Yes, thanks very much, Chair, if I can just put this into context. So, I think, with incidents like this, there are various ways in which the Fire Brigades Union becomes involved. One of those that I think is important to mention in this context is support for the victims, because, in most of the cases across the fire service in the UK, the victims of such incidents will also be members of the Fire Brigades Union. So, if you look at our annual report each year, you will see—. We don't report every case, but we report, for example, employment tribunal cases, where we have pursued, on behalf of victims, cases against their employer, often for a failure to act on complaints that they have raised. So, we are involved on that level regularly on behalf of groups of our members who have suffered such behaviour.
Secondly, within our own rules, there are rules against bullying, harassment and discrimination, and we have certainly brought cases against members, and we have had, for example, officials of the union who have been barred from holding office in our union when found guilty of such offences under our rules.
And then, thirdly, there is the policy to which Cerith referred, 'All Different, All Equal'. I think it's important to explain the background to that. The debate on equality and diversity goes back to the early 1980s, and it has been long and it's been difficult and there have been lots of failures in the fire and rescue service. We developed that policy as a union precisely because, in one case, representation was withdrawn from an individual and the union was taken to an employment tribunal. So, the policy that we have, which is very thorough, and has to be careful, is precisely in response to legal challenges that the union faced on this very issue.
So, we require our regions to ensure that an investigation is conducted; we have to then train people to conduct that investigation, and we've taken legal advice on the standards that we could apply if, for example, we're determining that we may consider not representing an individual member. And I'm sure you'll appreciate that it's correct and appropriate that the union goes through all those various steps. And again, we report each year in our annual report the number of applications under that policy, the number of hearings that have taken place and the number of occasions on which representation is withdrawn. And again, I'm sure you'll appreciate that to withdraw that representation is quite a significant step for a trade union to take, considering the fact that most people will join a trade union in order to get representation if they face discipline. So, it is a difficult policy. I'm not aware of any other union that has such a firm policy on this, by the way. I think it has been controversial, even within the Fire Brigades Union at times. We've maintained it and that's the policy that's in place.
An additional problem that we've faced in recent years, I think, as was mentioned to us by some of our south Wales officials recently, is that the number of discipline cases has grown generally in the fire service for some reason. That means there are greater demands on trade union reps at local level, including cases that might, in our case, come under 'All Different, All Equal', and therefore there is a greater demand for investigators. How do people get time released from work to carry out such investigations? There needs to then be a meeting of the regional committee to determine that's the case. The individual has a right of appeal, so, that may go to the executive council—sorry, the final appeals committee—to assess whether that decision to withdraw representation was correct or not.
So, there are various processes; it is not simply a straightforward decision that we find a WhatsApp message, for example, and can then automatically withdraw representation—or would want to—because, as I say, we have faced legal action on this very issue in the past.