Agenda item

Wali Rahman - OD Consultant Inclusion & Diversity Strategic HR & OD

Wali Rahman - OD Consultant Inclusion & Diversity Strategic HR & OD outlined theupdated annual inclusion and diversity employment monitoring report. 

Points made included:

That the council were required to produce this information annually as part of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in line with the Equality Act 2010.   

That in March 2021 Wiltshire Council published its inclusion and diversity employment monitoring report 2018/19 on the Wiltshire Council website.

That the council was required to publish the updated inclusion and diversity employment monitoring report for 2020/2021 by the 31 March 2022. The headcount figures in the report had been based on workforce data as at 1 October 2021 or, where monitoring information is reviewed over a year, the reference period used was 12 months up to 1 October 2021 (for recruitment, leavers etc).  There was no set reference date for the collection of workforce data as there was for the gender pay gap.

That although the national census was undertaken in 2021 the data was not yet available to use in this year’s report, so the report compared data with the 2011 census for Wiltshire which may not accurately reflect the current profile of the Wiltshire population of 2021.

The report contained  non-school council workforce data and then a breakdown of this information by each of the protected characteristics where information was available. 

Information on gender pay gap in line with the requirements of the PSED was contained in a separate gender pay gap report.

As part of its PSED, the council was required to publish equality objectives.  The council had identified several service and workforce (HR) related equality objectives, and these had been subject to public consultation and were regularly reviewed. The equality objectives were monitored by the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) steering group.

As part of its PSED the council was required to publish data on service users. This information would continue to be collected and published by the executive office support team.

It was also noted that Wiltshire Council had just been shortlisted for the Diversity and Inclusion award at the LGC Awards 2022 for working to create an inclusive workplace.

Points made by the Committee included:

·         A good and very readable report.

·         That the pandemic had made a lot of older people re-think what they wanted in life.

·         That most people were generally cynical re giving out personal information.

·         That the labour market was definitely a buyers market at the moment.

·         The importance of Wiltshire Council working with schools and young people.

Decision

• That the Staffing Policy Committee noted the contents of the report and that this information would be fed into the action plan linked to the new Inclusion strategy

The Chairman thanked Wali Rahman for his report.

The Committee had requested further background on the “Unstated” figures included in the report.

The most obvious factor affecting our 'Unstated' percentages in this year's report is the staff that TUPE'd into Leisure on 1 October 2021.

The report of staff is taken each year on 1st October so these 338 contracted staff are included.

However, we don't have information for them other than ethnicity and they represent a 7% increase in staff.

The report generally shows slightly higher Unstated percentages than last year, however if you exclude these staff there would instead have been a fall.

The Disability Unstated figure is 19.42% in the report but excluding the TUPE'd staff it would have been 13.62% (it was 14.59% last year).

The Religion/Belief Unstated figure is 26.20% in the report but excluding the TUPE'd staff it would have been 20.82% (it was 24.91% last year).

The other figures (apart from Ethnicity) are similarly affected.

By surveying our existing staff, we do improve our figures each year and will expect to make a significant improvement for this service (and the Council as a whole) when we do that.

David Thorne

Business Data Specialist

HR&OD team