Fire scheme targets women and BME people

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has become the first UK fire service to set up a graduate training scheme aiming to place more women and black and minority ethnic (BME) people in management roles.

Over four-fifths of the LFB’s 6,800 employees are firefighters and fire officers, with BME people comprising 10% of the workforce and women just 3.4%. LFB human resources director James Dalgleish explained that new graduates will train as firefighters as well as managers under the programme, because “it is important for their own careers as well as for their colleagues that they are competent firefighters.”

They will be fast-tracked to become station managers in four years compared with the average 14 years it takes at present. Because there were “next to no women or BME people in the fire service” 14 years ago, Dalgleish said, currently only four women and 13 BME people are at station manager level and above.