Workforce Race Equity Review
Background to the review
In October 2019 council members (Councillors) requested that we investigate and understand the pay differential (gap) between White and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees.
This was further compounded by:
- the COVID-19 impact on our communities
- the global call for racial justice articulated by the Black Lives Matter movement, and
- the clear mandate from Cabinet for radical change through the “Everyone’s Business, Everyone’s Battle” statement of intent on tackling inequality.
It became clear that there must be a review of the Workforce Strategy and associated policies and practices across the council to enable us to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community we serve.
The review
As a result, we jointly created our first Workforce Race Equity Review (2019-2020).
The review sets out the challenges that Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic colleagues face within the workforce, and sets an ambitious aim to have a fully representative workforce, and to eliminate any race pay gap, by September 2025.
To achieve this aim we have identified a range of actions which are contained within the main body of the Workforce Race Equity.
We recognise that this is just the start. We will incorporate Race Pay Gap reporting alongside our Gender Pay Gap reporting and undertake a similar in-depth review across all protected characteristics with the intention of bringing together one approach to address representation across the council workforce.
