The Service
Corporate Planning Process
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service employs almost 1,800 people - 1,500 of which are uniformed staff, approximately 780 of these are whole-time members with a further 685 employed on retained contracts. The remainder are non-uniformed support staff and are vital to the efficiency and effectiveness of our organisation. To be fully effective we need to have a committed energetic and healthy workforce, our people are critical to our success.
To achieve such a workforce the Authority has developed a comprehensive range of measures to support the health, safety and welfare of our personnel, including the provision of an occupational health service and, most recently, a service welfare advisor.
We monitor closely all absences from work and have policies and procedures in place to identify and prevent abuse.
Procedures for health screening of long-term sickness absence includes use of our Occupational Health physician and nurse, supported by personal management systems to monitor the progress and prognosis of all cases.
Where proven necessary, the requirement for consultations, physiotherapy, operative procedures or psychiatric/psychological intervention may be funded.
Details of our performance is detailed under Best Value Indicators (BV 12i and 12ii).
We aim to ensure our workforce remains fit and healthy whilst they are in our employment. A measure of our success is the number of people who retire prematurely on grounds of ill health. Our dedicated Occupational Health Department monitor the health of staff and identify specific causal trends in ill health retirements in order to facilitate Service strategy for reduction.
Because of the diverse working arrangements between uniformed and non-uniformed staff, retirements within the two groups are measured separately.
Details of our ill health retirements are included under Best Value Indicators (BV 15i and 15ii).
The Authority believes that it should be fully representative of the community it serves and is fully committed to ensuring fairness and equality in all aspects of its service delivery. The Home Office set targets for increasing the representation of women and people from ethnic minority groups in the workforce are particularly challenging. We appointed an Equal Opportunities Adviser in 1999 who has helped the Authority to develop a detailed action plan which aims to improve the level to which the Authority will conform over the next five years and beyond.
Our performance towards meeting targets for the employment of people from black and ethnic minority groups is as follows:-
Category of Staff |
Total No of Employees |
Current No of Employees |
Target by 31 March 2003 |
Target by 31 March 2005 |
Target by 31 March 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Uniformed |
1,502 |
4 |
6 |
8 |
33 |
|
Non-uniformed |
285 |
3 |
5 |
6 |
6 |
Our level of performance towards meeting the standard for Local Government set by the Commission for Racial Equality can by found in Performance Indicators (BV 2b).
We not only want to recruit more women into the uniformed side of our Service, but we also want to see women progress to the most senior management positions. Hitherto, centrally set targets from Government, related to the top three tiers of management and the Service achieved its target of 20% of senior level posts occupied by women.
A revision to the measurement criteria means that we must now consider the top 5% of earners. Earnings must include all allowances, including those paid to operational officers for providing extended cover (ie 78 hours a week) and will result in fewer women falling within the top 5% of earners. Details of women in senior management positions can be found in Performance Indicators (BV 11i).
