‘We are one team’ says new West Midlands fire chief as he speaks about his first seven weeks in post

The sudden death of Chief Fire Officer Wayne Brown in January this year was an immense shock and led to an outpouring of disbelief and grief as the fire sector came to terms with the loss of one of its own. Appointed to help West Midlands Fire Service to move on during this difficult time, former Royal Marine, Oliver Lee OBE spoke to me about his experience and what he has learned after just seven weeks as its new CEO.

Oliver is not the first person to lead a fire and rescue service without having come up through the ranks, but it is still notable. He says he was attracted the role because he wants to do something meaningful and seeing this service going through challenging and tragic circumstances, he thought he could bring his experience to help and guide it forward.

The location helps too. Oliver is originally from Birmingham, one of six children in his family who went through the school system in the city. “Birmingham is in my veins,” he says with some pride. It makes sense then that he should consider taking a role in the heart of England and return to his roots.

He had a long career in the military, leaving in 2014, and since then he’s led two different organisations and says that they all have similar characteristics in terms of having multiple locations and a focus on community service delivery. He says he’s not experienced any problems so far with the absence of a fire background and adds, in an understated tone that permeates this conversation, “It’s probably helpful that I have a heavyweight operational background and have led people in fairly challenging operational circumstances.”

What he means by that is his 18-year career as a Royal Marine achieving the rank of Colonel – the youngest to achieve that rank in the Marines since the Second World War. He was decorated three times, topped off by being awarded an OBE in 2012 for ‘gallant and distinguished service’ in Afghanistan.

It’s no surprise to learn that Oliver is keen to be operational in his new role, has already signed up for the multi-agency incident command course known as MAGIC and that he intends to play a full role in the operational rota. “I wouldn’t dream of doing this job otherwise,” he says with steely determination.

A spotlight on culture

Moving on to talk about culture, the spectre of problems in South Wales, Dorset and Wiltshire and most recently Shropshire, looms large. Oliver says he’s reasonably good at diagnosing organisations and is doing so by prioritising getting out across the breadth of the organisation, with the desire to meet everyone twice a year. His initial impression is that they are “profoundly decent with a real passion for the service.”

He wants to unlock the organisation’s potential, talking about agency, fairness and not paying lip service. It’s a lot of leadership jargon, but underneath it he says that anything toxic will be dealt with ruthlessly. “It’s what I’ve done all my career.” His senior leadership team has signed up to a contract setting out how they will discharge what he calls, “our profoundly privileged senior leadership obligations in an organisation of this size and scale.”

The fire inspectorate recommended in its culture and values report that all chief fire officers should make sure their services provide a confidential way for staff to raise concerns and that staff should be aware of whistleblowing processes. Oliver says the policy in WMFS has teeth and is being used. “More importantly people can come and see me at any time.” He says that he’s getting 10 communications from staff every day. That’s tough in a rank-oriented environment but he is firm that the buck stops with him and that if anybody in the organisation wants to talk to him, they can. “I’m ultimately responsible for these 1900 people,” he says.

He recognises that his approach may make people uncomfortable, adding, “They’ll just have to learn that’s how I lead.” He believes that openness is crucial for a healthy organisation. He also says that his commitment to transparency surprises people, as we touch on the media reporting and swirl of social media speculation that surrounded the death of his predecessor, some of which continues.

I ask him how he deals with criticism when it comes from external sources, sometimes anonymously. “We should not be cowed by it and be confident about the job we are doing. I’ve been clear in my position that I will not accept unpleasant behaviour of any kind. At the same time, I just want to lead WMFS forward.”

A ten-point priority list

Oliver has found help and support from the fire authority and from the National Fire Chiefs Council, welcoming the counsel of its Chair, Mark Hardingham. Home Office officials have been equally welcoming, he says. He’s familiar with the world of government and of course that includes the inspectorate as WMFS looks to its third inspection in the autumn. He’s keen to improve on what he says is the strong foundation of the last report.

Coming up to the end of his second month with the service, he has already set out a 10-point priority list based on feedback from staff. It includes an ambition to bring the organisation together as one team ‘cohesively and fairly from news starter to CEO.’ Early on, he identified a ‘them and us’ culture that he is keen to disrupt and move the service to see itself as one team of 1900 people that serves the 2.9 million people of the West Midlands.

He thinks he can deal with seven of the 10 points within a year, it’s an ambitious aim but why not? Two of the areas that focus on looking after people and removing the friction that affects the ability to staff to do their job must be achievable and the third about finance is not entirely in his gift. He tells me, after offering a sports analogy about performance, “we should always be striving to do better and pursue elusive perfection.”

We could have talked for hours, but sadly cannot. He offers this summary to wrap things up.

“Because of the very difficult circumstances in which I took over, I’ve had to do a lot, I’ve had to get on with it, to make a lot of changes and pick up an organisation that was very down for very understandable reasons. I’ve just had to move the organisation forward on the advice of others, based on a diagnostic of what I’ve found and what is the right thing to do.”

He wants to move forward, to bring the staff with him and help this organisation heal and thrive. Having grasped what needs to be done in a remarkably short period of time, I wouldn’t be surprised if he does.

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