Professionalism in the English fire and rescue services

Murphy, P ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8459-4448 and Lakoma, K ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2583-3813, 2024. Professionalism in the English fire and rescue services. In: United Kingdom Association for Public Administration (UKAPA) Inaugural Conference 2024, 12 September 2024.

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Abstract

There has been a rapidly growing interest among academics, practitioners and more recently the UK government about the need or desirability of greater professionalism within the Fire and Rescue Services. This increasing interest also manifests in the other two ‘blue light’ emergency services, namely the police and ambulance services, with whom firefighters closely collaborate in their mutual quest to keep the public safe (Wankhade and Murphy (2023). The two most recent fire service reform policy papers issued by the UK government both centred around three main themes, one of which is increasing professionalism or “helping fire professionals to best serve their communities (Home Office 2021, 2022) and the title of the government’s response to the latter consultation was entitled “A profession we can all be proud of – reforming our Fire & Rescue Service” (Home Office 2023).

This paper looks at the current state of professionalism in Fire and Rescue Services, how it has changed since the Policing and Crime Act 2017 and the 2018 National Framework (Home Office 2018), and critically looks at the proposed nature and form of professionalism that the previous government envisaged for the service in the future. It draws on recent research that investigated the role that professionalism plays in the accountability and governance of the Fire and Rescue Services and how it is viewed by both senior management and front-line firefighters (Lakoma 2023, 2024). It concludes with some recommendations on policy and practice for the new government and the sector if they want to develop and embed the most appropriate form of greater professionalism within the service.

Item Type:	Conference contribution
Creators:	Murphy, P. and Lakoma, K.
Date:	6 September 2024
Identifiers:	Number Type 2216978 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	17 Sep 2024 14:11
Last Modified:	17 Sep 2024 14:11
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52240

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