Queen's Birthday Honours 2017 - Fire, Police and Ambulance Service

Queen’s Fire Service Medal

• Andrew Watt, Group Manager, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
• Linda Coughlan, Watch Manager, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
• Kenneth Simmons, Watch Manager, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

Queen’s Police Medal

• Gillian Imery, Chief Superintendent, Police Scotland
• Johnny Gwynne, Deputy Chief Constable, Police Scotland

Queen’s Ambulance Service Medal

• Lewis Campbell, General Manager for East Central Division, Scottish Ambulance Service

QUEEN’S FIRE SERVICE MEDAL 

Andrew Watt, Group Manager, SFRS

Andrew Watt joined Strathclyde Fire and Rescue as a wholetime firefighter in October 1992 having served prior to this date as a retained firefighter in Inveraray.

Andrew served as a firefighter and junior officer in some of the country’s busiest fire stations and has always displayed the highest levels of professionalism and dedication. He was appointed to the role of group manager in 2011 and on the creation of the new national fire and rescue service in Scotland, Andrew was asked to play a lead role within the project to transform the service’s infrastructure.

Andrew played a big part in this work ensuring the service could develop a property infrastructure that met its needs, including the relocation of the national headquarters, the development of the new service delivery area headquarters, and the creation of state of the art asset resource centres across Scotland.

One of Andrew’s biggest successes is his role in leading the development of a highly successful partnership between the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and the blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan.

The Anthony Nolan Partnership was first introduced into the former Strathclyde Fire and Rescue in 2009 by one of Andrew’s former colleagues and in 2014 Andrew took over as chair of the committee leading the work. The partnership would allow the fire service to assist the charity in attracting potential stem cell and bone marrow donors to the existing register.

The partnership has been a huge success and over the past seven years, the initiative has recruited over 7,800 new potential stem cell donors to the Anthony Nolan register by holding over 100 recruitment events. This has resulted in 22 stem cell donations to people with blood disorders or blood cancer, for whom a stem cell transplant is their last hope.

Linda Coughlan, Watch Manager, SFRS

Linda entered into a career with the Glasgow Fire Service within their Ingram Street Control Room in September 1976 as a recruit fire control operator. After a period of twelve months, Linda transferred to D division control room in Ayr, where she worked until her promotion to the rank of leading fire control operator within the F division control room in Clydebank in 1980.

When Strathclyde Fire Brigade decided to amalgamate their five fire control rooms to the existing site at Johnstone, the F division control was the first to close. Linda transferred along with her colleagues, where after a few months she was promoted to the rank of fire control officer serving on various watches/groups until the present day where she is a watch manager in charge of group 4.

In 1989 Linda took over as the fire fighters charity representative within the Johnstone Control. Linda’s role has very much evolved over the years. She is now the Scottish administrator for the charity and a qualified home visit rep, where she is responsible for arranging fundraising events and caring for serving and retired firefighters and their families in times of need. The support offered by Linda is not only one of referring for physiotherapy purposes, but both emotional and financial support through the charity’s structures. The contribution Linda has made along with SFRS staff has made Scotland the biggest contributor to the fire fighters charity’s funds.

Throughout her career, Linda has been involved in numerous large scale incidents, such as the Lockerbie aircraft crash and more recently the Clutha Vaults helicopter crash, as an operator and a control officer and her operational experience is invaluable. Linda is immensely dedicated to the service and takes great pride in the values the SFRS represents.

Kenneth Simmons, Watch Manager, SFRS

Kenneth has given nearly 40 years of his life to the fire service, attending thousands of incidents including the worst air disaster in UK history. His commitment to his community has seen him proactively develop community-focused organisations to improve the safety and the health of those who live there. His passion for the role of the retained duty system firefighter has driven him to work with service level management and national advisory groups to consistently look to improve and modernise. He has led Annan station by example for over 28 years and has embraced and actively supported innovation and change throughout.

Kenneth joined Dumfries and Galloway Fire Brigade in January 1978. He took up the post of Retained Duty System (RDS) firefighter stationed at the two pump Annan Community Fire Station and has continued his service there until the present day.

In 2009, Kenneth was approached to take up the role of Dumfries and Galloway Fire & Rescue Service RDS liaison officer. In this role Kenneth spent 12 months carrying out a gap analysis against the Chief Fire Officers Association (Scotland) Retained Duty System recommendations. This resulted in a service wide improvement action plan being developed and an extensive modernisation programme undertaken.

Building on this role Kenneth was seconded to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Advisory Unit (SFRAU) in June 2010 as the Retained Duty Systems Advisor for Scotland. Working alongside Head of SFRAU, Kenneth carried out work to explore and support the process of moving the 93 volunteer stations within Highlands and Islands to Retained Duty System Stations.

Kenneth currently performs the voluntary role of the fire fighters charity assistant area co-ordinator for the Dumfries and Galloway area. This role sees Kenneth co-ordinating charity events, working with local stations and liaising with local media to raise funds for and highlight the profile of the charity.

QUEEN’S POLICE MEDAL

Gillian Imery, Chief Superintendent, Police Scotland

Chief Superintendent Gillian Imery joined Lothian and Borders Police in 1986 and has had a distinguished career, having served as a warranted officer for over 30 years. 

As a senior woman in the police service she has consistently pushed boundaries, never content to settle for the status quo, either for the public or female colleagues. She is an inspirational leader and role model.

As the first female detective sergeant in Edinburgh and later as the first female divisional commander for the City of Edinburgh, Gillian overcame adversity and a work culture that previously did little to encourage women into senior positions in policing in Scotland.

Appointed in 2013 as the first head of public protection and divisional crime for the Police Service of Scotland, Gillian provided national leadership in critical areas of work including rape recording and investigation, and the management of registered sex offenders.

As the national policing lead for honour based violence, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation, Gillian displayed her energy and insight through the establishment of a consultancy group made up largely of third sector organisations with a focus on black, asian and minority ethnic (BAME) issues. This was a groundbreaking piece of work in terms of police engagement with the often ‘unheard voices’ in our communities and those who have little contact with the authorities. 

Gillian joined HM Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) on 11 April 2016, and is the first female officer to have held this position in the 160 years that HMICS has been in existence. 

Johnny Gwynne, Deputy Chief Constable, Police Scotland

DCC Gwynne joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, now the Police Service of Northern Ireland, in 1985 and transferred to Strathclyde Police in 1989.

For most of his career he has undertaken detective roles, with many of these in covert areas of policing. However from February 2006 to November 2007 he served as divisional commander for Renfrewshire and Inverclyde local authority areas. This period coincided with the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport, where DCC Gwynne led the operational response and consequence management to the incident.

Between 2007 and 2013, Mr Gwynne was the deputy director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA). He coordinated the agency’s response to ‘letting our communities flourish’ – the Scottish Government’s strategy for tackling serious organised crime – and directed a number of operations to remove the real threat of drugs from Scotland’s communities. This included one operation which seized drugs with a value of over £3 million, which otherwise would have reached the streets of Scotland.

In 2013, he became the director of the National Crime Agencies (NCA) Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Command.

In this role DCC Gwynne established and led the UK’s first national operation to counter the threat posed to UK children from contact sexual offences – operation NOTARISE. This operation was unprecedented in scale and results – under his direction it coordinated and supported 45 police forces to arrest over 740 individuals resulting in the safeguarding and protection of over 500 vulnerable children.

In 2015, DCC Gwynne directed an innovative CEOP campaign aimed at giving parents the tools to deal with children ‘sexting’, alongside CEOP’s ongoing ‘ThinkUKnow’ programme, which has reached over eight million primary and 10 million secondary school children, developing young people’s resilience to the threat of exploitation and empowering them with knowledge to keep themselves safe both on and offline.

In October 2016, he commenced his current post as deputy chief constable, Police Scotland as the head of crime and operational support.

QUEEN’S AMBULANCE SERVICE MEDAL

Lewis Campbell, General Manager for East Central Division, Scottish Ambulance Service

Lewis has worked for the service for over 24 years. During his early career he worked as a paramedic and team leader responding to 999 calls in Cowdenbeath, Fife. He then transferred to the West of Scotland as head of patient transport services in Lanarkshire to lead and support changes to the way in which non-emergency services were delivered. He returned to the East of Scotland as strategic ambulance leader, first of all as head of ambulance services in Fife and then general manager responsible for ambulance service delivery across Fife, Forth Valley and Tayside areas of Scotland.

Over the past 24 years he has built up a significant level of operational ambulance knowledge and expertise, successfully delivering ambulance services across East Central Scotland. In his strategic operational role, he has led his team to coordinate and successfully manage the ambulance provision at major mass gathering events. The annual events which are most notable are T in the Park, RAF Leuchars Airshow and the Golf Open, to name a few.

Lewis is the type of person who just gets on with things in an unassuming manner and is able to use his knowledge, skills and experience to build relationships, particularly with trade unions and staff, to ensure change is fully supported and delivered. He has led changes in East Central division such as the introduction of community paramedics in Forth Valley, which has significantly improved patient experience by reducing unnecessary admission to hospital. Under Lewis’s leadership he championed the team to lead the way by achieving the gold award for Healthy Working Lives. At a national level Lewis project managed the procurement and implementation of a national resource planning system called GRS to allow over 4,000 staff at over 150 locations manage their shift planning, annual leave, sickness etc. He is now leading a review of the Scheduled Care Patient Transport Service as the senior operational lead.

In summary, Lewis has very much demonstrated exemplary and distinguished service to patients, staff and the organisation as a whole.