Ian Hayton, born and raised on Teesside, steps into the role of Chief Fire Officer on February 8th, with a promise to build upon his predecessor’s excellent work with an innovative, creative and proactive approach to community safety.
The first challenge, he said, will be to deliver better outcomes for local people and to design fire brigade services to meet the community’s needs and demands.
Ian said: “This is an enormous and hugely exciting challenge; and I am confident that, with everybody’s support, we can achieve more for our local communities.”
Ian joined Cleveland Fire Brigade in 1975 and has worked closely with Mr Doyle and the Brigade’s senior management team in recent years, making the transition to Chief Fire Officer a challenging and familiar one. This is due, in part he says, to having forged lasting and strong relationships on Teesside in and out of Brigade life.
He said: “It is an honour and a privilege to be able to work with such a high quality team of elected members, senior managers, firefighters, service professionals and support staff. Equally, I am extremely fortunate that I have an extensive network of strong relationships and supportive partners. I am positive that together we will continue to deliver outstanding better outcomes for local people for many years to come.”
Ian paid tribute to Mr Doyle’s “inspirational” leadership which has seen the Brigade move at speed through modernisation, improvement and efficiency. The debt owed to John Doyle, he added, could not be understated.
However, he acknowledged, there is still much that could be done to tackle the root causes of fire, particularly amongst those that need more of our support.
“I believe that we contribute to the needs of communities far more than it says on our tin. Yes, through our prevention, protection and emergency response approach we deliver a broad range of fire and rescue services to keep the community safe but to be truly successful we must deal with the root causes of fire, “he explained.
“Fire discriminates, it discriminates against those most vulnerable in our society: those living in areas of deprivation, the elderly, single parents, children and young people, those living with a disability, those making poor lifestyle choices (smoking, binge drinking, drug abuse), “ he added.
Ian is committed to helping the individual and the community in which they live. The Brigade does this already through a range of interventions which Mr Hayton intends to build upon. These interventions include:
Supporting children and young people to make positive contributions,
Contributing to the health and well-being of communities,
Assisting with the regeneration of neighbourhoods and;
Creating opportunities for every local citizen to have the same life chances, access to our services and employment opportunities.
High on his task list is an improved understanding of the communities the Brigade serves. He explained: “We must take every opportunity to engage, listen and more importantly respond to what the community say. “The citizen will be at the centre of everything we do.”
The Brigade has a balanced strategy which emphasises the need to prevent fires before they start through a range of measures. This involves conducting 150,000 Home Fire Safety Visits to date which has resulted in the fitting of 100,000 smoke detectors. This work, said Mr Hayton, is critical to the safety of the people of Teesside and resulted in a 60% reduction in the number of accidental domestic fires and targeting zero fire deaths.
However, he explained, there is still work to do to, and added:
“We will not rest and are always looking for new and innovative ways of improving our services. We will look at every service we deliver and ask ourselves can it be improved? Can it be delivered differently? Can we act in partnership? Can we share services to reduce cost to the public purse? Can we take on new roles?”
Mr Hayton is convinced that with money being stringent in the public sector it is imperative that organisations work closely together to meet the “more for less” challenge.
He said: “We are committed to contributing to the delivery of local priorities. To enable us to do this we must share information and intelligence, develop integrated services; focus on the needs of the citizen and the community and not on who delivers those services.
“I want us to be externally recognised as an outstanding professional organisation with a highly skilled and dedicated staff providing excellent services to a diverse community that makes a real and positive difference to the people we joined the Fire Service to serve.”
