Government to blackmail fire service

The government has decided to blackmail the fire service into meeting diversity targets to get them to recruit more female and ethnic minority firefighters.

Those local fire services that do not reach the quota will forfeit £2 million in extra funding. The question is do local fire services need this extra funding? If they do surely the local fire brigade should get it anyway and if they don’t why not just give us it back?

The fire brigade shouldn’t be bothered with diversity targets. They should be bothered about how well the fire brigade performs. They should be bothered about getting the very best fire fighters for the job.