Agenda item

This presentation will provide members with an update on internal equality, diversity and inclusion work that focuses on our people, by sharing highlights from our EDI Annual Review 2020/2021 and our priorities for 2021/2022.

Keira Rounsley (Senior EDI Practioner) presented the item and raised the following points: 

·        In line with the refresh of Our People Strategy in January 2021, after approval by Staff & Pensions Committee,a new approach to our reporting was developed through annual reviews on WCC’s continual development in improving equality, diversity and inclusion. 

·        Achievements included a tool to measure work done with how employees felt valued as well and the ongoing recruitment and retention 

·        The median ethnicity pay gap in WCC was -2.2% meaning that Black, Asian and minority ethnicemployees working for WCC were paid more on average than their White British/NotStated counterparts. To get full accurate data the ‘not stated’ and ‘prefer not to say’ ethnicity employees would need to be disclosed. WCC’s pay gap is significantly lower than the 2018 West Midlands median ethnicity pay gap of 9.5%

·        There was an increase of employee diversity data disclosure rates across all the groups 

·        Staff networks increased from three to seven because of home working, creating a desire for employees to engage with others  

·        More WCC employees said that they felt valued/recognised (increased by 8% to 71% of respondents) and there was an increase inemployees believing that WCC valued equality and diversity in the workplace (increased by 2% to 83%). 

·        2% of staff identified as Black/Black British (a reduction of 0.9%) but this figure is impacted by theincrease in headcount by 5.2%. 

·        96% of employeeshave disclosed their ethnicity but 8.9% did not want to say. Employee’s not disclosing their ethnicity made it difficult to break down our ethnicity data for the Senior Leadership Team 

·        WCC employee’s were over-representative compared to the Warwickshire’s ethnicity demographics. 

·        There was a pay gap of 1.7% between Asian/Asian British and White British/Not Statedemployees whereas nationally it was 0.9% and compared with Black/Black British it was -2.1% compared to the national average of 5.7%. 

·        Employee’s would rather not disclose their religion or sexual orientation compared to ethnicity and these employee’s scored lower on wellbeing and staff engagement

·        The main targets WCC wanted to address were making gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps between 0-5%, increase diversity disclosure rates to make sure WCC’s workforce represents the diversity of Warwickshire at all levels within the organisation and continue the upwardtrends for employee’s agreement scores as part of the regular check-ins. 

·        WCC’s EDI project included looking at active practices within recruitment and onboarding in relation to becoming a more inclusive employer and with talent development too. All employee’s should have progression opportunities regardless of ethnicity or disability. 

·        For Black History Month 2022 there was an action to empower and equip WCC employee’s with the skills and knowledge to be able to embed the EDI agenda throughout the organisation. For 2021’s Black History Month there was a lot of different activities that had really high engagement including speeches on talking about racism, a special session on Black and Asian history in the archives, Public Health colleaguesdelivered a webinar on providing inclusive mental healthcare and 200 employee’s watched a play as part of WCC’s learning and development. There were new courses relating to race added to WCC’s learning and development catalogue and a Children & Families EDI adviser was employed to work on outcomes for children and families within the EDI arena. 

·        An anonymous harassment system was launched as well as training 500 employees on microaggressions and their impact. 

In response to Councillor Matecki, Keira Rounsley confirmed that a negative pay gap meant that Black, Asian and minority ethnic employees were being paid more on average than their White British counterparts, but they needed employees to disclose their ethnicity data to ensure this was accurate.  

In response to Councillor John Cooke, Keira Rounsley stated that personal data was filled in through ‘YourHR’, if someone applied for a job and was successful then any diversity information submitted via the diversity monitoring formput onto the application form went onto the system. To put ‘not stated’ was better then leaving it blank.  

In response to Councillor Sinclair, Keira Rounsley stated that the local benchmark scores were poor so WCC was doing well but it was important for all opinions to be shared in case a large percentage of employees disagreed with those filling in the survey. All data provided in the meeting was available on Power-BI.    

The Chair proposed a future joint meeting to follow up on everything discussed. This was seconded by Councillor John Holland who praised the work done. The committee unanimously voted for this.