Our Mission, Vision & Values

Our Mission is...

Protecting communities, working together, saving lives.

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Our Vision is...

A modern, flexible, resilient fire and rescue service.

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Our Values are...

  • Respect: Supporting, involving and listening to others, showing dignity, consideration and empathy
  • Excellence: Striving to develop, to ensure our contributions make our fire and rescue service the best it can be
  • Honesty: Committed to creating and maintaining an open and truthful environment, which is fair and consistent
  • Inclusive: Removing barriers to participation to promote a truly representative service, using diversity to benefit us all
  • Professionalism in our role: Demonstrating a positive attitude and commitment, to deliver a high-quality service and take pride in our role

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CFO Dave Russel - Mission, Vision and Values

Chief Fire Officer Dave Russel discusses what the Mission, Vision and Values means for the Service and everyone that works here. 

Our mission is simple and that is to save lives, protect communities and work together.

Its simplicity is really important to me, and I hope that it's important to you.

It provides a mission which everybody within the fire and rescue service can actually galvanize and get around.

But the mission is why we exist and why we come to work every day, and it is a clear commitment to making sure everything we do is focused on achieving success for the people we serve.

And, importantly, it recognises that despite what we've done so far, we still have work to do and making people safe requires both improvement and ambition. Equally, the services values - excellence, honesty, inclusivity, professionalism in our role and respect - are only words unless communities explicitly experience them and unless we demonstrate them in the way that we work with colleagues and interact with one another at all levels of the service and I do genuinely believe that I ask everybody genuinely believe that I ask everybody to play a really important role in bringing these values to life.

So, I am asking everybody and importantly all leaders within the service who have a responsibility for staff to mobilise a conversation mobilise a discussion about our mission, vision, and - importantly - our values.

Core Code of Ethics

Since its publication in 2021, we have been working hard to embed the Core Code of Ethics, aligning it to our values.  We believe the Core Code will help us serve our communities and make GMFRS a better place to work. It will help everyone to display and promote good behaviours and to challenge conduct that is inconsistent with the Code’s principles.

The Core Code sets out five ethical principles, which provide a basis for promoting good behaviour and challenging inappropriate behaviour. Each of our ethical principles is described by a statement and examples to set out what we must each do to ensure we are acting in line with our Core Code.

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  1. Putting our communities first
    We put the interests of the public, the community, and service users first.

  2. Integrity
    We act with integrity including being open, honest, and consistent in everything that we do.

  3. Dignity and respect
    We treat people with dignity and respect, making decisions objectively based on evidence, without discrimination or bias.

  4. Leadership
    We are all positive role models, always demonstrating flexible and resilient leadership. We are all accountable for everything we do and challenge all behaviour that falls short of the highest standards.

  5. Equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)
    We continually recognise and promote the value of EDI, both within the FRS and the wider communities in which we serve. We stand against all forms of discrimination, create equal opportunities, promote equality, foster good relations, and celebrate difference. 

Core Code of Ethics for Fire and Rescue Services (England) - Local Government Association