A review has been commissioned into the effectiveness of the island’s Fire and Rescue Service.

The peer review, being carried out by the Local Government Association (LGA) and National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), will also feed into a modernisation programme which is currently underway.

Mark Christian was appointed interim chief fire officer in June last year, following the retirement of Kevin Groom after 40 years in the service.

A Department of Home Affairs spokesman said: ‘The department recently commissioned the LGA, in partnership with the NFCC, to undertake an independent peer review of the island’s Fire and Rescue Service.

‘The purpose of the review was to provide external scrutiny and assurance around how effective the Fire and Rescue Service is at keeping the population safe from fire and other emergencies.

‘The peer team was also tasked with identifying further areas of improvement to help support modernisation work which is already underway.

‘The team spent four days on-island and spoke to over 125 stakeholders during 35 meetings.’

She added: ‘The department expects to receive the final report in April and it will be published shortly after.’

The review comes some three years after the Fire and Rescue Service became embroiled in a racism and whistleblowing row.

An employment tribunal heard that there was a culture of racist and sexist comments and laddish banter at Douglas fire station which had been tolerated by management.

The tribunal ruled that firefighter Mark Versluijs had been unfairly dismissed following an incident in 2018 in which he was accused of making a monkey chant in a fire engine as it headed down Lord Street in Douglas.

Fire chiefs maintained it was an openly racist insult aimed a pedestrian who was walking along the pavement at the time.

But Mr Versluijs insisted the monkey noises had been aimed at the leading firefighter who was known as ‘Macca’s Monkey’ by the crew of Blue Watch, for apparently acting as a dogsbody and doing the run-around for the station officer.

The employment tribunal concluded that the decision to sack him was ‘unfair and unwarranted’ and the principle reason for his dismissal had been his whistleblowing disclosures about staffing issues.

The Fire and Rescue Service went to court to appeal the tribunal’s decision. It argued that the tribunal had erred in law by going ‘far beyond its remit’ and carrying out its own fact-finding.

But subsequently the two sides reached a settlement.