Equality information about employees

Equality information about employees 31 March 2021 to1 April 2022

West Lancashire Borough Council is an equal opportunities employer with a strong commitment to equality and human rights across all its activities.   

We are committed to ensuring that we are fair in our recruitment processes and that all our staff experience a positive working environment. We are also committed to monitoring this in a number of ways:

• By comparing the make-up of our workforce with that of the area we serve on an annual basis;
• By analysing the experiences of our staff, by protected characteristic, across our HR functions;
• By ensuring that we have up-to-date policies that are clear about the rights and responsibilities that our staff have;
• By providing opportunities for our staff to tell us where our practices may need to improve and supporting any staff who may be experiencing problems or difficulties.

We continue to monitor our data gathering and analysis annually, so that we can understand staff experiences and trends in greater depth.

Our approach remains proportionate – we have a workforce of 534 headcount as at 31 March 2022 (excluding casual workers). The snapshot data is taken as at 31 March 2022, based on those in post on that date.

Some of our employees have multiple employments with the Council, but in this equality profiling information we have treated each separate employment contract, as a separate individual, and illustrated as an individual in the headcount figure. 

The size of our workforce means that we sometimes signpost staff to support that is available to them from other organisations rather than providing it ourselves. It also means that we are not able to publish some of our analysis – the small numbers involved in grievances and disciplinary action, for example, may mean that a percentage analysis would not be meaningful.

• Download the Council's equal pay statement link below: https://www.westlancs.gov.uk/media/544211/equal-pay-statement-oct-2014.pdf

Make-up of our workforce 

The table below shows how our workforce is made up in terms of age in actual numbers, as a percentage of the workforce, and compared to the West Lancashire Working age population.

The age distribution of our workforce across each grade band, shown as a percentage distribution of people on that grade in each age group, is detailed in the table below:

Our workforce demonstrates a proportionately higher number of employees aged over 50 and a proportionately lower percentage of under 39-year olds, when compared to the working population of the borough.

What does this age distribution mean for the Council? For many years we have had a stable workforce, with a low turnover rate, however in the last 2 years this has changed and our turnover rate is steadily increasing.  An aging workforce profile is to be expected as the workforce ages over time. However, to encourage employment opportunities for younger people who live within the borough, the Council encourages managers to consider recruiting apprentices wherever possible, by supporting managers to use apprenticeships within the Council’s workforce. In addition to this, work has been undertaken to increase accessibility to work experience placements across the Council, working in partnership with West Lancashire College and Edge Hill University, with a view to helping improve workability skills of young and unemployed people across the borough and to encourage them to consider the Council as an employer of choice.

We do not operate a default retirement age within the Council, and it is anticipated that the 60+ age band will rise, given the age profile of the Council’s employees.  

The statistics regarding pay grade broken down by age illustrates the challenges faced by the Council in respect of succession planning and talent management. It clearly demonstrates that the Council has a significant proportion of the post holders on grade scale 4 to scale 6 aged over 50 years. However, the higher graded post has developed a younger profile. The lower grades also show an older and aging workforce. There is a shortage of young people at all levels within the organisation. Consequently, when the older staff leave, replacements are likely to need to come from outside the organisation, rather than be available through homegrown talent. This should help to redress the age imbalance over time, rebalancing the workforce profile by way of drawing in new talent. This may, however, cause issues with succession planning as there is not a clear path through all grade ranges to promotion posts.

The staff turnover rate was 11.58% over the last 12 months, compared to 6.11% in 2020/21. The latest survey information on local government turnover rates was published by the Local Government Association in June 2019. This indicated a median average turnover rate of 13.1% for Shire District Councils. It is assumed that the recent events of the last year, regarding a global pandemic, may have affected the normal expected turnover rates, but this is more in line with LGA overall turnover known norms for the sector.  

What does the gender balance mean for the Council? The council has a workforce made up of 50.94% male and 49.06% female. We recognised that one of the most effective ways of recruiting and retaining good quality employees is to offer flexible ways of working, maximizing the potential of the workforce and ensuring that no particular sectors are disadvantaged or discriminated against. Our Family Friendly Policy provides a framework that takes account of the statutory rights of all employees to be able to request a flexible working pattern. In addition, we have policies that incorporate our approach to adoption and paternity leave, maternity support leave, parental leave, time off for dependents, job sharing, career breaks, voluntary reduced hours, annualized and compressed hours, flexi time, term-time working arrangements, Smarter Working Practices, which provided for greater flexibility for the workforce to work from multiple locations, include from home. This helps to create a better work-life balance for our workforce, whilst providing maximum flexibility and efficiencies for our services.

70.79% of our workforce declares themselves to be White British compared to 97% of the Borough’s population, with 3.56% of the workforce who preferred not to disclose their ethnicity and 23.41% not declaring anything. 0.95% have confirmed they were from non-White British ethnicities with 1.87% declaring White European or White Irish ethnicity. This is broadly similar to last years' ethnic profile with a slight increase in our ethnic diversity. There is a slight reduction in no declarations. which is encouraging. We will continue to encourage our workforce to provide equality profiling through the coming year. 

35.96% the Council’s workforce have declared themselves, in relation to Faith and Belief, to be Christian, compared to 76% of the local population. 0.56% declared a religion other than Christian, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism, with 22.66% preferring not to answer this question and 15.54% declaring that they have no faith. This compares proportionately to 17% in the population claiming not to have any faith. 25.28% of the workforce have failed to declare any religion or belief.

What do these ethnicity and faith and belief factors mean for the Council?  The workforce profile is broadly similar in both ethnicity and religion to the local population, as far as our information allows us to compare. So, in this respect we reflect the population we serve.

4.5% of the Council’s workforce consider themselves to have a disability. The Council does not collect information in respect of detailing different forms of disability. With 4.5% of employees currently considering themselves to have a disability, 39.2% have not disclosed their status or have confirmed they prefer not to say. 56.3%have declared they do not have a disability. In the 2011 census it was estimated that 15% of the working age population considered themselves to have a disability or with limiting long-term illnesses. However, there will be a significant number of these people who will not be in a position to actively seek work. We do not have a population statistic that shows us the percentage of working age disabled people seeking employment or who are in employment. Comparisons about community representation in this regard are therefore difficult.

What does this mean for the Council? The level of disclosure in this area has increased which is encouraging. But there is work that needs to be done to ensure the workforce feels confident about declaring a disability and that they will be supported. There is no information to enable us to determine the cause of this, but this is an area we will continue to monitor and seek to encourage disclosure in the future. The Council also is registered with the Department of Work and Pensions as a Disability Committed employer (level 1) and we guarantee a Job interview to any person with a disability if they meet the essential selection criteria. This will hopefully encourage people with disabilities to consider us as a possible employer in the future.

1.87% of our staff population have stated that they are gay, lesbian or bisexual with 2.81% preferring not to disclose their sexual orientation and 44.76% with no sexuality recorded. This leaves 50.56% of the workforce recording that they are heterosexual.

What does this level of disclosure mean for the Council? We continue to acknowledge that there is still a high level of nondisclosure on sexual orientation, which has increased this year, however, the level of disclosure in this area has increased for the third year running. This is encouraging, as it indicates a minor growth in confidence in the workforce feeling more at ease to disclose personal information. We have no evidence that this suggests an underlying issue but will monitor this protected characteristic carefully at the next data refresh and take specific steps to encourage staff to share this information with us, if necessary.

The experiences of our staff

West Lancashire Borough Council is required by law to publish an annual gender pay gap report.

This is our report for the snapshot date of 31 March 2021. The calculations were undertaken based on a headcount of 549 staff designated as full pay relevant employees. Staff who were either on sick pay or maternity pay, and so not in receipt of full pay on 31 March 2021, have been discounted.

• The mean gender pay gap of women's pay against men's pay of the Council shows that women's pay is 2.45% higher than men's.
• The median gender pay gap of women's pay against men's pay for the Council shows women's median pay is 2.7% lower than men's pay.
• The Council does not operate any bonus payments within its pay structure.

The figures set out above have been calculated using the standard methodologies used in the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.

The Gender Pay Gap reporting legislation requires employers with over 250 employees to publish statutory calculations every year showing how large the gender pay gap is between male and female employees. It also demonstrates the gap over pay quartiles. None of this shows any significant gaps for the Council in relation to gender pay gap issues.

Training

The Council provided 1600 known training and development instances to 333 employees^[1] in the period 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022. The increase of training incidences from the previous year is as a result of introducing a wider mandatory training list and tracking the training more rigorously. Included in this calculation are all e-learning courses undertaken, Lunchtime Learning sessions, apprenticeships, seminars, trainer-led training and Toolbox Talks. The 1600 instances are the total of each individual's engagement with learning.

[1] This figure excludes agency staff

The equality statistics are detailed below to the nearest two decimal percentage points.

Part Time Working: 72.88% of employees work full time and 27.12% work less than 36 hours per week (Part Time)

Disciplinary Cases

There have been 5 disciplinary cases during the year which resulted in the issuing of some form of sanction.  The numbers involved here are small and we are unable to draw conclusions in respect of trends. However, the Council has not identified any issues that relate to a specific protected characteristic or characteristics. 

Grievance cases

There have been no formal grievances raised with the Council in the last 12 months.

Career break

There are currently no employees either on an active career break or who have returned from a career break in the last 12 months.

Recruitment

Visit the recruitment page for further information.

Our employment policies

We are committed to reviewing our employment policies on a regular basis as part of our Equality Action Plan. The Equality Impact Assessment for each policy will also be refreshed during this process.

Supporting our staff

All staff have access to a robust grievance procedure which enables them to deal appropriately with any issues of concern they have within their working environment.  We also operate a Dignity at Work Policy, which provides clarification on expected behaviours of employees and managers and details the processes that should be followed should an individual feel they are being bullied, harassed or victimised in the workplace.

In terms of supporting our disabled staff, we offer a number of options to encourage disabled employees to remain in work, including phased returns, workplace adjustments, the Access to Work scheme and looking at alternative jobs.  We also offer occupational health support, where appropriate.

Whilst we do not have the resources to run in-house employee networks, we can signpost staff to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Network, Disability Network and Forum of Asian and Black Employees run by Lancashire County Council.

Employees are encouraged to become members of a trade union, representing them on the appropriate national negotiating body.  They are also encouraged to join trades unions locally and the Council recognises GMB and UNISON for local consultation.