Changes at the top of West Midlands fire service as auditor issues critical report

Councillor Cathy Bayton, who represents St James' ward on Dudley Council, was elected chairman at yesterday's meeting of the authority, following the sudden resignation of Councillor Greg Brackenridge.

The meeting also formally approved the appointment of Simon Tuhill as chief officer. But members were also presented with an independent auditors' report which found that serious shortcomings had been found in the way it recruited senior officers and in the checks it made to their backgrounds.

Avtar Sohal, of external auditors Grant Thornton, identified three significant weaknesses relating to the governance of the authority.

He said the authority had breached its constitution in the suspension of an un-named senior officer in May this year. It has also failed to follow the correct procedures in the appointment of a senior officer earning in excess of £100,000 a year, and had not complied with its responsibilities in checking out the educational qualifications of former chief executive Wayne Brown.

Mr Sohal said it was 'highly unusual' to have to identify significant weaknesses when auditing a public body, and by law he was obliged to make statutory recommendations.

"I can only stress how unusual it is for an auditor to have to make statutory recommendations on the number of significant weaknesses we have in this report," he said.

"I hope the force can learn from these recommendations so these failures don't happen again."

Councillor Adam Aston, who represents Dudley Council on the authority, thanked Mr Sohal for his work.

"It is an incredibly sobering report, and not one that anyone involved in public service wants to read," he said.

"It illustrates how a small number of decisions to over-ride controls, that weren't robust enough in the first place, can cause significant reputational damage to the organisation as a whole, which we now have to set about repairing."

The meeting was told Mr Tuhill was likely to take over in January. He is the third person to be announced as the head of the fire service this year. 

Oliver Lee was appointed interim chief executive of the fire service following the death of former chief Wayne Brown in January. Mr Brown who had held the post since 2022, was found dead at his home in Birmingham amid claims that he had misled the authority about his qualifications.

In September, Mr Lee said he did not wish his appointment to be made permanent, claiming the governance of the service was impossible.

Mr Lee was suspended from his post on October 8, and the following week he tendered his resignation, saying he had been ordered to keep quiet about matters that were in the public interest. However, following the resignation of Wolverhampton councillor Greg Brackenridge as chairman of the fire authority, Mr Lee attempted to withdraw his resignation, only to be told it had already been accepted.

Councillor Brackenridge's resignation followed reports that he had embellished details of his military career, claiming to have served as a Royal Marine when he had not completed the training. 

On November 8, Ben Brook was announced as the next chief fire officer, but days later Mr Brook changed his mind, saying he wished to stay in his present post at Warwickshire Fire Service.

Mr Tuhill is currently deputy chief fire officer in Northamptonshire.

Councillor Ben Evans was appointed as one of Wolverhampton Council's representatives on the committee following Councillor Brackenridge's resignation.