A copy of the confidential survey report, obtained by The Canberra Times, details the long-standing and increasing levels of mistrust territory fire fighters have in their executive, and a cultural malaise in the wider direction of the agency.

Only 93 of 341 ACT Fire and Rescue staff completed the survey in April and May last year, none of whom said they had a "high level of trust in senior management".

It also showed a continued deterioration in the fire brigade's "engagement culture", reaching the survey metric's poorest possible level of "blame plus", indicating staff believe the agency's "ship is rudderless" and fire and rescue staff experience a level of hopelessness that "verges on despair".

Some 86 per cent of respondents agreed their immediate supervisor puts "the value of respect into practice", compared with only 31 per cent agreeing with the statement in relation to the agency senior leadership team.

The survey follows rising tensions with the agency's strategic reform program in recent months, in the wake of a vote of "no confidence" by the United Firefighters Union ACT membership in ESA Commissioner Dominic Lane's leadership in 2016.

While Mr Lane did not respond directly to questions, an agency spokeswoman said its executives and managers were "actively engaging with all staff", including fire and rescue, "communicating the outcomes of the survey and listening to concerns".

"This feedback will assist in developing strategies to support continual improvement within the directorate, as is the aim of any staff survey," she said.

The report shows two thirds of respondents were not optimistic about the organisation's future and the same proportion disagreed with the statement that the organisation had a "strong future".

It also showed the proportion of fire and rescue staff disengaged with the agency's future rose from 24.3 per cent in 2012 to 38.1 per cent in 2015, and again rose to 57.4 per cent in 2017.

United Firefighters Union ACT secretary Greg McConville said the staff engagement was essentially made up of two elements, the "work" and the "place", and he said while staff enjoyed the work and serving the community, the survey results showed the key problems were in the workplace.

He said the results "point to a toxic workplace that doesn't value their contributions" and while staff generally got along with their colleagues and immediate managers, "there's a high degree of cynicism of anything that comes from ESA management above them".

Mr McConville said a number of disputes had arisen over funding of essential equipment for fire fighters versus funding for wider things for the agency, and that when staff raised such issues they met with resistance from the executive.

He said while the agency's senior management had told fire fighters "where they want to be going", the staff were concerned about the frankness of such discussions and felt even if they raised issues in good faith, they were not being genuinely heard, and such advice was not being taken on.

"It comes from a sense of despair about [management's] attitude and it seems staff consider their contributions to discussions have not been valued at all," he said.

Mr McConville said one such issue was a decision that saw first aid training for fire fighters downgraded from "emergency assist" level training, to only "basic training" that anyone doing a standard workplace health and safety course needed.

He said that given fire fighters were often the first emergency services on the scene of an accident, it was essential they were given the tools to respond adequately, but that when the issues was raised, it had been ignored by management.

An agency spokeswoman said the justice and community services directorate was committed to improving workforce culture to be "a high performing environment that supports our staff".

She said the detailed results from the staff surveys were "not made public for a number of reasons" including assurances given to staff about confidentiality and the commercial value of the information and that the "nature of the reports" were designed only as working documents for use by executives and managers in the organisation.

Mr McConville said he believed there was "a simple way to fix this", which was about senior agency management genuinely talking and listening to staff concerns, and that when such talks were genuine "we can come to a decision where decisions are made with people, rather than about people".