Suzanne Moore, Head of Organisational Design and Development, introduced a report on the annual Workforce Equality Report for 2019/20. The Council had a legal duty under Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Equality Duty April 2011 to produce and publish this annual report

As part of the summary action plan from the previous report, received by the former Employment and Appointments Committee on 3 March, 2020 (minute 26 refers) a targeted ‘staff confidence’ campaign was included to help narrow the gaps in data. This had now been undertaken and had seen an improvement in the level and detail of data collected which was detailed in the report. The Council did respect employees’ rights not to declare personal information and provided a ‘prefer not to say’ response in all categories.

Members welcomed the report which showed good progress and thanked the officers for all their work.

Members also expressed the view that such a report deserved a more detailed examination and suggested that governance arrangements could be reviewed with the possibility of re-establishing some form of Employment Sub-Committee. 

On a motion by the Chair, seconded by Councillor Yvonne Nolan, it was -

Resolved – That,

(1)  the publication of the annual Workforce Equality report to meet the Council’s legal requirements under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) 2011, be approved; and

(2)  the position in relation to workforce equality performance and the progress made by the Council in relation to producing, analysing and publishing workforce data, be noted.