The Independent Culture Review was a thorough examination of the culture at London Fire Brigade, chaired by Nazir Afzal OBE and published in November 2022.
Starting in November 2021, he and his team heard from more than 2,000 current and former members of staff and community groups who shared their experiences of the Brigade. Nazir and his team wrote a report explaining their findings, which you can find below.
Find out what we’ve done since the Independent Culture Review was published.
Commissioning the review was a recommendation of the internal investigation into the death of a firefighter on development, Jaden Matthew Francois-Esprit, who tragically took his own life in August 2020. Before Jaden’s death we knew there were longstanding issues with poor culture and behaviour at the Brigade and we made many attempts to address these issues, but without success. We commissioned this review to give current and former staff and community groups a chance to give us their feedback on our culture, and get independent analysis so that we can improve.
The report paints a picture of poor behaviour and painful experiences over many years. This makes the report a difficult read for us and for the communities we serve.
It highlights that women, Black, Asian and minority ethnic, LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse staff experience poor treatment and do less well in their careers with us. Issues were also identified with leadership, and with staff fearing to speak out about abuse. Additionally the report includes examples of behaviour towards members of the public which are completely unacceptable.
We want to reassure everyone that having commissioned this independent culture review we now fully understand the issues and have plans in place to address them.
Find out how the service works, and how it's been used by staff so far.