Emergency Services Commissioner Dominic Lane has denied claims of a toxic culture inside ACT Fire and Rescue following the leaking of a damning staff survey.
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The sentiment was echoed by Emergency Services Minister Mick Gentleman, who said he had “full confidence” in the under-fire commissioner.
The internal staff survey, which was completed last year, detailed the long-standing mistrust territory firefighters have in their executive as well as revealing a cultural malaise in the wider direction of the ESA.
United Firefighters Union ACT Secretary Greg McConville said the results of the survey “point to a toxic workplace that doesn’t value their contributions”.
Mr Lane strongly denied this characterisation, saying his agency had a “very good culture”.
“I disagree with the union’s allegations,” he said on Tuesday.
“I think that we’ve got a very good culture, it comes through so strongly in so many ways.”
Mr Lane also said he had no plans to quit the role in light of the survey’s findings and the union’s criticisms.
“I’m here for another five years and I really love this particular role,” he said.
Mr Gentleman also disagreed that the Emergency Services Agency had been beset by a toxic culture.
“I think that our ESA people do a fantastic job in the ACT,” Mr Gentleman said.
“I have full confidence in our ESA Commissioner Dominic Lane and the staff that he has working for him as well.”
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".
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.
Mr McConville said he believed there was a simple way to fix the rift between ESA management and staff.
He said senior agency management should focus on 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".
