Report highlights good work being done to make council an inclusive employer

At the heart of its A Better Brighton & Hove for All council plan is the core commitment to create a local authority and a city which is fair, inclusive and accessible and where everyone can thrive.

That includes making sure Brighton & Hove City Council is an inclusive employer, with a workplace which fully reflects the local community.

The annual workforce equalities report, which covers the financial year 2023/24 and was last week noted by Cabinet, sets out the council’s current position; it also highlights successes, outlines future priorities and includes the most recent gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

The gender pay gap measures the difference between male and female employee average earnings across the workforce. The national average, as reported by the Office of National Statistics, is a 13.1% gap in favour of men. At the council, however, the median gender pay gap is 3.0% in favour of women

This bucks the trend for most local authorities and highlights the council’s success in ensuring women are fully represented at all grades in the council and are able to progress to the most senior grades, with women making up 62.7% of staff in the upper pay bands.

The same pattern exists for LGBTQ+ staff, who are also well represented across all pay bands, continuing a positive 3-year trend.

Positive progress has also been made in addressing the ethnicity and disability pay gaps at the council over the past year – and the report outlined further work which will be undertaken in these areas.

The ethnicity pay gap, which measures the difference between white and BME employee average earnings, has reduced in the past year and is now 2.7% – down from 5.2% the year before.

There is a similar picture with the council’s disability pay gap, which measures the difference in average earnings between staff who do not have a disability and those who do. This has also reduced in the past year, down from 5.8% to 2.7%, and is far below the national average of 12.7%.

As part of its ongoing efforts to increase inclusivity and equity within the workplace, a range of initiatives have been put in place at the council.

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These include ensuring all recruitment panels for senior roles are ethnically diverse and launching a future leaders diverse talent programme to support BME and disabled staff at lower and middle pay bands and help them progress to more senior positions.

Cabinet also authorised a new policy to start gathering information on the socio-economic background of staff members to ensure the council can measure how representative it is of the wider population.

Councillor Bella Sankey, leader of Brighton & Hove City Council, said: “There is much to be proud of in this report.

“I take great pride in the strong representation of female staff at senior level and a gender pay gap which bucks the trend of many other organisations in both the public and private sector.

“I am also pleased to see strong LGBTQ+ representation at all levels of the organisation.

“I have been clear it is a priority to close both the race and disability pay gaps at the council and so am pleased the various initiatives we have put in place are showing clear results and we are moving in the right direction.

“Our decision to start collecting data on the socio-economic status of staff will ensure we can better understand how representative our organisation is and allow us to take action where necessary.

“A diverse and truly representative organisation will help ensure we are a responsive council which residents can trust and so we won’t rest until we meet our targets.”