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Former Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Chief Fire Officer Justin Johnston has joined the board of trustees of SFJ Awards, the UK’s leading awarding organisation for fire and rescue qualifications. He has also taken up a visiting Professorship at the University of Chester, continuing his focus on workforce development and research in the sector.
Justin retired in early 2025 after a career spanning more than 30 years, during which he led Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service to an outstanding HMICFRS rating, served nationally as Vice Chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, and was awarded the Queen’s Fire Service Medal in 2021. His new roles reflect a continued commitment to supporting the professional development of the fire and rescue workforce.
He spoke to me about his career. I started off by asking him to look back and consider what advice he would give to his 21-year-old self starting out in the fire and rescue service?
He replied: “Grasp every opportunity to learn and grow, say yes to anything that will challenge and develop you, even though you may initially feel outside of your comfort zone. There is so much to a career in fire and rescue, and as you progress more opportunities to work alongside other agencies will appear. As you start to understand the bigger picture, you will find yourself in a position to make things better.”
In terms of what he is most proud of, Justin is quick to say that it was leading, supporting and assisting 1,200 people to support the communities of Lancashire through their worst times. “It gives me my greatest sense of pride,” he adds.
Leading a fire and rescue service through Covid was a mammoth challenge, says Justin. It was a good example of what leadership looks like, “when you have to be really agile and swift, where there isn’t a defined playbook and where government decisions are dynamic and often dramatic.”
He goes on to explain that he and his team needed to work out how to adapt and contribute outside of the traditional functions of a fire and rescue service, such as helping to run vaccination centres and training his staff to vaccinate the public. “This required openness and trust with staff and trade unions as well as political acuity and influence at local and national level,” he recalls.
Ultimately, he says, thousands of people in Lancashire were vaccinated and supported by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service staff directly alongside NHS colleagues and the proof of concept became a model that spread to many other fire and rescue services across the country.
Putting the public first and adapting to their needs and fostering trust through authentic communication and action are vital, he advises. He says it is important to respect different perspectives and be alive to what your teams are experiencing at a personal level and addressing their needs with recognition, adaptation and support.
At the end of his career in fire, he took on the role as one of the two Vice Chairs of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC). As a result, Justin had regular exposure to the national picture at a ministerial level, allowing him to understand competing issues and challenges. He says “this gave a voice to my fire and rescue service where I could reflect the views of my colleagues.”
A change of career
Since retiring Justin has taken on roles at the University of Chester and SFJ Awards. I ask him what drew him to these roles and is there any crossover between the two?
“During my last few years of service, I became increasingly interested in how research and education can support improvements in fire and rescue services. This led me to my roles at the University of Chester and the NFCC research board, chaired Professor Rowena Hill. The board is a forum where we harness independent academic rigour to identify and prepare for the future challenges of our sector.
“Preparing for future challenges relies heavily on our people, which is why my trustee role at SFJ Awards dovetails nicely with this work, as it’s an organisation that is vital to the future of skills, qualifications and training.”
Looking forward, Justin talks about competence and considers the educational and skills priorities for fire and rescue services of the future.
“At its core fire and rescue is about a vital emergency response delivered competently, professionally and compassionately to the public and that will, in my opinion, never change. However, I feel that recent events have shown us that working together to identify risk and put in place strategies and activities to reduce their likelihood or severity is the end goal.”
He is keen to emphasise the need to get the right balance between generalist and specialist roles and crossover competencies between them. He uses building fire safety as an example. A fire protection professional will benefit from having a core knowledge of people vulnerabilities that may contribute to the likelihood or severity of a fire. Similarly, they also benefit from understanding how operational crews respond in such an event, and this core understanding can contribute to their recommendations and knowledge sharing. Conversely this is true for fire prevention staff and operational response crews to different proportions.
Prevention is better than cure, he reminds us, which is why so much has gone into community education, youth engagement, building safety support and other upstream interventions too.
When it comes to attracting people to the fire and rescue service, Justin says services need to get better at attracting a wider diversity of talent. “Ensuring that flexible career pathways are accessible and allow all our staff to have choices and options as to how they progress and where their professional interests may take them. Apprenticeships have been incredibly supportive of this aim in recent years and will I believe continue to do so.”
SFJ Awards board of trustees
SFJ Awards is a nationally recognised awarding organisation working extensively across fire and rescue services to deliver qualifications, apprenticeships and standards that underpin workforce professionalisation. Justin joins fellow trustees Dr Allison Jones (AEJ Education Consulting Ltd), Arvind Malhotra (FutureSense Group) and Keith Fraser (Youth Justice Board for England and Wales), with the board chaired by NHS Shared Business Services’ Managing Director Erika Bannerman.
Justin says it’s an honour to be part of the SFJ Awards family. “SFJ Awards plays a vital role in supporting the development of the fire and rescue services workforce as the leading awarding organisation for the sector. Its work to improve skills and qualifications to support the workforce is at the heart of providing high quality and sustainable frontline services.”
David Higham is SFJ Awards Managing Director welcomed Justin’s appointment “Justin shares our vision and commitment toward the professionalisation of the modern fire and rescue services workforce through the design and delivery of robust qualifications and apprenticeships standards.”
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