Race Equality

We are committed to ensuring race equality throughout the council by creating and promoting a variety of initiatives, actions and plans.

Some of the actions that we have taken and continue to take include:

• We have a comprehensive Race Equality Action Plan.
• We have a Black and Asian staff network, who have informed all of our race equality work.
• Race equality e-learning is mandatory for all our staff.
• 86% of staff have disclosed their race with us on the HR system, which indicates a high level of confidence in this area.
• We are putting in place a reverse mentoring scheme, to enable some of our most senior leaders to have a better understanding in terms of race equality.
• Our staff data shows that we have a higher proportion of Black people in our staff than in the Suffolk population and that both Black and Asian people are more than represented at our most senior levels.
• We run events and awareness sessions throughout the year. For example, the webinar held in Black History Month in October 2023 was attended by over 230 members of staff. 100% of those giving feedback afterwards said they had learnt something new or valuable, and 97% said they would share content.
• As of November 2022, we signed up to UNISON’s regional Anti-Racism Charter.