A report by the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Improvement and Development Agency on Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) has highlighted a number of challenges that the newly appointed Chief Executive John Barradell will be facing in improving the council’s equality standards.

The report known as the Diversity Peer Challenge, is designed to validate a council’s own self-assessment of it’s equality standards, focusing on areas of: Leadership and Corporate Commitment, Community Engagement and Accountability, Service Delivery and Customer Care, Employment and Training.

The report concludes that the council have completed a 'satisfactory self-assessment,' and highlights their strengths in areas such as their work in schools and on LGBT issues, sighting the BHCC as the highest ranking local authority on Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index and describing it as 'nationally leading the way.'

The report highlights a number of weaknesses in areas of race, disability, and internal communications.

The report identified that the council has failed to meet its own employment targets of minority groups, other than disabled people. However it also highlights that some of the disabled staff members had been left at a disadvantage due to inconsistencies within the council’s own employment practices.

These included: ‘No transparent policy around disability leave’ being available to staff, the staff bus not being accessible to people with mobility impairment and responses to requests for reasonable adjustment from disabled staff members, being 'institutionalised by managers assuming they knew what response was needed rather than making decisions with the disabled member of staff.'

The council responded to the criticism of the staff bus by suggesting that the workers unable to board the staff bus should simply take pubic transport instead.

Issues of race appeared frequently in the report’s criticisms, with the Peer Challenge commenting (on leadership and corporate commitment) 'that it is difficult to get race equality issues on the (BHCC’s) agenda.' With the council’s own targets of BME staff in employment not currently being met, the report raises the question of the council’s ability to retain the BME staff that they do employ, commenting that the BHCC, 'would benefit from lessons learned from exit interviews.'

Internal communication seems to be at the heart of council’s weaknesses. The report noted that some teams within the BHCC were unaware of the council’s own ‘People’s Day’ event.

A lack of awareness on the management’s behalf is noted to have affected their staff, with the report detailing that, 'support options in the job application process were not known by all managers and therefore were not made available to all jobapplicants.'

Meanwhile, the slow speed of ‘considerations and provision of reasonable adjustment’ for staff members, was labelled 'frustrating,' by the Peer Challenge, who noted that, the council’s 'equal pay review process has been slow,' to the point that the target completion date of December, 'may be unrealistic.'

Concern was also expressed that not all posts had been considered in the equal pay evaluations, 'with particular reference to seconded posts.'

Cllr Bill Randall, Convenor of the Greens said:
“The report’s findings offer an immediate challenge to the city’s new chief executive, John Barradell. As one of his first tasks he must ensure the city council council reaches and maintains the highest equality standards in every corner of its work. However, he can’t do this without the committed support of every councillor and every staff member.”

Cllr Paul Elgood, Leader of the Lib Dems said:
“There is good and bad in the review. It is positive to see the kind of gradual progress, which you would expect of a local authority the size of the city council. However what the independent report rightly highlights is that the good intentions issued at the top of the organisation do not always trickle across to all departments. This means that whilst the council has a set of wonderful policies and targets, the question has to be asked as to whether these intentions really reach across into the day to day running of the council. We continue to hear of concerns raised by staff members and former staff members over equalities issues and this report really does bare these out.”

Councillor Dee Simson, Cabinet Member for Community Affairs & Inclusion, said:
“These findings not only reflect our commitment to this high priority area, they also make sure that we continue to work well with our partners and community groups so that we deliver services in an inclusive and fair way to residents. The review followed a recent Stonewall assessment which rated Brighton & Hove City Council as the best performing local government employer on the Stonewall Index.

“The findings from the peer review saw the council increase it’s rating on the Equality Standard, a local government measure of standards in equalities practices. It was undertaken by peers from 'excellent' authorities and pointed to a number of areas of outstanding practice including partnership working, strong leadership, relations with our third sector partners and the newly formed City Inclusion Partnership. The review also recognised best practice in some of our key service areas including tackling bullying in schools, engaging our tenants, developing personal care packages and reducing youth re-offending.”