Agenda item
Brent Workforce Equalities Data 2019/20 and Gender, Ethnicity and Disability Pay Gap Reporting March 2021
This reportprovides details onBrent’s annual workforce equalities data, published in January 2021, and pay gap data relating to gender, ethnicity and disability, prior to its publication by the Council.
Minutes:
Martin Williams, Head of Human Resources, introduced the report from the Director of Legal, HR, Audit & Investigations providing the Committee with information on Brent’s annual workforce equalities data, published in January 2021, and pay gap data relating to gender, ethnicity and disability prior to its publication.
Members noted that the 2019/20 annual workforce equalities data had been published, as detailed within Appendix 1 of the report. In addition, the Pay Gap report on gender, which also included a breakdown by ethnicity and disability was due (as detailed within Appendix 2 of the report) to be published at the end of March 2021. Members were provided with a summary of the main headlines within the equalities data analysis, as detailed within section 3.6 of the report. These included a breakdown of the age, gender, disability and ethnicity profile of the workforce based on working age population.
Members also noted the pay gap analysis for the period ending March 2020 broken down between gender, ethnicity and disability, as detailed within section 3.7 of the report and compared to 2019 and 2018, as detailed within section 3.8 of the report. Details were also provided on the proportion of females, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and disabled employees in each pay quartile during 2020, as detailed in section 3.9 of the report.
Alongside the priority actions identified within the published Workforce Equalities report, the Pay Gap report had also identified a number of priority actions designed to address the pay gap issues during 2020-21, which had been set out within Appendix 2 of the report. These included:
· To continue monitoring internal promotions and progressions by gender, ethnicity and disability;
· To continue undertaking monitoring of new joiners’ starting salary for grades PO5 and above by gender, ethnicity and disability;
· Continuing promotion of management development, apprenticeships, mentoring programmes and disability awareness initiatives as a means to support and encourage career advancement amongst the gender, ethnicity and disability characteristic groups;
· Use of employee learning via various mediums as a tool to upskill the workforce towards progression;
· To raise awareness of unconscious bias among employees, starting from corporate management and middle management;
· Continuing to encourage disclosure of data amongst employees for better quality data, which could be more reliably used for detailed analysis and meaningful proposals.
Members in welcoming the report and continued positive progress being made, highlighted the following comments:
· The need to ensure work continued in terms of ensuring that women were represented within the highest pay grades and senior level across the organisation.
· Whilst noting the progress made in terms of the representation of disabled employees across different pay grades, members noted that the percentage of employees classified as disabled within the workforce had remained the same as the previous year when compared with the working age population. In response, members were advised of the work being undertaken through the Disability Staff Forum to review measures in place to support staff with disabilities or interested in joining the Council. In noting the reliance on staff to self-report disability, which not all chose to do, members were keen to ensure the work outlined included a focus in encouraging self-reporting.
· Members also felt it important to highlight the increase in the percentage of staff now engaged and employed when compared to overall level of redundancies, which it was felt reflected the changing nature of the organisation, less reliance on Agency staff and increasing level of insourcing involving TUPE transfers.
· Confirmation was provided that recruitment was based on merit rather than the use of positive discrimination, with learning and development tools also being provided as a means of developing the workforce so they could take advantage of promotion or career pathway opportunities as they arose.
Having welcomed the progress being made, it was RESOLVED:
(1) To note the findings from Brent’s Workforce Equalities Report April 2019 to March 2020;
(2) To note the findings from the Gender Ethnicity and Disability Pay Gap Report - March 2021.
(3) To agree the proposed action plans contained within the above documents.
Supporting documents:
- 06. Workforce Equalities and Pay Gap Report to GPC March 2021 V1, item 6. PDF 335 KB
- 06a. Appendix 1 Annual Workforce Equalities Report 2020 - Final 200121, item 6. PDF 2 MB
- 06b. Appendix 2 Gender Ethnicity and Disability Pay Gap Report 2019-20 Final, item 6. PDF 580 KB