, despite Fenella Morris KC recommending that the organisation should actively encourage such appointments.</p>
<p>Dirprwy Lywydd, one of the most saddening themes in the staff testimony collated in the report is a widespread belief that nothing would ever change. If we do not act, those who said and feel this will probably be proved right. I cannot and will not allow that to happen. I am, therefore, issuing a direction to South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority today, requiring all of its functions to be exercised by four commissioners. Those commissioners will be charged with ensuring the full and sustainable implementation of the review’s recommendations, as well as acting on the recommendations of our chief adviser. They will have full powers to restructure and reform service management and instil a positive, non-discriminatory culture, and they will remain until the work is finished and until South Wales Fire and Rescue Service is clearly an inclusive and welcoming workplace for all.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The commissioners I am appointing are Baroness Wilcox, formerly leader of Newport City Council and leader of the Welsh Local Government Association; Kirsty Williams, formerly Member of the Senedd for Brecon and Radnorshire; Vijith Randeniya, formerly chief fire officer for the west midlands; and Carl Foulkes, formerly chief constable of North Wales Police. The commissioners have a demanding task ahead but will receive our full support and, I am sure, that of other partners and the workforce of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. I will, of course, provide the Senedd with regular updates on their work.</p>
<p>In closing, I want to once again place on record recognition of all those who have come forward to share their experiences. What happened should not have happened and we are absolutely committed to righting those wrongs and achieving meaningful change. Diolch.</p>