Workforce Equalities Report

Introduction

This report sets out the key information relating to the work force at Maidstone Borough Council as at 1 April 2022. Where the data suggests that further investigation is required this is noted. Where it is possible to compare the data in a meaningful way to other statistics this has been undertaken to identify whether or not we are representative of the local area. This information is monitored actively by the Corporate Leadership Team.

Workforce analysis

Age

The distribution of age across the authority has fluctuated slightly in the past three years. The size of the workforce saw a fall in numbers from 2020 to 2021, but increased again in 2022, although it was still 3% lower than in 2020.

The biggest change was in the 20-29 and 30-39 age groups, where the numbers have reduced by over 3% between 2020 and 2022. In all other age bands the numbers have remained fairly static or have increased.

When compared with the local population, the community figures show higher numbers of people aged 15-19 and over 70. However, this is to be expected as people in these age groups are more likely to be in education or retired, rather than part of the working population. The more typical working ages would also account for the workforce figures being higher in the age 30 to 59 age bands than is seen in the local population.

Disability

There is no single measure of disability. The data represents individuals who consider themselves to have a health problem or disability that limits their day-to-day activities.

According to figures from the 2011 Census, 15.2% of the Maidstone borough population considered that they had a health problem or disability of this type, and 84.8% considered that they were not disabled, which suggests that the council does not match the local population. However it is difficult to draw specific conclusions from this as in the general population there is likely to be a higher incidence of disability in the older age groups and the council has fewer people over the age of 70 than the general population.

Non-declaration by applicants and employees of a disability is common, even though they are encouraged to declare. Nationally, it has been observed that there remains a fear among many that declaration will result in discrimination in employment. Since the introduction of the iTrent Self Service HR System employees have been encouraged to update their details when a lifestyle change occurs and it is accepted that disability is an area that can change during service. The numbers reporting themselves as disabled (6.5%) has declined since 2020 when the figure was 7.4%, and it is likely that disability is being under-reported in the organisation, given the high number of non-responses. However, the number of those not responding has fallen slightly from 23.9% in 2020 to 22.9% in 2022 and action will continue to be taken to encourage reporting.

Ethnicity

Local Authorities have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make appropriate arrangements to ensure their various functions are carried out with due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between people of different racial groups.

The data shows that 6.7% of employees as at 1 April 2022 come from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups. This is an increase of 0.4% from 2020. This figure is lower than the most recent figures for the local population, as the 2021 Census showed that 10.3% of people in the borough of Maidstone were from BAME communities.

3.4% of the workforce did not give their ethnicity.

The 2021 Census included 19 separate ethnic categories which have been aggregated into 5 broad ethnic groups. The detailed breakdown is given in the following table:

Gender

The Council has a requirement to report on gender under the Equality Act 2010 which created a public sector duty to have due regard to eliminating unlawful discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity between men and women.

The information from the 2020 mid-year population estimates (Census based) produced by the Office for National Statistics shows that in the local area the gender split is 49.2% males and 50.8% females. The data above compares favourably with the local picture and historic trends within the public sector which traditionally attract more female employees.

Looking at the gender spread across the grades, at grades 2 to 4 more men are represented than women. However, at grades 6 to 9 there are more women than men, and at grades 10 to 16 the differences are much less marked.

Overall 23.1% of the workforce works part-time. This is slightly lower than the Maidstone employed population average of 25.8%. When this is broken down into men and women, 36.1% of women in the workforce work part-time compared to 6.1% of men.  In the local area, 21.0% of women and 4.9% of men are employed part-time.

Sexual orientation

Over a quarter of employees (28.6%) have not given details of their sexual orientation. This is not surprising as employees may not wish to provide this information. However, employees will continue to be encouraged to up-date their information on this issue. Of those that did give details, 69.8% of the total workforce gave their sexual orientation as heterosexual/straight and 1.5% as gay, lesbian or bisexual.

The 2021 Census is the first census to ask a question about sexual orientation. According to that, 91.2% of usual residents of the local area aged 16 or over identified themselves as heterosexual/straight, 2.2% as gay, lesbian or bisexual, 0.3% as all other sexual orientations and 6.4% did not provide an answer.

Religion

Over a quarter of employees (29.6%) have not given details of their religion, which is considerably higher than the 2011 Census figures for Maidstone in which 7.1% of the population chose not to answer the question on religion.

In Maidstone’s local area a higher proportion of residents said they are Christian (62.9%) than is reported in the workforce (30.5%).

Those in the workforce who claimed to have no religion (35.1%) was higher than that in the population (26.7%), and the combined totals of Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and 'all other religions' was also higher, with 3.3% of the population and 4.9% of the workforce including themselves under these categories.

New starters

During 2021/22 a total of 75 people joined the authority. There were more women new starters than men, and there were more people in the 20 to 29 and 40 to 49 age groups than in the other age ranges.

Leavers

The percentage of staff turnover for 2021/22 was 12.7%.

According to figures published by the Local Government Association in March 2021, the median average labour turnover was 13.4%.  The council’s turnover, therefore, was below that of other local authorities.

Of the 66 people who left the authority, 54.5% of leavers were men and 27.3% were aged between 30 to 39 years old.

There were 2 cases where formal disciplinary action was taken during 2021/22:

There was 1 grievance raised during this period:

The grievance was dealt with under the council’s grievance procedure and was resolved.

Return to work rates

Equal pay analysis

The council conducts an equal pay analysis annually to check that there are no imbalances within pay grades.

Equal pay analysis focuses on the differences between males and females as this is where there is a legislative requirement for equality.

The equal pay analysis will generally focus on areas where there is a difference of more than 5% and in those cases will turn attention to the ‘genuine material factor’ reasons that might explain the difference.

The gender pay difference is set out below and there are no differences greater than 5%.

The reason for any differences is due to incremental points on the scale and the appointment rules in place. Newly appointed employees are expected to be appointed at the lowest point of the grade and move up each year provided there is satisfactory performance. Where employees on a pay grade have been in post for a shorter time than their counterparts, they will not yet have progressed so far on the scale.

Within the council there are internal opportunities for development that ensures that individuals in under-represented groups have access to training, coaching, qualifications and project experience that enable them to progress when opportunities arise. The percentage of women and BAME employees that are in the top 5% of pay is monitored by the council annually and compared to national figures.

From April 2017 all organisations that employ over 250 employees are required to report and publish annually on their gender pay gap. The calculation is based on the hourly pay rate for each employee and the data must be a snapshot of salary data as at 31 March.  The council has reported on the gender pay gap and published the report on the Government and council website.

Recruitment analysis

In general, an analysis of the recruitment activity at the council during 2021/22 shows that the percentages of applicants being shortlisted and offered positions are fairly consistent across all groups.

However, an area that is of some concern is the number of applicants who do not provide some or all of their protected characteristics information, with just over 38% of applications opting to not answer one or more of the categories.  Although a consistent number of these people are shortlisted (just over 39%), this number drops considerably in them being offered a position, with only 19.6% of them making it through to this stage.  Without this information, it is difficult to monitor the effectiveness of the recruitment process, or to ascertain why they fail to make it through with the same consistency as those who do provide the information, and this is something that needs further investigation.

In comparison to the local population, the number of BAME applicants is broadly in line with the population of Maidstone borough.  There is slight differential between the number of candidates being appointed from these backgrounds and this is something that will be monitored to ensure there is no unconscious bias.

Conclusion and action plan

We remain committed to ensuring we are an equal opportunity employer that provides their employees with a fair and safe environment.

To make sure we continuously improve throughout 2023, we will:

• continue to encourage members of staff to update records to improve the quality of data monitoring
• ensure that managers are effectively trained on the approach to recruitment and selection so that any possible bias is eliminated
• monitor the equalities information of all selections on an on-going basis with particular attention to the ethnicity and age of applicants and appointed candidates; successfully
• utilise opportunities presented by the apprentice levy to increase the age profile of our workforce
• use the findings and recommendations from our gender pay gap reporting to ensure we are improving in terms of gender equality
• remain committed to being a Disability Confident Employer so we continue improving our disability equality
• continue to review our policies to create wider opportunities for an agile workforce, embracing hybrid working and improving our workplace culture