'I haven't regretted it for one second,' says new chief of troubled fire service after 100 days in post

The previous person appointed to lead West Midlands Fire Service pulled out before he even took up the post. The one before him quit after a bitter row, saying the brigade was 'ungovernable'. And the one before him was tragically found dead at his home, having apparently taken his own life.

Whatever made Simon Tuhill quit the steady comfortable role as deputy fire chief for Northamptonshire, for the apparent chaos which has engulfed the West Midlands brigade?

As the new man in charge of Britain's second biggest fire service marks his 100 days at the helm, many will say the fact that he has lasted that long represents something of an achievement.

Has Mr Tuhill taken on the impossible job?

If so, he hides it well. 

"I haven't regretted it for one second," he says. "It's fair to say that West Midlands Fire Service has had some turbulent times over the last year, but my journey in the last 100 days has been really, really positive. 

"The staff have been really welcoming, I've now been out to half of our fire stations and met many of our teams.

"I've been really impressed with their enthusiasm and dedication, their commitment to keeping the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier, and it's been a really pleasurable experience."

In a 27-year career, Mr Tuhill was was involved in the response to the 7/7 bombings in London, the Westminster Bridge terror attack and the Grenfell Tower fire, so he has plenty of experience of feeling the pressure.

But did he not feel just a little bit nervous about stepping into a role which has become the subject of so much critical scrutiny over the past year?

"Yeah, you wouldn't be human if you weren't a bit daunted," he says. 

"We're the second biggest fire and rescue service in the country, so I think you'd be a robot if you didn't feel those emotions. 

"I did my due diligence in terms of speaking to colleagues who knew about the West Midlands. And every bit of feedback I got was that West Midlands Fire Service is brilliant at its core job in terms of prevention, protection and response, getting the fire engines out.  

"So that kind of allayed a lot of my doubts, I know that we're a really good service to the public."

One of the challenges he faces in his new role is that in recent months the service, and its governing authority, has become better known for political in-fighting than firefighting.

He effectively takes over from interim chief executive Oliver Lee, who left in October, after seven months at the helm with a withering put down of the way the organisation was run. In a public online spat with former fire authority chairman, Wolverhampton councillor Greg Brackenridge, Mr Lee said the fire service governance lacked 'courage, transparency, care and honesty'. Mr Lee publicly announced his resignation, then withdrew it, only to see his contract terminated anyway. The following month the service announced Ben Brook as its new chief, only for Mr Brook to withdraw four days later. 

Councillor Brackenridge, who faced claims that he had embellished his own military career, also resigned. He has since been succeeded by Councillor Cathy Bayton from Dudley. 

Mr Lee took over as interim chief at a time when the service was already in crisis. In January last year, previous chief fire officer Wayne Brown was found dead at his home amid reports that he was facing an investigation over claims that he had embellished his CV, and his leadership had led to growing grumbling among the ranks. 

Did Mr Lee have a point about the service being impossible to govern?

"That's certainly not been my experience," he says.

"I have a really positive working relationship now with the fire authority and the chair of the fire authority." 

Initial impressions are that Mr Tuhill is a much less combative figure than his predecessor, who was said to be popular with the rank-and-file, but less so with his political masters. Maybe he is the calming figure that the service needs. And while corporate governance is not something that particularly resonates with the man in the street, he says a new oversight board will play a crucial role in holding him to account.

"The chair of that board is the vastly experienced Zoe Billingham, who was formerly of His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, so a really experienced, independent chair," he says.

One of Mr Lee's criticisms during his brief tenure was that the service had underspent its budget by £12 million due to financial mismanagement. Mr Tuhill insists this had little impact on actual services.

"The underspend was linked to several factors, one of them was around some grant funding that arrived pretty late in the financial year, and some of them are linked to vacancies we sometimes have in the service.

"Unlike most jobs, when a firefighter retires or leaves, we can't just plug someone straight into the gap, they need to be trained and recruited. In a nearly £140 million budget, £6 million, when some of that is associated with a grant that arrived late, isn't that unusual."

He admits that mistakes have been made in the past. The service has been afflicted by claims among staff about racism, sexism, and discontent about the cuts to crew numbers on certain jobs. But Mr Tuhill says these problems are not unique to West Midlands Fire Service. 

"Working in such a large fire service, it's a complex place to work," he says. He says the reduced crew numbers for smaller incidents was just common sense, making efficient use of resources.

"If there's a less high-risk instance, for example a bin fire, for someone who's locked themselves out, yeah, we'll send slightly less firefighters to that. You can send more to house fires and factory fires, it's a really mature way of risk-based resourcing.

"Risk throughout the West Midlands is huge, and I have 1,900 staff doing their best to reduce that risk. That comes with lots and lots of challenges for me in terms of trying to reduce the risk and make the public as safe as possible, but it's not something I'm unfamiliar with.

"The number of calls that we attend across the West Midlands is evidence and testament to the fact that despite, you know, the journey we've been on, we continue to deliver an excellent service. In the 100 days I've been here, we would have received over 22,000 999 calls, we would have mobilised to 7,000 operation incidents, and would have carried out 6,000 safe-and-well visits.

"So that's testament to the fact that my staff go about the business of keeping the people of West Midlands safe every day, and that hasn't changed."

That is the work Mr Tuhill wants people to be talking about, and hopes his appointment - along with that of the new fire authority chairman - means that the power struggles and political rows will become a thing of the past. Now is the time for stability.

"I think there is a real chance for us to turn the page," he says. "We have to acknowledge the past, I'm not here to rewrite it. We've been through that turbulence, but for me, this is now a chance, with a new chair and a new chief, to really build that productive relationship. 

"And you know, in 100 days, we've already built that."