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THE SALAMANDER | DECEMBER 2017
Dawn Whittaker
CFO East Sussex FRS
Dawn’s career has been
varied, beginning by studying
Hotel, Hospitality and Tourism
before joining the John Lewis
Partnership as a graduate
trainee in 1988. After 14
years, Dawn left to join
Northamptonshire
County
Council as a Performance
Manager, later becoming the
Assistant Director for Public
Protection, overseeing the
planning and performance
in Fire and Rescue, Trading
Standards, Coroner’s Office,
Registration Services and
some parts of community
safety for the county. In 2006,
she moved into an operational
position with Northants Fire
and Rescue when she took up
the Area Manager Planning,
Performance and Finance role.
She went “back to basics” and
started her operational training,
qualifying as a Silver and Gold
incident commander after a
rigorous assessment process,
She progressed to ACFO and
then DCFO in 2008. She’s had
what she describes as “many
interesting experiences” as
Officer in Charge of some fairly
large incidents including floods,
factory fires, a major incident on
theM1 and as Gold Commander
at Silverstone during the Grand
Prix.
In 2012 she undertook a
six month secondment to
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue
Service to offer strategic support
as their management teamwere
in the midst of the Atherstone–
on-Stour investigation. In
April 2014 she was offered an
opportunity for a secondment to
central government (DCLG and
then the Home Office) to support
the Chief Fire and Rescue
Adviser with some major policy
work. She briefed ministers and
liaised with various FRS during
the Dec 2015 northern floods
and also Bosley Mill and Didcot
Power Station. Dawn has been
the National Fire Chiefs Council
(NFCC) lead for Drowning
Prevention and Water Safety
since 2013 and sits on the new
NFCC Prevention Committee.
Dawn has also been a trustee of
two charities and is currently the
Chair of the Board of Trustees
for the Royal Lifesaving Society
UK.
Change
A key focus for Dawn at
ESFRS is helping the Service
transform against a backdrop
of decreasing budgets and
growing expectations. “It could
be argued that fire and rescue
services have never before
faced so much significant
change. We are preparing for
a new inspection regime and a
national fire reform programme
is being pushed forward; we are
also seeing changed models
for governance across the UK
FRS, with Mayoral responsibility
(devolution) and PCC’s in
addition to County, Metropolitan
and Combined fire authorities.
Collaboration is no longer a
concept, but a legal duty across
the country – whether with other
fire and rescue services or
different organisations. Dealing
with this level of simultaneous
change is challenging”. Change
management has always been
a focus for Dawn throughout
her career, in particular, helping
people
and
organisations
improve planning, learning and
performance. She maintains
that strong leadership and
innovative thinking are vital
to ensure that the fire service
is future focused, that the
public are protected and staff
understand their changing
role in delivering the best for
communities.
At ESFRS, we are looking
again at our strategic direction
after assessing the evidence
we have gathered about our
risks and community needs.
This will no doubt result in some
changes and our staff and
community need to be prepared
for us to do things differently in
the future. We have already
moved into a new area of public
safety - drowning prevention.
Even although there are other
agencies and charities already
working hard to improve safety
in this area, as lead officer for
NFCC, I know just how many
lives can be saved if we work
with other parties - a significant
amount has been achieved
since NFCC were invited to
join the National Drowning
Prevention Forum.
Well being
In managing all this change,
we must continue to prioritise
Dawn Whittaker is Chief Fire
Officer at East Sussex Fire
and Rescue Service (ESFRS),
joining ESFRS in June 2016
as DCFO.