Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

At Suffolk County Council, we are committed to promoting equality and diversity whilst always challenging discrimination.

Our commitment to equality and inclusion

At Suffolk County Council, we are committed to promoting equality and diversity whilst always challenging discrimination. We celebrate our differences and promote a culture of inclusion.

We value everyone in our county and are committed to delivering our duties under the Equality Act 2010 and our WE ASPIRE Values.

We hold ourselves accountable for making positive change and recognise we have a responsibility to embed equality into everything we do. We undertake activities and report progress to demonstrate how Suffolk County Council is addressing the barriers to inclusivity, tackling inequality, and promoting the benefits of a diverse workforce.

Below is some of the work we are doing which affects those from various protected groups In addition, you can visit our Disability Confident and Staff Network careers pages to learn more about these.

As part of our marking of Black History Month in October 2022, we ran a spot survey, which was sent to every minority ethnic member of staff. Overall, the results were very positive and indicated that the race equality work we are doing is making a difference. 98% say they do believe SCC is committed to race equality work.
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 shared their race with us on the HR system, which indicates a high level of confidence in this area.
We have a reverse mentoring scheme, to enable some of our most senior leaders to have a better understanding in terms of race equality.
Our 2022 staff data shows that both Black and Asian people are represented at our most senior levels and we are ambitious about encouraging a diverse workforce.
We run events and awareness sessions throughout the year. For example, our webinar held in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month in May 2023 was attended by over 340 members of staff and 240 accessed the recording.
In November 2022, we signed up for UNISON’s regional Anti-Racism Charter.

We have a range of enhanced benefits and support for our working parents which are day 1 entitlements for every employee, including:
- enhanced maternity, adoption, paternity and shared parental pay
- extra fully paid leave for parents of premature babies
- an offer of coaching support upon the return to work
- guidance and toolkits to support returning parents
- guidance to support breast- or chest-feeding parents
- and a Parents Together buddy scheme.
In 2022, we were winners in 3 categories at the national Working Dads Awards. The categories were Flexible Working, Parental Policies, and Supporting Returning Fathers.
We doubled our period of paid paternity leave from 2 to 4 weeks in September 2022. We have seen an 83% take-up of the full 4-week leave entitlement.
We have a culture where flexible working is the default. 44% of our staff work part-time. We have had campaigns to promote flexible and part-time working including in our senior roles. Our work in this space saw us shortlisted for 2 national awards in 2019, from Working Families and Personnel Today.
We have reviewed our parental policies and added further guidance about how to support staff going through miscarriage, surrogacy or abortion.
We have a new Fertility Leave Policy, to provide better support to staff going through fertility treatment.
In 2023, we ran our first pilot programme of ‘returnships’ to support people returning to work after extended career breaks linked to parenting responsibilities – this will particularly benefit women.
Each year, we publish a Gender Pay Gap Action Plan, with wide-ranging activities to reduce our gap, support women and remove any barriers to women achieving senior roles. Our gender pay gap has reduced incrementally in the 6 years we have been reporting.
Two thirds of our most senior roles are held by women, and our Chief Executive is a woman.
We have a women’s staff network, and another network for the Fire Service, called Suffolk Women in Fire Together.
We have Menopause Guidance, regularly host menopause cafes, and are investigating training for managers on menopause
We have a Carers Policy, offering a range of support and guidance, and an entitlement to an extra week of fully paid leave for carers. We are members of Employers for Carers, an arm of Carers UK. In 2022, we achieved accreditation in the national Carer Confident scheme, going straight in at Level 2, ‘Accomplished’.
We mark relevant occasions throughout the year, such as International Women’s Day in March and White Ribbon Day in November.

We have achieved the level 3 Leader status on the national Disability Confident scheme, which is the highest status.
We shortlist disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for a role. Where there is a high number of candidates that qualify for a guaranteed interview, we reserve 50% of the total interview slots for them.
We currently have 4 staff networks that come under the Disability umbrella. These are the Mental Health, Neurodivergent, D(d)eaf and hearing loss, and Disability networks.
We have mental health first aiders available to support all staff, and training around mental health issues.
We have Reasonable Adjustments Guidance, a Disability Leave Policy and disability passport to help support our disabled staff.
We have undertaken work to remove barriers to our roles for disabled people that were created by unnecessary travel or driving requirements.
Well-being is a core part of our values (the ‘w’ in We-Aspire). We offer Occupational Health assessments and support, an Employee Assistance Programme, including access to self-referral counselling, as standard to all of our staff, as needed.
We have accessibility guidance that staff producing communications are expected to follow.
We hold disability training events for our staff – over 370 staff attended a webinar on neurodivergence in 2022.
We have a Disability Strategy, laying out our commitments to improving inclusion.
We build disability into our positive action initiatives, in recruitment and for internal development.
We are assessing our recruitment processes to make them more neuroinclusive.

We are LGBT+ inclusive and have featured in Stonewall’s Top 100 employers 5 times.
We have signed up to the Suffolk Pride Pledge.
We have guidance on Supporting Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender Diverse staff.
We train our staff on trans inclusion, for example, a webinar in 2021 that 180 staff attended.
We encourage our staff to share their pronouns in their email signatures, and many, including many of our most senior staff, do. We also encourage recruiting managers to share their pronouns on job advertisements.
Many of our staff choose to wear rainbow lanyards to show their support for the LGBT+ community.
Our Grievance Policy mentions that outing other people without their permission, and/or misgendering or deadnaming them deliberately or repeatedly, can be a disciplinary offence.
We use inclusive language wherever we can and have committed to this principle for all our policies and training.
We have an LGBT+ staff network, which marks occasions throughout the year, such as Trans Day of Visibility, Lesbian Visibility Day, Ace Awareness Week, Bi-Visibility Day, etc. We fly the rainbow (progress) flag from our main buildings each LGBT+ History Month.
We have supported Suffolk Pride every year.

We have a young adults’ staff network which offers a range of mentoring, support and awards to recognise the contribution of our younger members of staff.
We have a commitment to shortlist for interview anybody who is a care leaver and who meets the minimum criteria for a role. Where there is a high number of candidates that qualify for a guaranteed interview, we reserve 50% of interview slots for them).
We offer a range of apprenticeship, intern and graduate opportunities as part of Suffolk’s Rising High programme. These are open to people of any age, but will particularly benefit younger people entering the workforce.
In 2022, we signed up to the Good Youth Employment Charter.
Our staff population peaks in the 50s age bracket, and goes up to age 80. We value the contribution of staff of all ages who work for us.
We have a Flexible Retirement Policy and a competitive pensions scheme.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Race

Sex, pregnancy & maternity

Disability

LGBT+

Religion and belief

Age