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London Fire Brigade hosts Asian reception |
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Forging stronger community links and promoting the Fire Service as an exciting career option were top of the agenda at a reception hosted by London Fire Brigade for the capital’s Asian community at City Hall at the end of last year. Speakers included Fire Minister Parmjit Dhanda; Chair of London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Valerie Shawcross; Journalist and BBC London presenter Asad Ahmad; and London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson. The event was an opportunity for the brigade to discuss new and innovative ways of working with the Asian community to get its fire safety messages across and encourage more people to consider the major opportunities offered by the Fire Service as a career.
Guests included business and community leaders, representatives from community groups and Asian staff employed by the brigade. Chair of London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Valerie Shawcross said: “Over the past four years we’ve been reducing the number of fires in the home across London, but there were still over 6,000 last year. We must keep working with all of the communities we serve to ensure our fire safety messages are being heard.
“It is also vital that we represent the people we serve which is why we want to employ more Asian firefighters, to help the brigade get these messages through. We want to show that working for the Fire Service offers a fantastic career structure – one which offers opportunities to the managers and leaders of the future. In London we now have over 100 operational staff from Asian backgrounds – from firefighters to station managers, but we want to encourage more.” Speaking after the event Fire Minister Parmjit Dhanda added:
“It is important that we increase minority representation within the Fire and Rescue Service. The government is working with the FRS to help improve its performance in recruiting retaining and promoting staff from our many ethnic minority communities. One way of achieving this is to encourage some of our most able people, our graduates, to take up a career in the service. London has tackled this issue by its new graduate entry scheme. This is an initiative in which I am particularly interested and Communities and Local Government is keen to work with partners such as London to see how effective a national graduate scheme might be.”
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