Sheffield action plan to tackle racism looks at way forward

The council’s strategy and resources committee, made up of chairs of all main committees, will hear on Wednesday (August 2) what progress has been made in response to the Sheffield Race Equality Commission’s independent report that was published just over a year ago.

The REC made 43 recommendations for change in the council and other key city institutions in order to make Sheffield into an anti-racist city. The council has begun work to change its own culture as an organisation and the way it delivers services.

A report to the committee acknowledges: “While we have begun to implement the recommendations of the Race Equality Commission report we have not moved quickly enough as an organisation to tackle the racial disparities identified by the commission. The leader of the council has committed publicly to accelerate work.”

Three key areas have been identified by the council in tackling change within the organisation. These are building a more inclusive culture via learning, development and awareness, de-biasing council systems and processes to reduce barriers and inequalities and improving data collection, sharing and analysis.

The report notes: “We identified that practice across these three enabling areas was inconsistent. This inconsistency was found across everything we do even though we had policies, procedures and training in place. This made it clear that reducing inconsistency was essential to enable us to progress.”

Windrush

As a result, staff have undertaken mandatory training, been given access to e-learning resources and marked the 75th anniversary of Windrush Day. Training has been rolled out to 700 managers on staff recruitment and selection as part of de-biasing systems.

New equality impact surveys have also been introduced into the council’s work and its HR policies.

A report on the workforce has looked at race and ethnicity and provided pay gap data. This shows that the council employs more than 8,000 employees and 17.3% (up from 16.6%) are from a BAME background. The 2021 census showed that 20.9% of city residents identify as BAME.

The report says: “We want a workforce which reflects the city we serve and services are taking steps towards this. For example, our housing service changed its apprenticeships recruitment processes by promoting opportunities in local communities and accepting CVs.

“This led to 44% of those recruited coming from a Black, Asian or Minoritised Ethnic background.”

The council is encouraging schools to have a culture where racism is reported, investigated and tackled. The head of children’s services is working with school leaders of colour to look at the barriers and issues they face and diversity of school governing bodies is being addressed.

Read this: Action on fraud including fake Blue Badge bids

Council local area committees (LACs) will hold public meetings to discuss race equality and councillors are receiving training. All six LACs will be provided with council ward profiles and other data.

In culture, Sheffield City Archives is working with the Centre for Equity and Inclusion, the University of Sheffield and writer Desiree Reynolds. A £112,000 grant will be used to expand the Dig Where You Stand project, using the archives to explore marginalised histories of people of colour prior to Windrush.

An REC legacy group is being set up to hold the city to account in its work to become anti-racist.

There will be a report-back on progress to council chief executive Kate Josephs in September and another progress report will come to the committee in December.