In 2007/08, the number of women firefighters in the London Fire Brigade exceeded the national average for the first time. The number of minority ethnic fire-fighters increased from 9.9 per cent to 10.6 per cent compared to the national average of around 3.2 per cent. The percentage of top earners who are women (11.1 per cent) or from minority groups (7.3 per cent) is significantly above national averages which are 8.8 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively. The number of top earners with a disability is 4.3 per cent compared to the national average of 2.1 per cent.
The percentage of non-operational staff from minority ethnic communities - at 27 per cent - is close to the average in London’s population of 29 per cent. Some of the factors that have enabled London Fire Brigade to achieve these important outcomes are strong leadership, including from authority members, good training for all staff and a clear corporate message about unacceptable behaviour. Internal support groups enable minority staff to network and to provide good challenge to policies and service delivery. London Fire Brigade’s robust approach to equality and diversity issues led to it achieving level five of the Equality Standard for Local Government in 2008.1
1 The Equality Standard for Local Government was developed to enable local authorities to mainstream age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation into local authority policy and practice at all levels. Authorities report what level of the standard they have reached from five levels. Level 5 is the highest