This paper examines the nature of Performance Management (PM) in an English fire service. Its focus is on the development of a ‘Cultural Framework’ that seeks to (re)define what constitutes ‘exceptional’, ‘expected’ and ‘inappropriate’ behaviours among all staff, including firefighters. As with other UK public services, sustained downward pressure on service budgets manifest in labour management interventions in this fire service that are predicated on squaring an impossible circle: the need to cut costs (and labour costs represent a significant component of the overall service costs) while at the same time maintaining adequate fire service provision.
There is compelling evidence of the Taylorising tendencies of PM regimes across public and private sector organisations (for example: French, 2016; Scholarios and Taylor, 2014; Mather and Seifert, 2014; Carter et al. 2011; Ball, 2003). These studies highlight the ways in which PM architectures have intensified work effort, closed down employee discretion in task performance and have generally enabled managers to secure greater control over labour processes through the breaking down of tasks and the intensification of measurement/ monitoring of task performance via an array of target regimes. However, following Vidal (2007) and Belanger and Edwards (2007), the extent to which labour management initiatives successfully gain control over a labour process may be mediated by a range of variables including workforce disposition, technology, management strategy, product markets and institutional arrangements. Analysis of labour process changes in the UK emergency services (fire, police and ambulance) lends support to this proposition (Mather and Seifert, 2016).
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ways in which fire service managers have sought to circumvent well-established, highly solidaristic group norms that characterise the “watch” and which are perceived by service managers to lead to resistance to change (Fitzgerald and Stirling, 1999: Thurnell-Read and Parker, 2008). The development of a cultural framework was premised on encouraging firefighters to exhibit particular behaviours and attitudes as part of the process of moving to a ‘business-driven ‘ (NPM-styled) service delivery model rooted in Business Systems Thinking and the Learning Organisation (Senge, 2006). The paper draws on findings from a detailed longitudinal study (2014 – 2016), with data derived from in-depth interviews with service managers, union representatives, from focus group meetings with firefighters, analysis of service documents, and observations of meetings. The findings suggest that the formal PM regime is primarily confined to CPD expectations based on nationally defined role maps that reflect crudely-set benchmarks of performance (including fitness tests) with regular appraisal reviews at station level.
However, the paper also details how the introduction of the ‘Cultural Framework’ was ostensibly designed to ‘get everyone on message’ as changes in working practices, shift patterns and crewing arrangements were needed in order to accommodate austerity-driven budget cuts. Much of the management commentary is rooted in early Human Relations traditions (Child, 1969; Rose, 1988). For example, firefighters’ resistance to crew size reductions was explained away as the ‘problem’ of ‘close ties on the watch’ and ‘lack of switched-on leadership at station level’. A new cultural framework was seen to be the remedy. Unsurprisingly, firefighters were deeply cynical about what they perceived to be a managerial attempt to redefine their performance standards, behaviours and attitudes, especially in light of a recent spike in what they refer to as ‘conveyor-belt discipline’ linked to ‘breach of the cultural values’. The aim is therefore to provide a detailed commentary around how this cultural framework was developed and experienced as part of a broader PM framework and in a context of labour management strategies designed to get more for less from firefighters.
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