Agenda item

This report is presented to provide the Committee with information on Brent’s annual workforce equalities data, published in January 2023, and pay gap data relating to gender, ethnicity and disability before the Council’s publishing of this data by 30 March 2023.

Members noted that the 2021/22 annual workforce equalities data had been published, as detailed within Appendix 1 of the report. In addition, the Gender, Ethnicity and Disability Pay Gap report provided a further breakdown of the data (as detailed within Appendix 2 of the report) that was due to be published at the end of March 2023. Members were provided with a summary of the main headlines within the equalities data analysis, as detailed within section 3.5 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 over the past 3 years up to the period ending March 2022 broken down between gender, ethnicity and disability, as detailed within section 3.6 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 2021, as detailed in section 3.7 of the report. Alongside the priority actions identified within the published Workforce Equalities report, the Pay Gap report had also identified several priority actions designed to address the pay gap issues during 2022-23, which had been set out within Appendix 2 of the report.  The identified priorities included the following:

·             To continue monitoring to include both internal promotions and external appointments.

·             Ongoing monitoring of new joiners’ starting salary for grades PO5 and above.

·             Adopt the London Council Race Equality Statement and Framework in promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) best practice in the workforce.

·             To work with local communities who are less well represented in the workforce to raise awareness of and increase applications for roles within the council.

·             To increase access to corporate communication and inclusive learning for all non-desk and/or field based remote working employees.

Committee members recognised the positive progress made and acknowledged the good practice in Brent including the strategies in place to take the vision forward reducing further work place inequalities.  In noting and commending the progress made, members felt it would be helpful to see further contextualised data in future reports and also highlighted the importance of providing support in relation to health issues specific to women in the work place such as menopause, particularly as it was noted that the workforce data presented suggested that a significant amount of the Brent workforce would potentially be affected by these issues.

Martin Williams, Head of HR, advised the Committee that Brent were responsive to the issues raised and advised of the schemes in place that were available to assist employees should they require support, these included support sessions, support through the Employee Assistance Programme and the Occupational Health Service.

Having welcomed the report, it was RESOLVED to:

(1)    Note the findings from Brent’s Workforce Equalities Report April 2021 to March 2022.

(2)   Note the findings from the Gender Ethnicity and Disability Pay Gap Report - March 2023.

(3)   Note and comment on the proposed action plans contained in these documents

(4)   Note the proposal to extend the content of and incorporation of all equality data into future annual Workforce Equality Reports to streamline and consolidate equality reporting.