Public Sector Equality Duty Reports 2023

• Composition of the workforce by characteristic for the years 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022
• Pay Gap information – average hourly pay between men and women, disabled people and non-disabled people; and people from a Black and Minority Ethnic background and those who are not
• Employees who left the Council by characteristic for the years 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022
• Employees promoted within the Council by characteristic for the years 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022
• Applications for employment (applied, interviewed and appointed) by characteristic for the years 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022
• For some characteristics, applications for Flexible Working for the year 2022

We gather most of the information for this exercise from i-Trent. Employees are responsible for inputting the information on their own characteristics, and if they do not then we don’t have a clear picture. For some of the characteristics there are low recording rates despite ongoing campaigns to encourage self-recording.  We rely on the information contained within this system to report and so we need to bear this in mind when considering the information.

Within the ethnicity category we have used the term BAME – Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic. For this grouping we have reported using the following:

• African
• Asian Chinese
• Asian Indian
• Asian Other
• Asian Pakistani
• Black
• Caribbean
• Mixed Other

Some key findings

The purpose of gathering information about our employees is so it can inform our planning processes and improve our practice as an employer. The following are some of the key highlights from the information we have gathered.          

• Our workforce has increased since 2020 by 14%, in the main due to the employees from culture and leisure trusts re-joining the Council.
• The number of promoted posts has increased from 76 in 2020 to 137 in 2022.
• There were 41 applications received in 2022 to work flexibly 95.1 % of these were from women - 97% were approved. This is significantly lower than in 2020 when there were 84 applications received.
• 49% of all leavers from the Council in 2022 resigned from their position.
• Of our Modern Apprentices in 2022 none were BAME and 13.3% were disabled
• In 2022 226 women were on maternity leave.
• Since September 2022 1360 employees have accessed face to face training (completed monitoring form) through LearnNL.
• 77.6% of the workforce are women. This hasn’t changed significantly since 2020
• The gender pay gap for all employees including teachers is 4.97% with females earning £0.87 less on average per hour than males. In 2020 the pay gap was 4.59% but women earned £0.82 less than males on average per hour.

If you remove teachers from the calculation the gender pay gap is 7.45% with females earning £1.15 less on average per hour than males. In 2020 the pay gap was 7.07% with females earning £1.09 less on average per hour than males.

The teaching gender pay gap is 4.74% with females earning £1.18 less on average per hour than males. In 2020 the pay gap was 4.16% with females earning £1.01 less on average per hour than males.  So, in real terms female employees are earning less than they did on average in 2022 but the % pay gap has reduced.

• The number and % of women in the top 2% and top 5% of earners in the Council has dropped significantly between 2017 – 2022.

The number of women in the top 2% of earners in the Council has remained the same since 2020 but as a proportion of all earners they have reduced from 54% to 22%. This implies that many more males have moved into the top 2% bracket. The number of females in the top 5% of earners has increased by 9%.

The percentage of women earners in the top 2% has dropped from 71% in 2017 to 22.26% in 2022.

• The number of promoted posts has almost doubled since 2020 from 76 to 137.  Just less than 70% of these promotions went to women.
• There are no records, as part of this exercise, of transgender people working for the Council.
• 2.42% is the highest percentage total of employees recorded as disabled since 2010-11. This is still disproportionately low in comparison to the % of disabled people in the local population.
• 68.14% have not recorded under the disability characteristic. However, this has improved since 2020 when 74.6% of employees had not recorded.

The disability pay gap is 4.20% with those who consider themselves to be disabled earning £0.69 less on average per hour than those who do not consider themselves to be disabled. In 2021 the pay gap was 9.79%. (£1.50 less on average)

• 3.60% of leavers in 2022 were disabled – higher than the proportion of disabled employees but 2.9% of promotions went to disabled employees.
• 28.4% of all disabled applicants were interviewed and of those 26% were appointed. That is over 9% of total appointments went to disabled people. This is proportionately greater than in all of the previous years when only 2-3% of disabled people were appointed.
• 123 (0.75%) employees have recorded their ethnicity as Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME). This does not include white minority groups. This is an increase of almost double from 2020 when there were 63 recorded BAME employees. However, the numbers are still disproportionately low in comparison to the local population.
• The number of Asian Pakistani employees recorded has increased from 15 to 37 employees since 2017.
• No promotions were made again to BAME employees despite the numbers of promotions doubling from 76 in 2020 to 137 in 2022.
• The pay gap between people from a BAME background and those from a white background has reduced since 2020 from 2.3% to 0.7%. In 2020 BAME employees earned £0.41/ hour more than non-BAME people. In 2023 they earn £0.01 less an hour.

The calculation does not include those employees we do not know about.

• 62.9% of BAME people who applied to work for the Council in 2022 were interviewed which was much greater than 2020 when only 16.4% were. However, of those interviewed only 4.5% were appointed, less than in 2020 when 13.5% of those who were interviewed were appointed. 1.7% of all appointments went to BAME people.
• 85.2% of our workforce are aged between 20 and 59. There has been an increase in the numbers aged under 20 from 50 employees in 2020 to 91 in 2022 – almost double, but this is still significantly lower than 2018.
• The total of lesbian, Gay and Bisexual employees recorded in the Council is 1.14% an increase from 2020 when the total was 0.9%.  There has also been a decrease in the numbers and % of people who have not recorded in this category. 59% - 55%
• 293 employees took maternity leave in 2022 and 47 employees took a total of 117 weeks paternity leave.

Some of the key findings from this exercise tell us how particular characteristics are faring. As an authority we are already aware, because of our commitment to gather and analyse this information on a regular basis, of the stubborn areas where there are disproportionate numbers of employees with particular characteristics, low recording rates, low progression and appointment rates, pay gaps etc and have put in place action plans to address these. Many of these areas are not quick fixes but require a long term strategic and sustained approach that includes instigating positive action measures and campaigns.

As well as having action plans in place, Equality Outcome 9 - Young, BAME, Disabled, LGBT and female employees are provided opportunities to work for, thrive and progress in their employment in the council – also sets out our commitment to improve outcomes in the employment arena.