Workforce Race Equality Standard 2022 23 Winter Update
The Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) is being delivered to ensure employees from a minority ethnic background have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace.
To see the 2022-23 Action Plan and to find out more, visit the Workforce Race Equality Standard pages.
Winter 2022-23 Update
Here is an overview of the updates since the Autumn:
- Our online incident reporting system, OSHENS, has been updated to ensure that we know where an incident may have been influenced by protected characteristics in order to take appropriate action and be able to produce data on these incidents for analysis. Find more information on the updates made here.
- Adult Social Services have committed to a principle of half day protected time per month for continuing professional development and training for all social workers and occupational therapists.
- Children's Services have committed to - as part of the Deal for Children's Social Care - for practitioners to receive monthly personal supervision and be freed up for one day a month of training and continuing professional development (CPD).
- The council is refreshing its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) plan and objectives for 2023/26. It is proposed that this will include a core objective relating to race equality and eliminating racism. The Cabinet will be determining the objectives in March 2023.
- Adult Social Services have appointed a Practice Consultant who is dedicated to supporting international colleagues.
- Children's Services have been running their International Social Work programme for nearly a year and have adapted support packages over time to meet needs. Currently there are conversations taking place about a more pragmatic support offer in relation to housing which will support international colleagues when they come to the UK. There is also some discussion taking place about offering a more pastoral external support offer which is being looked at currently. The programme is currently being reviewed.
- The leaver process (including exit interviews) is currently being reviewed by HR.
- An external coach will be brought in to support engagement and confidence within the Black and Asian Employee Network - open to all Black and Asian NCC employees.
- Children's Services promoted opportunities during Practice Week (21-25 November), including a session on 'promoting a culture of welcome and inclusion'.
- Employees in both services joined masterclasses on supporting LGBTQ+ colleagues, as part of a leadership development offer, as well as NCC-wide EDI conversations led by the Head of Paid Service.
- All advisory and employee network chairs have been invited to engage with Career Families.
- Four further lived experience articles have been shared through internal communications, as well as 14 employees sharing anonymous experiences relating to the Menopause.
- In September there were 467 network members - in December there was an increase of 14% (540). This is an increase of 25% (134) network members since April 2022.