Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service pledges to:

Challenge ourselves to increase the positive impact we make on our local community and make better use of our assets – our buildings/grounds and our people.

In the next six months we will do at least three things that we don’t do at the moment to improve our social impact.

Kirsty Darwent, Chair, May 2019

1st Commitment

Human Trafficking Reduction Initiative

By working with our partners, we will continue to pro-actively develop our skills and awareness to keep those most vulnerable in our communities safe from harm.

After human trafficking was identified as an issue within the City of Glasgow area, as well as a priority area for the Scottish Government, local SFRS teams contacted partners within Police Scotland’s National Human Trafficking Unit (NHTU) to establish how SFRS could help to address this issue within Glasgow.

Following initial contact, NHTU have delivered awareness training to the Area’s Community Action Team and the Fire Safety Enforcement Team. A series of training is now being planned to provide the same input to the 55 fire station watches across the city. This will provide our frontline staff with the awareness they need to identify any areas of concern that could point to human trafficking, and a route to refer these incidents to Police Scotland for further investigation.

Although still in the early stages of the roll-out, staff who have received the training have already used their new skills to raise concerns and highlight what was believed to be human trafficking to Police Scotland. This has allowed our partners at Police Scotland to directly target their resources to certain premises.

To fulfil our statutory duties against human trafficking and exploitation, there is also real potential for this project to be rolled out across the SFRS, targeting areas with similar concerns. 

Geographical location of impact: Glasgow
Contact details: Group Manager, Joe McKay – joe.mckay@firescotland.gov.uk

2nd Commitment

Positive Steps with Partners

By working within our communities, we will help to remove barriers to job opportunities, enabling full-time employment and assisting to tackle local poverty and inequality.    

Positive Steps is an employability project supporting long-term unemployed residents of North Ayrshire to gain new skills and experiences, supporting progression into employment.

The project offers opportunities in personal development and the chance to gain new workbased skills through volunteering with various community planning partners, including the SFRS, the Ayrshire Community Trust, and North Ayrshire Council.

As well as receiving an eight week core skills development programme, volunteers will have the opportunity to work with the local SFRS Community Action Team to provide free fire safety advice to support Ayrshire’s residents.

To date, the programme has enlisted 143 people onto the full programme. 49 people have been provided with the opportunity to move into a volunteer work placement, and a further 20 have progressed to additional learning educations. 17 volunteers have now successfully secured full-time employment.

Although this project is currently unique to the Ayrshire area, the ongoing aspiration is to seek funding to run similar initiatives in other Local Authority Areas.

Geographical location of impact: North Ayrshire
Contact details: Group Manager Kenneth Hankinson – kenneth.hankinson@firescotland.gov.uk, 01294 553 674

  3rd Commitment

Together Angus Project, Brechin

By offering practical assistance, alongside our partners, we will work to reduce inequality and child poverty.

The project is a six way partnership project between the SFRS, Voluntary Action Angus, Citizens Advice Bureau, Home Start Angus, Tayside Council on Alcohol, and Angus Women’s Aid.

The project aims to reduce inequalities and child poverty in the East Brechin area of Angus – an area that was identified for this initiative due to the unmet needs of the community who experience the most significant multiple deprivation in Angus.

Partners work closely to offer practical home support, drug and alcohol recovery mentoring, local financial support and increasing opportunities for volunteering and SQA qualifications.

The project is located in Brechin Community Fire Station providing a base for all partner organisations to come together and offer a one-stop-shop to families and children who are struggling every day and who have, until now, not been afforded the same opportunities as others within their community.

Currently run in East Brechin, it is hoped that the initiative can be expanded to cover other areas.

Geographical location of impact: Brechin East
Contact details: Group Manager Roy Dunsire – roy.dunsire@firescotland.gov.uk 07921985805