Fire Minister To Meet Asian Fire Service Association

Fire Minister Sadiq Khan will today meet representatives of the Asian Fire Service Association (AFSA) to see what more can be done to raise the representation of minority ethnic groups in the Fire and Rescue Service in England.

The Fire and Rescue Service as a whole lags far behind most of the other public services like the police in its recruitment of people from Asian backgrounds. Currently just 3.4% of staff are from a minority ethnic background of which Just 0.4% of all firefighters in England are Asian. Out of nearly 45,000 operational staff, England has less than two hundred Asian Firefighters. In the police, one in twenty police officers are now from a minority ethnic background.

Fire Minister Sadiq Khan said: "There is no doubt that the Fire and Rescue Service is making progress in becoming a more diverse, more representative public service. Fire chiefs have signed up and made a personal commitment to attracting new recruits from all backgrounds. But we have to acknowledge that the process of change is still too slow and so the meeting today /tomorrow is about what more we can do to speed it up.

"We are living in historic times. We have just seen the election of Barack Obama in the US, just forty years after Martin Luther King Junior described a dream in which his children would be judged on the content of their character not by the colour of their skin. It is a profound reminder that there should be no limits to our ambitions - in all areas of public life."

Sadiq Khan believes it is not possible to have a good Fire and Rescue Service, without having a more representative service.

He continued: "To get the best possible recruits, we've got to make sure that everyone, regardless of background, thinks that the Fire and Rescue Service is a great place to work and offers a rewarding career. Evidence shows that a more representative Fire and Rescue Service can offer more effective fire prevention advice to our many communities stopping fires from happening in the first place through appropriate community outreach programmes."

The Fire Minister will soon be announcing Fire and Rescue Authority's targets for the recruitment of women firefighters and minority ethnic staff.

Those Authorities that have signed up to more challenging recruitment targets (18% for women firefighters and between 2% and 5% above the local minority ethnic working population) will receive a share of £2 million in capital grant funding that the Government has made available.

(JM/BMcC)