Contents

Introduction.. 2

Key findings. 3

Organisational Data. 5

Accountability and Consequences. 6

Learning and Development. 8

Recruitment, Retention and Progression.. 9

Appendices. 11

Introduction

Fair and inclusive place to work

This report meets our obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty within the Equality Act 2010.  More importantly, it evidences the progress we are making towards being a fairer and more inclusive place to work.  This report helps to identify successes from the actions we have taken and also provides recommendations for future work.

The council’s Fair & Inclusive Action Plan (FIAP) was co-created in 2019, in response to a review carried out by external consultants, Global HPO.  You can find their review and the council’s Fair & Inclusive Action Plan on the council website.

All the fair and inclusive work we do is in collaboration and agreement with a range of stakeholders from across the organisation and at all levels.  We use both quantitative data (numbers) and qualitative data (words) to ensure we can identify issues and successes as accurately as possible.  We use our staff survey and feedback from the trade unions and employee networks about the lived experiences of staff to help us make decisions and prioritise our workforce actions.

Hybrid working and continued impacts of coronavirus

In 2020, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, staff working in a huge number of our services moved rapidly to being based at home, rather than in the office. No-one could have predicted that this would continue into 2021 and beyond.  The council has had to understand the impact of this on its workforce and one of the ways we did this is by including specific questions in the 2021 staff survey.

We shared results from the staff survey with our Corporate Equality Delivery Group and our staff networks to ensure that the findings were consistent with what forum members were telling them.  In particular, the new ways of working had highlighted accessibility issues for some of our assistive technology users and the Disabled Workers and Carers Network has been able to help us identify actions in a new IT&D Accessibility workstream.  Going forward, the council must ensure hybrid working meets the needs of its diverse workforce and customers.

Data-driven interventions and ongoing collaboration

As economic pressures increase not just in Brighton & Hove but across the UK, we will continue to review our progress regularly and ensure the actions we take are effective and maximise impact.

We maintain trusting relationships with key stakeholders across the organisation and collaborate with them to prioritise the most important actions to take.  In future, we plan to be able to take an intersectional approach to analysing our data to co-create meaningful, positive change.

Key findings

The composition of our workforce:

· The council continues to steadily increase the percentage of employees identifying as Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) and White Other within the workforce but these groups are not proportionately represented when compared with the city’s economically active population

· BME and White Other staff are not proportionately represented in the middle and upper pay bands and are more likely to be employed at Scales 1 - 6 

· The percentage of BME and White Other applicants for council jobs was higher than the local economically active population, at 21% and 16% respectively.  However, both groups remain less successful at being shortlisted and hired when compared with White British applicants

· The percentage of disabled staff within the council workforce exceeds the target figure, but they are not proportionately represented in the upper pay band

· Less than 8% of staff are aged under 30; almost 15% of staff are aged 60 and over

· LGBTQ+ staff are proportionately represented at all levels

· Female employees continue to do well at the council. In 2022 the council published a negative gender pay gap.  On average, females are paid 7.9% more than males

· There is a higher percentage of female staff than male staff on all contract types and across all pay bands. This has been the case for more than five years and is likely to be a reason for the council’s negative gender pay gap

· Around 35% of the council’s total workforce are employed in part-time roles.  Of the part-time workforce, 80.7% are female and 19.3% are male

· Men are under-represented in the council’s whole workforce (42.4%) when compared with the local economically active population (53.6%)

· 46% of all staff have been employed by the council for 10 years or more

· 6.7% of staff with 10 or more years’ service are from BME backgrounds

· The proportion of BME staff on permanent contracts has increased for the last four years.  However, the percentage of BME staff on temporary contracts is higher than their proportion in the workforce

· In 2021/22, 12.2% of all new starters identified as BME, 14.6% as White Other and 10% as disabled

· This is compared with 10% of leavers who identified as BME, 11.6% as White Other and 10% as disabled. 

The experiences of our workforce:

· Disabled staff are much more likely to have been subject to attendance management procedures when compared with their percentage in the workforce

· LGBTQ+ staff were slightly more likely (18%) to be subject to attendance management procedures than their percentage of the workforce (14.3%)

· Staff identifying as BME, disabled and male were more likely to be subject to disciplinary procedures compared with their proportion of the workforce

· 84.2% of staff subject to disciplinary procedures are male

· 2828 staff completed the 2021 staff survey (see Appendix III)

· A new index ‘Current Situation’ was added which consisted of five statements

· Results showed a 7% increase in positive responses to the statement ‘the organisation feels like a fair and inclusive place to work’

· When comparing against the whole council workforce, survey results found the following:

o Staff identifying as Black/Black British (49 responses), of mixed ethnicity (71 responses), disabled (264 responses) or bisexual (119 responses) were less likely to agree the organisation feels like a fair and inclusive place to work

o Disabled staff responded more negatively to all indices yet there was an overall increase in positive responses compared with 2019

o Staff of mixed ethnicity responded more negatively to all indices except Wellbeing, where responses were the same

o Staff who identify as Other sexual orientation (47 responses) responded more negatively to all indices except Managing Change and Current Situation

o Jewish staff (21 responses) responded more negatively to all indices except Current Situation

o Staff who identify as Black/Black British, of mixed ethnicity, disabled, bisexual, male (972 responses), or as Other sexual orientation are less likely to agree their performance development plan (PDP) review is held in a meaningful way

o Muslim (22 responses), Christian (637 responses) and female staff (1637 responses) responded more positively to all of the indices

Organisational Data

All figures reported are based on known data at 31 March 2022.  Figures do not include staff employed within schools. 

Table 1: 1- and 5-year changes to BHCC workforce profile

	2016/17	2020/21	2021/22	Workforce Target
Contracted Workforce – Headcount	4291	4342	4443
Contracted workforce – FTE	3682	3842	3950
BME	6.7%	8.5%	8.6%	9.1%
White Other	6.5%	7.7%	8.2%	8.8%
White Irish	2.3%	2.2%	2.2%	1.6%
Disabled	7.5%	7.7%	8.3%	7.5%
LGBTQ+	10.8%	13.4%	14.3%	13.0%
Sex – Female	59.5%	57.9%	57.6%	46.4%
Sex – Male	40.5%	42.1%	42.4%	53.6%
No Religion	54.4%	59.0%	59.9%
Christian	36.1%	31.6%	31.4%
Other Religion	9.5%	9.4%	8.8%
Age: <30	6.1%	7.6%	7.9%
Age: 30-59	82.9%	78.2%	77.3%
Age: 60+	11.0%	14.1%	14.9%

Accountability and Consequences

In 2021-22, Accountability & Consequences workstream activity included the following:

· Implementing the new Attendance Management Policy

· Delivering specialist equalities training for HR Advisory Service and investigating managers

· Implementing the restorative approach to reported cases of racism

· HR Advisory Service holding regular meetings to discuss cases of racism

· Promoting the council’s virtual Fair and Inclusive Team online and via stickers in City Environment vehicles

· Continuing to deliver Anti-racism and White privilege training

· Appointing an Industrial Relations Manager

· Moving the mandatory fair and inclusive briefings into council induction programme

· Communications team supporting member equality leads to champion their work on relevant equalities issues

Our data shows that:

· Compared with 2019, there was a 3% increase in positive responses to the Fair and Inclusive index in the 2021 staff survey

· Staff identifying as Black/Black British, of mixed ethnicity, disabled and bisexual are less likely to agree the organisation feels like a fair and inclusive place to work

· 69% of staff responded positively to the statement ‘I believe the organisation takes the issues of bullying, harassment and discrimination seriously’

· Staff who are male, disabled, bisexual, lesbian or Other sexual orientation, Black/Black British, of mixed ethnicity or Other ethnic group, aged under 25 and employed in the middle pay band are less likely to believe the council takes the issues of bullying, harassment and discrimination seriously

· Of 65 disciplinary cases reported, 13 were related to discrimination: race/ethnicity (8), gender (2), age (2), disability (1)

· Similar to 2020-21, staff identifying as BME (11.6%), disabled (12.5%) and male (84.2%) are more likely to be subject to disciplinary procedures compared with their proportion of the workforce.  However, the small amount of known data we have for ethnicity (43 cases) and disability (40 cases) means it is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from this dataset

· The total number of attendance management cases in 2021-22 was 295, compared with 197 in 2020-21

· 20.5% of staff involved in attendance management procedures identify as disabled.   This is an increase of 4.6% since 2020-21 and is much higher than their percentage in the workforce

· LGBTQ+ staff (18%) were also more likely to be subject to attendance management procedures when compared with their proportion of the workforce

· BME (4.2%) and White Other staff (8.0%) were less likely to be subject to attendance management procedures when compared with their proportion of the workforce

Recommendations for 2022-23 include the following:

· Evaluate the impact of specialist equalities training

· Hold facilitated ‘Improving Practice’ workshops with the Disabled Workers and Carers Network steering group and HR Advisory managers

· Hold regular workshops with the BME Workers’ Forum to maintain trusted working relationships developed through ‘Informing Practice’ workshops

· Continue with regular discrimination casework review meetings

· Review casework data collection

Learning and Development

In 2021-22, Learning & Development workstream activity included the following:

· Using 2021 service-level staff survey responses to the fair and inclusive questions to identify and implement further targeted interventions, such as Anti-racism and White privilege training

· Refreshing PDP documents to enable meaningful career conversations

· Launching a Diverse Talent programme to support BME staff to progress

· Increasing the disability-related training offer, including ‘disability in the workplace for managers and staff’, ‘neurodiversity in the workplace’, ‘creating accessible content’ and ‘D/deaf awareness’

· Coaching and mentoring offer available to all staff

· Delivering interview skills workshops, ‘making the most of your 121s’, and ‘planning your career’ training

· Offered access to the Black and Asian Leadership Initiative (BALI) external development programmes to social care staff

· Delivering active bystander and racial microaggressions training

· Delivering fair & inclusive sessions to the Leadership Network

· Increasing fair and inclusive resources and eLearning offer to include ‘intersectionality’ and ‘allyship’

· Carrying out data analysis to identify inequalities in staff accessing training

Our data shows that:

· Male staff are less likely to access training

· Staff who are male, whose gender identity is different from the sex they were registered at birth, who are Black/Black British, of mixed ethnicity, disabled or aged over 55 are less likely to believe they have opportunities to grow and develop

· Staff who identify as Black/Black British, of mixed ethnicity, disabled, bisexual, male, or as Other sexual orientation are less likely to agree their performance development plan (PDP) review is held in a meaningful way

Recommendations for 2022-23 include the following:

· Develop training to improve awareness and language related to gender identity and sexual orientation

· Increase specific disability-related training such as Blind awareness

· Provide development to Managers Network to deliver fair and inclusive aims, including information about the importance of PDPs for some staff groups

· Develop a menu of ‘stretch assignments’ to provide opportunities to staff who are not proportionately represented in the middle and upper pay bands

· Develop training to support delivery of the Anti-racism and Accessible City strategies

· Review mandatory induction briefings

Recruitment, Retention and Progression

In 2021-22, Recruitment, Retention & Progression workstream activity included the following:

· Commitment to ethnically diverse panels for all roles graded M8 and above

· HR Diversity Recruitment Consultant delivered a range of actions, including

o Updating jobs pages on external website to improve accessibility, including conversion of information to html format; ensuring our processes are clear to applicants with every job advert having links to supporting guidance

o Targeted social media advertising of vacancies to professional networks and local community newsletters where relevant

o Bespoke support of 94 recruitments

o 8 inclusive recruitment surgeries for 23 recruiting managers

o 15 ‘Working at BHCC’ insight programmes for diverse talent attended by 111 delegates.  Sessions included stand-alone workshops as well as course modules for city partners including Voices in Exile who work with refugees and migrants and the council’s Adult Education Hub who deliver Next Steps programmes for ESOL learners

o Working with our City Employment & Skills Team to create content for virtual work experience and increase pre-employment opportunities

o Produced and updated guidance to support recruiting managers, including: writing inclusive job adverts, ethnically diverse panels, candidate assessment forms, shortlisting and giving constructive feedback to unsuccessful candidates

o Presence at online Universities careers fairs and Job Centre Plus jobs fairs with support from recruiting managers including Social Work, Sustainability, Housing and Building Surveyors

o Implemented a new process to check compliance with recruitment training

· Implementation of the IT&D accessibility workstream to address issues identified by disabled staff including assistive technology users

Our data shows that:

· 74% of all managers who recruited had completed the mandatory recruitment and selection training

· The percentage of recruiting managers who completed recruitment training following notification of non-compliance was 56%, against a target of 100%

· BME and White Other applicants are less likely than White British and White Irish applicants to be interviewed or hired

· Overall, disabled applicants are slightly more successful at being shortlisted and hired than applicants who tell us they do not have a disability

· The exception is for vacancies graded M8 and above.  For those roles, disabled applicants are less likely to be made offers than applicants who are not disabled

· The percentage of BME, White Other, disabled and LGBTQ+ staff on secondment is higher than their proportion in the workforce

· BME staff accessed acting up opportunities at a higher rate than their percentage in the workforce

· Disabled staff accessed acting up opportunities at a much lower rate (2.7%) than their percentage in the workforce (8.3%)

· Of the staff who achieved promotion in 2021-22, 9.6% identify as BME and 9.6% as White Other; this is higher than their proportions in the workforce

· The percentage of disabled and LGBTQ+ staff gaining promotions remained at a similar level to 2020-21.  However, it is at a lower rate than their current workforce profiles

· Staff aged under 30, who are disabled, LGBTQ+ or are from BME or White Other backgrounds left the organisation at a higher rate than their proportion in the workforce

· 12.2% of all new starters identified as BME, 14.6% as White Other and 10% as disabled

· This is compared with 10% of leavers who identified as BME, 11.6% as White Other and 10% as disabled. 

Recommendations for 2022-23 include the following:

· Focus on senior recruitment and progression, including career pathways for existing staff and review of processes

· Conduct a ‘deeper-dive’ analysis of recruitment data to identify ongoing barriers for BME and White Other applicants 

· Develop bitesize inclusive recruitment sessions to support managers with specific stages of the recruitment process

· Develop guidance on how to write effective shortlisting questions

· Review current policies for secondments and the extension of acting ups

· Resume attendance at in-person jobs fairs

· Work with the City Employment & Skills team to support and engage young people at the Youth Employment Hub

Appendices

Appendix 1 – Directorate data at 31 March 2022

Table 1 Numbers of staff by ethnic origin

2021-22	Number of staff
Ethnic Origin	HASC	FCL	HNC	EEC	F&R	SGL	BHCC
Asian/Asian British – total:	8	25	12	14	18	6	83
Indian	3	7	4	5	6	3	28
Pakistani		3		1			4
Bangladeshi		6	4		2	1	13
Chinese	2	4	1	1	7	1	16
Any other Asian background	3	5	3	7	3	1	22
Black/Black British – total:	21	33	16	20	8	2	100
Black – African	14	24	8	8	4	1	59
Black – Caribbean	3	8	7	8	2		28
Any other Black/African/Caribbean background	4	1	1	4	2	1	13
Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups – total:	17	35	18	22	16	5	113
White and Black Caribbean	3	8	4	2		1	18
White and Black African		2	2	2	1	1	8
White and Asian	5	10	5	9	8	1	38
Any other Mixed/Multiple ethnic background	9	15	7	9	7	2	49
Other ethnic group – total:	10	14	2	5	3	1	35
Arab	1	2		1			4
Any other ethnic group	9	12	2	4	3	1	31
White – total:	527	967	595	823	441	152	3500
English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British	464	857	530	725	389	139	3100
Irish	12	21	19	16	15	2	85
Gypsy or Irish Traveller	1	1					2
Any other White background	50	88	46	82	37	11	313
Prefer not to say	14	20	22	37	19	6	118
Grand Total	597	1094	665	921	505	172	3949

Table 2 Numbers of staff by sexual orientation

2021-22	Number of staff
Sexual Orientation	HASC	FCL	HNC	EEC	F&R	SGL	BHCC
LGBTQ+ total:	92	134	96	93	65	14	494
Bisexual	26	33	24	24	18	6	131
Gay Man	29	28	40	40	28	3	168
Lesbian / Gay Woman	29	54	22	23	13	2	143
Other	8	19	10	6	6	3	52
Heterosexual / Straight	427	819	499	705	369	137	2952
Prefer not to say	51	87	59	90	58	16	360
Grand Total	570	1040	654	888	492	167	3806

Table 3 Numbers of staff by disability

2021-22	Number of staff
Disability	HASC	FCL	HNC	EEC	F&R	SGL	BHCC
Disability	30	72	72	61	52	13	300
No disability	504	956	545	777	414	145	3336
Prefer not to say	13	29	21	43	25	4	135
Grand Total	547	1057	638	881	491	162	3771

Table 4 Numbers of staff by age

2021-22	Number of staff
Age band	HASC	FCL	HNC	EEC	F&R	SGL	BHCC
<30	39	95	82	85	33	16	350
30-59	492	998	585	764	460	138	3433
60+	117	152	123	178	56	35	660
Grand Total	648	1245	790	1027	549	189	4443

Table 5 Numbers of staff by religion

2021-22	Number of staff
Religion	HASC	FCL	HNC	EEC	F&R	SGL	BHCC
Christian – total:	170	286	166	272	129	56	1078
Christian	170	286	166	272	129	56	1078
No Religion – total:	302	594	383	440	262	80	2058
Agnostic	17	42	22	20	21	4	126
Atheist	30	46	40	50	26	8	200
No Religion	255	506	321	370	215	68	1732
Other Religion – total:	52	94	43	62	41	10	302
Buddhist	9	13	9	5	8	1	45
Hindu	2	3		4	3	1	13
Jewish	1	10	3	8			22
Muslim	4	16	9	5	3	1	38
Other Philosophical Belief	14	22	8	17	9	3	73
Other Religion	21	24	12	19	16	2	94
Pagan	1	4	1	4	2		12
Sikh		2	1			2	5
Prefer Not To Say	34	67	50	86	46	13	295
Grand Total	558	1041	642	860	478	159	3733

Appendix II

Table 6: Percentage of the workforce in each pay band and contract type by protected characteristics

2021-22	% of staff
	Disabled	BME	White Other	LGBTQ+	Female	Male
Scales 1 – 6	8.4%	9.3%	8.9%	13.2%	53.0%	47.0%
Scales SO1/2 to M9	7.8%	7.6%	7.4%	15.6%	62.1%	37.9%
Scales M8 and above	6.2%	6.7%	4.1%	13.9%	62.0%	38.0%
Permanent contract	7.9%	8.0%	7.0%	13.6%	57.1%	42.9%
Temporary/Seconded/Fixed Term contract	8.0%	11.8%	14.5%	18.9%	62.4%	37.6%

Appendix III – Staff survey

Table 7: Staff survey index names and scores

Index name	Organisational score 2021	Organisational score 2019
Engagement	73	70
Managing change	69	60
Enabling people	80	76
Maintaining wellbeing	78	76
Developing people	74	72
Working together	65	63
Fair & Inclusive	81	78
Current Situation	78	N/A

Appendix IV Recruitment data 2021-22

Table 8 Recruitment data by ethnicity

	All Applicants for all vacancies
FYR 2021 - 2022	Number Applicants	% All Applicants	Number Interviews	% Interviews	Number Offers	% Offers
Baseline indicator (all)	6495	100.0%	1995	30.7%	867	13.3%
BME	1360	20.9%	271	19.9%	100	7.4%
White British	3964	61.0%	1375	34.7%	608	15.3%
White Irish	105	1.6%	44	41.9%	20	19.0%
White Other	1066	16.4%	305	28.6%	139	13.0%

Table 9 Recruitment data by gender

	All Applicants for all vacancies
FYR 2021 - 2022	Number Applicants	% All Applicants	Number Interviews	% Interviews	Number Offers	% Offers
Baseline indicator (all)	6654	100.0%	2035	30.6%	887	13.3%
Female	3481	52.3%	1093	31.4%	498	14.3%
Male	3110	46.7%	919	29.5%	383	12.3%
Other	63	0.9%	23	36.5%	6	9.5%

Table 10 Recruitment data by sexual orientation

FYR 2021 - 2022	All Applicants for all vacancies
	Number Applicants	% All Applicants	Number Interviews	% Interviews	Number Offers	% Offers
Baseline indicator (all)	6194	100.0%	1897	30.6%	822	13.3%
Heterosexual	5005	80.8%	1504	30.0%	651	13.0%
LGBTQ+	1189	19.2%	393	33.1%	171	14.4%

Table 11 Recruitment data by disability*

	All Applicants for all vacancies
FYR 2021 - 2022	Number Applicants	% All Applicants	Number Interviews	% Interviews	Number Offers	% Offers
Baseline indicator (all)	6543	100.0%	2005	30.6%	872	13.3%
Disabled	577	8.8%	221	38.3%	88	15.3%
Not disabled	5966	91.2%	1784	29.9%	784	13.1%

*Table 12 Recruitment data by types of disability

	Applicants with detailed disability info for all vacancies
FYR 2021 - 2022	Number Applicants	% All Applicants	Number Interviews	% Interviews	Number Offers	% Offers
Baseline indicator (all)	6543		2005	30.6%	872	13.3%
Autism Spectrum	74	10%	25	33.8%	8	10.8%
Hearing Impairment (deaf or hard of hearing)	44	6%	23	52.3%	9	20.5%
Learning Disability/difficulty	162	21%	65	40.1%	29	17.9%
Long-standing illness	86	11%	31	36.0%	10	11.6%
Mental health condition	149	19%	49	32.9%	28	18.8%
Other	130	17%	50	38.5%	21	16.2%
Other developmental condition	29	4%	11	37.9%	2	6.9%
Physical Impairment (wheelchair user)	5	1%	1	20.0%		0.0%
Physical Impairment Ambulant (I do not use a wheelchair)	77	10%	24	31.2%	7	9.1%
Visual Impairment (Blind or Partially Sighted)	22	3%	10	45.5%	5	22.7%
	778		289	37.1%	119	15.3%