Hello, my name is Jason Campbell, that’s me in the picture, I’m the one in the middle. I am a dual heritage individual, no, I hadn’t heard that one either (used to be called half caste or mixed race amongst other things) born of a white English Mother and a black Jamaican Father, and yes I had a pretty cool afro as a 70’s child. I joined the West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) in September 1992 and I’m currently in role as a Strategic Enabler, part of the senior leadership team responsible for managing the day to day business of the WMFS. I also have a functional responsibility as the Area Manager for Prevention as well as being part of the duty command rota for managing emergency incidents.
Having recently completed 25 years in both operational and non-operational roles with West Midlands Fire Service I realise I’ve seen lots of things and lots of changes during this time some good, some not so good and some that I wouldn’t want to talk about. What I do want to talk about here is race inequality and diversity. I’m going to share with you my story and thoughts regarding diversity in the fire service (and wider) particularly around positive action and how it has impacted on my fire service career. My personal reflections may mean something to you, then again they may not. You may agree or disagree, that’s okay either way, my intent here is to begin a discussion that shares differing views and opinions. In effect my story should just be a backdrop to enable that discussion.
I would say that, like many others, I’ve followed the traditional fire service route through development and promotion, starting with the fire service promotion exams (technical and practical), through to ADC’s (assessment development centre) and PQA (personal qualities and attributes) based interviews. Nothing unusual there, pretty standard fire service approach, until my most recent promotion that is. I found myself in a competitive process with two colleagues for a temporary position which is the job that I’m in today. All three of us were competent Group Managers at the time, each with differing styles and approaches to our work. Any one of us could perform well as an Area Manager so selecting the most suitable person for the role would not be an easy decision. After some debate we learned the we were so evenly matched through the interview process that a possible approach could be for the three of us to decide who would get the job. Situation………impossible. We each thought we were the best candidate and openly stated this with each other and our line managers. I don’t think any of us was comfortable with this position, and I know I was particularly displeased. I believed that the decision should have been made by the recruiting manager and thought about how I could voice my opinion on this in the right way.
After some thought and discussion I was reminded that in cases such as this where candidates are evenly matched and deemed competent and suitable for the role, that WMFS had a positive action policy that should be applied. This relates specifically to Section 159 Positive action: recruitment and promotion of the Equalities Act 2010. All I had to do was challenge the status quo and argue the case to use the positive action policy………simple. No not really. As a BME individual I was set to personally gain from the application of the positive action policy and as someone pointed out to me at the time “you don’t really want to get a job based on the colour of your skin do you” was at the forefront of my mind. How would that look, what would people say about me and would it make for awkward conversations when I visited watches on stations? How would my colleagues react when they knew I’d challenged the organisation using Section 159, which if applied basically ruled them out of the process despite their suitability, hard work and preparation. Up to this point I believed I had progressed through the service based on a combination of merit, would this mean that this was no longer the case. It took a conversation with a close colleague for me to realise that this was still the case. I was in the position based on merit and that using the positive action policy was in effect a “tie breaker” to support decision making and increase diversity.
Another part to this was I would need to have a conversation with the recruiting manager, who would be the line manager for the role I was applying for to challenge his process and raise questions regarding the use of the positive action policy. They do say that a characteristic of leadership is courage. Well I made the call and what ensued is what I would describe as a frank and passionate conversation where both sides clearly laid out their thoughts and feelings, discussing both personal and organisational advantages and disadvantages. After reflecting on it the recruiting manager offered me the role on a 12-month development basis, again I think that this took some courage on his part. It was after all the first time that the policy had been used in the WMFS. Anyway I accepted the job and that was the end of that………no not really, it was just the beginning of something that was and still is far bigger than Jason Campbell moving into a new functional role in WMFS.
The reactions of my two colleagues who missed out on the process was incredibly humbling. They were clearly disappointed, as I would have been but their support for the positive action process and for me was overwhelming. The reaction of BME colleagues both uniformed and non-uniformed was the thing that confirmed to me the level of responsibility I now had due to the circumstances of my new role. The reason I say this is, one of the comments made was “Jase now you’ve done it we know we can all get there, there’s hope for all of us”. Wow, what can you say to that? No pressure then!
At this point I had a new functional role, I’d transitioned into strategic leadership and was also a role model for BAME members of WMFS. It was going to be a busy 12 months under the spotlight to demonstrate I could perform to the standard required of a strategic leader in WMFS. Equally (maybe more importantly) I had 12 months to ensure that my performance set a real positive example and that I was a champion for the development of future leaders from BME backgrounds.
There were other reactions from within the service “you could have just done it, there was no need to tell us”. During a station visit I had a conversation with a female fire fighter and BME fire fighter who were adamant that positive action is wrong. We were discussing the use of the positive action policy during our recruitment campaign and they shared the view was that people just don’t want to join no matter what we as a service do and if they struggle to join they need to try harder.
So it’s these two differing perspectives, one positive, one less positive that prompted me to sit down and write these few words. Why don’t we want to talk openly about positive action, why does it make us feel uncomfortable? The first step to solving any problem is to recognise that there is a problem.
We saw a focus on the diversity (or lack of it) in the UKFRS in May 2016 when the then Home Secretary Theresa May criticised fire and rescue services for being 96% white, 95% male. Mrs May also went on to say that this lack of diversity led to the existence of what she described as a toxic and corrosive culture in some parts of the fire and rescue services and a lack of accountability that made necessary a programme of reform that was as “radical and ambitious as I have delivered in policing since 2010”.
A year later I’m reading the Guardian newspaper article titled Snowy peak syndrome: why UK organisations remain white at the top, which presents research to evidence that BME representation drops off sharply at senior levels. It asks why and discusses what is needed for change. This can also be read alongside the recent comments from the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police. He congratulates a BME colleague on his retirement after 32 years’ service and states that more needs to be done to encore get BME representation at senior level within the police service. My observation is that this is the same for the fire service. So my question is. We’ve had a BME agenda for many years now, why do we remain in this position and what needs to change? And just this week Theresa May, now as Prime Minister has spoken yet again about race inequality across all sectors in the UK, with specific reference to disparities in educational attainment, health, employment and treatment by police and courts between ethnicities.
Anyway time to close now. This is a personal blog but it’s not about me, well not all of it anyway. I have benefited from positive action and am now in a position where the demands and satisfaction that come with my job are high. I feel that I should make use of the position I’m in and the exposure that comes with it to engage in and develop conversations and understanding about equality issues, positive action being one. I’m interested in how we nurture and develop our diverse future leaders in the hope that we’re not still having the same conversations and reading the same newspaper articles in 10 years’ time. As I said earlier you may not agree with what I’m saying and that’s okay, let’s talk about it.
Jason Campbell's blog 