The man tasked with turning around a lifesaving service in Wales that was branded rotten

Wales Online

29-06-2025

The man tasked with turning around a lifesaving service in Wales that was branded rotten
Fin Monahan has commanded the Red Arrows, fought cancer and more. Now he is in charge of sorting out one of Wales' biggest employers
Fin Monahan is six months into being Chief Fire Officer of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service
(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne )
Fin Monahan knew the job he wanted when he left the military: a job at Nato. But when he was on a mandated training course he was told to write a CV and cover letter and find a job that he matched his skills.
As he searched online, he came across one - chief fire officer at South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. It not only fit the bill, but it interested him.
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Within the advert was a brief mention to the requirement to deliver "cultural change". It didn't take Google long to throw up any of the many stories detailing the state the service was in.
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In January 2024, an independent review had found repeated examples of bullying, homophobia, racism and sexism. Sexual harassment and domestic abuse had been tolerated, as well as incidents of physical aggression outside of work.
"Inappropriate behaviours exist...from the top down," it read. The-then chief announced his retirement on the same day. Our coverage of the first review can be read here.
Shocking is an overused word, but the 185-page report truly was. Page after page listed more and more problems of nepotism, abuse of power, and grievances gone unresolved.
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Fast forward a year and he is at Aberbargoed fire station. He is being asked about shift patterns and the layout of control rooms in a stuffy room full of local crews.
As he approaches six months in office, he says he's met 97% of the 1200 and something staff that work for the service.
John Finbar Monahan, Fin, is a former Air Vice-Marshal, former Royal Air Force officer, pilot, Red Arrow commander who has lived in India, New Zealand and Belgium for three years, he was also based with American troops in Stuttgart
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He started his schooling in Maentwrog, now Gwynedd, and studied for (one of) his degrees in France and fought in the Balkan wars, three tours of Afghanistan, he commanded operational unit in north Africa.
For his Welsh mum, the biggest change was when he returned from his 24 weeks of officer training and could keep a clean bedroom.
His last big role before leaving was as one of the directors of all of Nato's air assets from the Arctic to the Black Sea immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, running the aircraft of 32 nations creating a ring of steel around all the NATO nations of Europe, but also moving satellites and people on the ground.
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It wasn't his first involvement with Ukraine. In 2015, he set up what would later become the training programme for Ukrainian soldiers, which has gone on to train 50,000 people.
In his words: "I'm used to being in dangerous environments".
He holds masters degrees from both University of Nottingham and University of Madras, and awarded a Doctorate PhD from University of Birmingham on organisational culture. He is also a cancer survivor and has had two bone marrow transplants.
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In 2009 the back pain he was suffering was diagnosed as cancer, at the time he was embedded with the Indian military. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy were followed by a stem cell transplant, and he managed to return to the RAF.
In 2015, a scan revealed minute traces that the cancer in his bone marrow. Eight months after a second transplant, he became commandant of the Central Flying School, a role which includes training, organising and flying with the world's most famous aerobatic team, the Red Arrows.
He is a patron of two cancer groups and in his free time you'll find him sailing or maybe skiiing, possibly even in his campervan, and he's been to five Glastonbury Festivals.
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His current challenge is South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. He says there were a few things that interested him about the job when he read the advert. Firstly, he'd done some firefighting training in his military career, and loved it. And then there was some "pressure" from his wife, given his career had been internationally-based.
Fin Mohanan in front of a Skyhawk whilst on exchange with the Royal New Zealand Air Force
(Image: Fin Mohanan )
He was one of five shortlisted candidates, and had five days of exercises, panels, and interviews before being appointed. When asked in his interview what he thought of the review by Fenella Morris, he told the panel it was "shocking, absolutely shocking".
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"There are awful things that have taken place here and they clearly need to be sorted out. There is, in my view, a leadership problem and we need to sort that out," he told them.
In these first six months since taking over, he has made a point of visiting station after station, crew after crew. His did his first station visits "straight away" and says he detected a feeling from the troops that "we say stuff but nothing gets done".
He makes a point of telling staff he is an outsider. That's important because some of those people he has met are victims, and some are those did wrong, and the former in particular need to know there has been a change and the slow process of rebuilding trust can then begin. He starts by telling those people that "quite a lot" of the former leadership has gone.
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"I do still get people saying 'they were part of it' because they were somewhere in that leadership structure. Clearly you're not going to get rid of everyone and then start again so it's a massive challenge," he said.
But one of his red lines - "If you slip, you will be sacked," he said.
Fin Monahan speaking to fire crews at Aberbargoed fire station
(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne )
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"The egregious excursions from norms, behaviours and disciplinary standards are gone, okay?" he says, making precision eye contact across the lecture room table we sit at.
Asked if that means he can say racism, homophobia and sexism are completely gone from the shop floor, he replies: "I think you could go to any organisation in Britain and you will find people who are sexist, racist and homophobic.
"My line to people is 'if you are a sexist, racist, homophobe or you do not respect people, this is not the place for you' I'm hard on that.
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"I am very, very clear that you need to either very rapidly change the way you behave and the way you think, or there is not a place for you in this service," he said.
Rebuilding the trust of those impacted directly, or even indirectly will take time, he says, but it is underway.
He has set up a "CFO Confidential" email where people can send concerns anonymously, seen solely by him and his chief of staff, also brought in from outside the service. "We have no affiliation with anyone else and what that allows people to do is to send concerns in," he said.
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There have been 35 cases raised through that, some more serious than others, around 12 have, he says, been dealt with via a "really good resolution" and others continue to be looked at.
"I go round, face to face, I look people in the eye and I say, 'some of you in this room, you won't admit it to other people in the room, but you might have concerns either about yourself or about other people'." He then tells them to go to him directly.
"Having very clear standards is fundamentally important," he said. "If you wear the uniform then you are responsible for your behaviour, not just when you're at work, it's actually in everything you do. So when you go out to a pub, if you do something wrong, they will refer to you as a firefighter X so you let down the service .
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"There have been things outside the service that have actually impacted us as a service and there is no room for that. Actually we have higher standards and we need to maintain them.
He will not shy away from sacking people if behaviour falls below his expectations. "We are quite prepared to go to that point for egregious departures from behavioural norms and standards, but that has to sit within the law and it has to be fair," he said.
But he says he's had cases raised with him where the concern is "justice hasn't been done". In that situation, he will meet them and ask their expectations. "They get direct access to the chief, to someone from the outside who they can trust," he said.
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People had seen those who they had made complaints about back at work, with no visible sanction or explanation, that led to resentment. "Unless they see a reduction in rank, they might be there looking at someone, thinking, 'well, why are they still in the service? They have had a major impact on my life.'"
Fin Monahan on duty during flooding during Storm Bert in November 2024
(Image: Mark Lewis )
They've also been visited by his former colleagues in the Red Arrows - something which may raise an eyebrow given the fact that in 2023, the world-renowned display team is in "special measures" after a report found predatory behaviour towards women was "widespread and normalised".
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An investigation described a "toxic culture" where women suffered sexual harassment and bullying. There was unwanted physical contact, sexual texts, invitations to engage in sexual activity, and women being seen as "property".
Behaviour went unchallenged until, in 2021, three women went to the then-head of the RAF about complaints they had made which had not been addressed by their chain of command going back to 2017.
"When, for example, the Red Arrows incident happened that was 'it's the Red Arrows how could it possibly...'
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"You have organisations there held in high regard, when they slip, it's worse from a reputational damage point of perspective," he said.
"Look at what happened but look at how they responded. "There was unacceptable behaviour. Two pilots ejected - sacked - from the Red Arrows and from the military. I think there were another five people who had disciplinary cases against them, but really hard action and obvious action," he said.
For the following two to three years, the "diamond nine" of the Red Arrows was seven, because they had lost members.
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"It was public penance. In the circles I move in, that was very public, there was a certain humility to it all."
He said what was discussed on the visit was "how did that happen?" and what the root causes were.
"I was the commander of the Red Arrows about three or four years before and it was an amazing place". I had people who are openly gay, we tried to do pride smoke. It was very, very proactive approach, a really comfortable nice place to be and we had we had a transgender woman on the squadron who just transitioned and the support there was was palpable and excellence being delivered all the time.
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"To see then the organisation slip, I was very clear 'you are to get on the front page of the newspaper not for the wrong reasons'
He has now worked in three areas where there have been high-profile reports of discrimination, or sexually deviant behaviour.
Asked why that happened in the military, the Red Arrows, and the fire service, whether it was power or ego, he said: "If you're in a public service you are held to a higher standard by people, you're very obvious and so if something bubbles up, then it's actually more important that it's dealt with than in other organisations."
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Fin Mohanan in front of a harrier jet during his RAF career
(Image: Fin Mohanan )
At South Wales Fire and Rescue Service he saw a lack of leaders intervening to resolve issues.
"There was no mediation package in the service at all. Leaders didn't want to get their finger in the mangle because they're not trained to do that.
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"So small things would explode into a grievance that then festers because there are so many grievances and they're sitting there waiting for something to happen.
"The grievance system also, in order to protect certain people, will suspend them but then rumours go round what is actually a relatively small organisation." he said. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
He said he could clearly see staff knew how to do run incidents on the ground, but elsewhere leadership is lacking.
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He has set up a leadership academy, sending fire service staff to the Central Flying School to do the flying instructor's course, and brought in some of his former colleagues - recovering from their own scandal - to share their expertise. There are now trained mediators to deal with disputes and more being trained.
Part of the reason for that lack of leadership, he said, is that it used to be that fire crew commanders, now managers, would be sent to the fire training college at Moreton-in-Marsh for a six week course but the college was privatised and focuses on practical, technical training, not the management courses.
"The military has something called Mission Command that's common to 32 nations in NATO, it[s described this is the way to do leadership and it's delegation to the lowest level absolutely possible, empowerment to the lowest level possible, challenging up the chain of command to make sure that the commander makes informed decisions rather than makes their own decisions," he said.
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"When I say to a crew manager, so what training have had to deal with difficult situations. They say, none. They say they can do incident command. There it's pretty direct, it's noisy. You have to be directive and it's absolutely right that you are directive in that situation. But the people skills element isn't being taught now."
He has a two-track approach, of short term changes, but building a proper strategy. In the management world that is usually talked about in terms of 10 to 15 years.
In her report, Fenella Morris says that in their interviews with staff, there were numerous references to the 'chain of command'." But he told the panel that wasn't the problem in itself. A chain of command, in roles like the military or emergency services is imperative, but a lack of leadership is different and the two had been conflated.
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"When I came here, early on I was going around saying, 'right, what is your leadership philosophy or leadership style that you have in South Wales Fire and Rescue Service?'
"No one could articulate it," he said.
In his six months in the role, station visits to meet staff has been one of his priorities
(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne )
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He also saw an "us and them" attitude about operational staff and those at say headquarters. When that language is used in his sessions, he tells a story about how all but one of the service's payroll HR department was taken down by norovirus except one, who had just graduated.
"That person worked day and night to do all of the pay run for the whole of the service. Nailed it and we all got paid," he said. "I say to them, 'Let's just think about that, that's us'. It's not those people down in headquarters," he said.
He urged the crews there on this day to take up the option to go to the control room to see what they're doing.
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His aims are relatively simple. To keep people safe but secondly, he wants the organisation to get three "outstanding" ratings from His Majesty's Inspectorate and Fire Rescue Services. ]
He accepts they have a long way to go for that especially given a recent review of services found there were "serious concerns" about whether the service can keep people safe.
"What's my number one priority? It's actually protecting 1.6 million people. Day and night, 365 days of the year, our base operational excellence. That's my number one priority.
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"My number two priority is culture. My PhD is in organisational culture in uniform services so I've got all sorts of tools to bring to the party to make sure that our culture improves because unless your culture improves, you can never be excellent," he said.
"On the culture side of things, looking at being a people organisation? That starts now, not in five years time. That starts immediately."
His academic background and practical knowledge tells him a 10 to 15 year plan is reasonable. He's given himself eight but he doesn't however think he should be in role for the end of that.
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"I do not think that I should be here for eight years. It's too long. What I want to do is to make sure that we are building strategic leaders in the service. It's a bit shocking really, isn't it, there was no-one ready to step in and just take over."
He believes it is making a difference already but they are burned by what has gone on, and coverage of the report, and the fear that one brush was used to tar all.
"Those people that you just saw in that room downstairs, they are there ready to risk their lives and go out and protect people, save people.
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"We just had a a house fire about four or five weeks ago in which two of my firefighters, with breathing apparatus on, went in and fought a fire to get to the staircase, fought it on the staircase, cleared five rooms and dragged someone out and actually saved seven people in total.
"It was a well-alight building, all three storeys, that is a serious fire. And they're doing it with utmost dedication. You will see people right the way across the organisation who will unflinchingly go and do this stuff.
"As a military person has been shot at quite a bit and gone into combat out of the utmost admiration. There is a massive amount of physical courage that people exercise every day," he said.
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"Watching how they deal with the general public is phenomenal, very respectful, very compassionate, very professional and that is the vast majority of people in my organisation are, up there in the 98% of people.
"Clearly, you will have some people who who are not not respectful, well, they don't have a place in my organisation and that's clear. But there's I will get a lot of people you just described. 'We're not all like this.' and absolute horror at the way they have been represented.
"These are people risked their lives and then they see themselves on the news or in newspapers and painted as being terrible people when they know they're not.
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"They know that they're respectful and they're dealing with incredible things and at moments in their lives where they're at the lowest that they'll ever be, dealing with people who are, who are going to commit suicide or set fire to themselves or or doing bariatric rescues. The compassion is just phenomenal."
But he accepts that to all those who say it wasn't them, they will have potentially witnessed inappropriate behaviour, or known it has gone on, not called it out or reported it.
"That's why I'm talking about a leadership school and an induction process. If you haven't taught people a framework of behaviour, said 'These are our standards and this is what what what we espouse, if you don't have a leadership cadre and say 'these are the values that we have in this service' and include courage, which is physical courage of going into buildings but the harder version of courage, which is moral courage then..."
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That moral courage is, he accepts, hard but what has been lacking.
"Just the other day I was on a fire station and someone used an inappropriate word and I was in that position where I was about to intervene., but the individual said, 'I shouldn't have said that' and then the crew intervened to say 'No, that was an inappropriate use of language'.
"That was them coming together as a team. Rather than being sort of angry and 'you shouldn't have done that' and it going to grievance, it was the team all agreeing that wasn't an appropriate word to use.
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"I thought, I'm really proud of you, that you were able to step back from that'. Some of the discussions that we're having that are breaking through."
Changing the whole organisation is a huge ask, but adversity and defying the odds is something else he knows about. "After I got diagnosed [with cancer], I did a PhD, I got my yacht master offshore qualification. I got back to flying, which no one thought I would, commanded operations again.
"There is life beyond a diagnosis of an incurable cancer. I'm now in approaching year 17, when originally I was told probably a couple of years, maybe five, but, it wasn't great. I had really successful treatment and I am now surfing the wave of medical technology," he says, producing the lunchbox containing medication he takes daily.
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He was, he admits, into extremes before his diagnosis.
"I'm a fighter pilot, I've flown low level, gone on combat operations. Joined the Air Force at 18. when I was at university. I'm really into the outdoors. I'm really into exploration.
"I love travel, I love life. I've always thought the life wouldn't be long enough. I love everything. I'm actually a really happy person.
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"I love people, I really like people. I think most people are good and I also think that if people aren't good is a lot you can do to just shift mindsets and things. But I'm really determined, really determined. Some of that is instilled by being in the military.
"I'm not afraid of death. I've confronted it a few times. but I'm not afraid of it at all. And I just love living. It's great. Life is great and if I can help people who are not in the fortunate position that I'm in, then I will.
"I'm a patron of a small cancer charity and I'm also a patron of Military versus Cancer as well, that's this community of the military family so if anyone
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"I'm busy, but I was an air Vice-Marshal in the Air Force, that is a two star job is a very, very, very busy job. So I just keep going."
When I ask if he is surprised that he has ended up here in south Wales, and not at Nato, he looks disbelieving I could consider them different. "It might look as though this is a very, very local job, it's not.
"We're responsible for things that actually are global here. So climate change is just one. Terrorism, that's another one. We are responsible for critical national infrastructure of the United Kingdom.
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"When we start getting flooded we need to put high volume pumps in place. Otherwise, the critical national infrastructure breaks down.
"If Britain gets attacked militarily, below the threshold of warfare, and we've just seen fire used as a tool of of sabotage with Keir Starmer [properties linked to the Prime Minister were allegedly set on fire].
"I need to make sure that my fire service is ready for a cyber attack because if adversaries choose to attack us below the threshold of actual war, that's how they're going to get us.
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"If you can take the whole fire service down, then people are not safe. It fits into the big global picture," he says.
It is also political, in the broadest sense, dealing with funding, staffing, resilience, staffing...the list goes on."
With that, the interview he chose, off the cuff, to double in length, really has to end. But then he insists he wants to go again, reeling off the summary of the three pages of notes he just took at meeting with firefighters.
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"Seven minutes later, he actually stops but just momentarily, and he continues talking until we reach the front door, when he absolutely does have to go.